Chapter Twelve.
I noticed all this, but our attention was taken up by the wounded man, to whose side we had rapidly descended, all thought of tigers being now at an end.
“The poor fellow has been set upon by budmashes as he was on his way here with a despatch,” said Brace. “Let me come a minute, doctor, and search his pockets.”
“Hang the despatch, man!” said the doctor sternly. “I want to save the lad’s life.”
He was down on his knees by Denny’s side, and had taken out his pocket-book and thrown it open, displaying surgical instruments, needles, silk, and bandages.
“Here, Vincent, come and help me,” he said. “Some of you cut a branch or two and shade us from this awful sun. Now, Vincent, slit open that sleeve; never mind damages. Hah! I thought so. That’s one exhauster.”
As the man’s arm was bared, the doctor caught my hand, and made me seize and press upon an artery high up in the limb; for from a terrible gash the blood was pumping out in regular pulsations, and as this act checked the bleeding a little, the doctor rapidly found and tied the divided artery, and then bandaged the wound.
“That was the most dangerous,” he said. “Now, then, what next? Cut on shoulder, not serious—ugly gash on head, bad—stab in thigh—must have been mounted—bullet in muscles of shoulder, fired evidently as the man was escaping. Hah! enough for one poor fellow. Now, Vincent, we’ll stop the bleeding, and then we must have him carried on a litter under shelter.”