It was some minutes before he came sufficiently to himself to realise that he was lying back there upon the stairs, unable to move, and a greater time elapsed before he fully recalled the cause and clearly knew that he had been shot at, the second shot having caused the dull, heavy pain in his breast, with the accompanying oppression.
His first movement was to clap his hand to his chest, the act dislodging a bullet, which flew off and went rattling loudly down the brass-bound stairs.
The next moment another shot was fired, and struck the wood-work above his head, while before a puff of evil-smelling smoke had risen far there was another shot, with the shivering of plate glass, which fell jangling down.
There was a feeling as if a tiny hand were passing among the roots of Carey’s hair and he tried to crouch lower, but it was impossible. Feeling though, that his life—if he were not already fatally injured—depended upon his getting beyond reach of the person firing, he gave himself intense pain by trying to ascend the stairs. But at the first movement he could not restrain a sharp cry, and immediately there followed two more shots, which crashed into the wood-work overhead.
Not daring to stir now, Carey clapped his hand once more to his breast, where the pain was most acute, shuddering meanwhile at the thought that his breast must be wet with blood.
But no; his flannel felt dry enough, and plucking up courage as he recalled the fact that the first two shots stung by his head and breast, while the last four had flown high, he felt pretty sure that by crawling to the top he might reach there in safety. Besides, a revolver contained only six shots, and that number had been fired.
Acting upon this, he turned quickly over upon his breast, and in spite of the sickening pain he felt, began to crawl up; but his hope that the last shot had been fired was damped on the instant, for the firing once more began, and he felt certain that his assailant must be Dan Mallam, since he always carried two revolvers.
Carey was desperate now, and he kept on breathlessly, hearing three more shots fired, nine in all, before he sank down on the landing now by the saloon door, to faint dead away.
How long he lay he could not tell, but it could not have been any great space of time before in a sickened drowsy way he found himself listening to the distant chattering of the blacks on deck.
Carey’s hand went to his breast again, where the heavy dull pain continued; but there was no trace of blood, and, satisfied on this point, he crouched there listening to a dull, moaning sound coming from the bottom of the stairs.