“Find? Find my boy? Yes, I will tell you.”
A spasm of pain passed over her pale face, and she fell back as if dead.
A calabash of water stood near, and Tom moistened her lips and brow, and presently she revived.
“You are wounded,” Tom said. “I am selfish to ask you to talk now. I will hurry away for help; but first let me bind your arm.”
It had been frightfully gashed with a knife while she was trying to ward off a blow aimed at her heart.
Tom brought the edges together, and bound the arm up with leaves and grass cloth. At that moment Samaro himself entered.
“Quick, señor,” he said, “the Awheeshiries are returning. If they find us here we will have but small mercy.”
“Help me then to bear this lady to our camp, my good friend. Pray heaven she may live, for she knows Bernard’s story.”
Between them they carried the ayah princess out and away to the fortified sand-spit. And none too soon. Hardly had they entered when savages appeared from the bush, and a shower of poison darts fell pattering upon the stockade.
As there was no reply from the fort they came nearer and nearer, brandishing spears and capering and howling like very demons. The reply they sought came at length, however. Tom’s rifle rang out sharp and clear in the evening air, and the foremost foeman fell never to rise more. Consternation seized the Indians, and they fled indiscriminately towards the bush; but before they could reach it Tom fired his revolver, and some of them were wounded. It was from no spirit of cruelty he opened fire on a retreating foe, but for the safety of his camp. He wished to show these savages what kind of an enemy they had to deal with, and the lesson was well merited.