The savage kneeling on Antonio, Davie Drake complacently shot.
He leapt up, and falling back against another, brought him to the ground. Before he could recover, a ball from Barclay’s six-shooter relieved him of the trouble of ever getting up again.
The fighting between the king’s men and the invaders now became desperate—terrible.
The sickening thuds of the death-dealing clubs, the cracking of revolvers, the shouts and screams and cries of agony, are all too difficult to describe graphically.
The foe was beaten at last, not without loss on the side of the king, while Antonio had three men slain and ten wounded, more or less severely.
Among the latter was Barclay himself, who had received a spear wound through the shoulder.
As in all savage warfare, the enemy was completely wiped out—not a man of the invading force was left alive.
Antonio was to all intents and purposes a skilled surgeon, if not physician, and he now had not only his own wounded, but those of the king, carefully conveyed to the village huts, after their wounds had been temporarily seen to.
Barclay was carefully attended by his friend Davie Drake. The boy refused to go on board for the present. The pain of his wound, however, was so intense that he seemed to writhe in agony. No one had fought more bravely than Davie; but now as he beheld the sufferings of his dearest friend, the tears rolled over his face, and he made no attempt to check them either.
But Antonio was nothing unless original in his ideas.