The Doctor was quite astonished to find that there were a number of wounded; for having escaped unhurt himself, he concluded that every one else had been equally lucky, excepting, of course, the man who lay dead in the gulley. As he laid down his gun he heard a groaning in one corner, and went softly towards it, expecting to find one of the victims of the conflict. Lifting up one end of a blanket, and lighting a match to dispel the dimness, he beheld the prostrate Gazaway, his face beaded with the perspiration of heat and terror.
"Oh!" said the Doctor, with perhaps the merest twang of contempt in the exclamation.
"My God, Doctor!" groaned the Major. "I tell you I'm a sick man. I've got the most awful bilious colic that ever a feller had. If you can give me something, do, for God's sake!"
"Presently," answered Ravenel, and paid no more attention to him.
"If I could have discharged my gun," he afterwards said, in relating the circumstance, "I should have been tempted to rid him of his bilious colic by a surgical operation."
The floor of the little building was soon cumbered with half a dozen injured men, and dampened with their blood. The Doctor had no instruments, but he could probe with his finger and dress with wet bandages. Lillie aided him, pale at the sight of blood and suffering, but resolute to do what she could. When Colburne looked in for a moment, she nodded to him with a sweet smile, which was meant to thank him for having defended her.
"I am glad to see you at this work," he said. "There will be more of it."
"What! More fighting!" exclaimed the Doctor, looking up from a shattered finger.
"Oh yes. We mustn't hope that they will be satisfied with one assault. There is a supporting column, of course; and it will come on soon. But do you stay here, whatever happens. You will be of most use here."