The night passed in anxiety and anguish. They feared every moment that the wounded man would die. A burning fever consumed him. Lady Helena and Mary Grant, as though his sisters, did not leave him; never was patient better nursed, or by more tender hands.
Day appeared. The rain had ceased. Heavy clouds still rolled along the vault of the sky, and the earth was strewn with the fragments of branches. The clay, soaked by floods of water, had yielded; and the sides of the cart became unsteady, but sank no deeper.
Captain Mangles, Paganel, and Glenarvan took a tour of exploration around the camp. They traversed the path still marked with blood, but found no trace of Ben Joyce or his band. They went to the place where the attack had been made. Here two corpses lay on the ground, shot by Mulready. One was the farrier of Black Point. His face, which had mortified, was a horrible sight.
Glenarvan did not pursue his investigations farther, prudence forbidding. He therefore returned to the cart, much alarmed by the seriousness of the situation.
"We cannot think of sending another messenger to Melbourne," said he.
"But we must," replied Captain Mangles; "and I will make the attempt, since my sailor has failed."
"No, John. You have not even a horse to carry you these two hundred miles."
Indeed, Mulready's horse, the only one that remained, had not reappeared. Had he fallen beneath the shots of the murderers? Was he running wild over the desert? Had the convicts captured him?