“Dead!” he cried. “Poor old Tom; dead after all!”
He knelt down and took his left arm up in order to get nearer to his body, to feel if there was warmth in it.
The arm was limp, not stiff; the fingers had been cut by some sharp weapon, and when stirred, blood dropped from them. These signs gave Green fresh hope, and loosening the kharkee, he thrust his hand into his breast. Certainly there was warmth!
He raised the body a little, propping the shoulders against a stone, and taking out a flask he had brought for the purpose, he poured a little brandy into the mouth. It was swallowed. He gave him more, and presently he moved his lips and eyelids.
His first fear over, Green examined him more closely, and found that his clothes were saturated with blood from a broad wound, no doubt a spear-thrust, in the right side. Surgeons were not far, and immediate assistance might be everything, so he rose and went to the edge of the rock to call Davis or Gubbins, who must be within reach of his voice.
Shouting their names, he passed close to the mimosa bush, from the cover of which a man, with tangled locks and glaring eyes, and naked, but for a waist-cloth, sprang out upon him like a wild cat.
He had lost or broken his weapons, but he clasped the young officer in his arms, and bore him to the ground, and then, searching for his throat with his hands, sought to throttle him, while Green, keeping his chin down to his chest, and dragging at his hands, strove to prevent his design.
The movement was so sudden that he never suspected the Arab’s presence till he was on him. The savage wrenched his left arm free; Green upon this got his right-hand down, and managed to clutch his revolver; and just as his enemy’s fingers forced their way under his chin to his throat, he put the muzzle to his head and pulled the trigger.
His helmet having fallen off in the struggle, his own hair was singed by the explosion, but he was free; the Arab rolled away from him, his head shattered—a gruesome spectacle.