The Britisher was lying, apparently unconscious, only a short distance below her, his shoulders caught in a deep seam of the rocks, while the rest of his body lay along a narrow ledge a few feet lower.
"There he is," she said, turning a white face to Dorothy,—"lying there in the rocks."
Putting 'Bitha aside, Dorothy came and looked down.
"See the blood on his face!" she exclaimed wildly. "'T is coming from a cut on the side of his head. Oh, Mary, I'm afraid you have killed him!"
Mary started to reply; but Dorothy had already sprung past her through the mouth of the cave, and was flying down the rocks to where the wounded man lay.
Tearing the silken kerchief from about her neck, she knelt beside him and endeavored to wipe the blood from his face, while Mary watched her in silence from above, with 'Bitha clinging to her, and crying softly.
"I must have some water, Mary," said Dorothy, who saw that the blood came from a cut in the side of the young man's head, "and I want another kerchief. Throw down yours."
Mary, without replying, tossed down her own kerchief, but without removing her eyes from the white face beneath her.
Dorothy ran to the sand-beach near by, and, having dabbled her bloody kerchief in the water, hurried back; then laying it folded upon the wound, she bound it fast with the one Mary had thrown her, lifting the sufferer's head as she did this, and holding one of his broad shoulders against her knee, while her nimble fingers deftly tied the knots.
Scarcely had she finished when she was startled, but no less relieved, to hear a long, quivering sigh come from his lips; and her color deepened as she looked into his face and met his opening eyes gazing wonderingly into her own. Then they wandered over her bared neck and throat, only to return to her eyes, dwelling there with a look that made her voice tremble as she said, "We are sorry you are hurt, sir; I hope it is nothing serious."