For the time being, progress was simpler, and less hazardous: and, once through the undergrowth, he came with disconcerting abruptness upon that which he sought.
Eight feet below him, on a merciful ledge of earth wide enough to check the fatal rebound into space, Eldred Lenox lay face downward, his left arm crumpled under him; the other flung outward as if in a last desperate effort to ward off the inevitable. Shaitan was nowhere to be seen. The sheer drop beyond told his fate.
Soldier as he was, and inured to the sight of death in its most barbarous aspect, Desmond's heart stood still as he looked down upon that powerful figure of manhood lying helpless and alone, pattered upon indifferently by the dripping heavens.
Choosing a spot that promised a soft landing-place, Desmond dropped on to the ledge; knelt beside the injured man; and speedily assured himself that life was not extinct. Unconsciousness was due to a wound on the back of his head, from which blood still trickled sluggishly through the thick black hair. The arm crumpled under him was broken below the elbow. Very gently, as though he were a child asleep, Desmond turned him on to his back. His eyes showed fixed and glazed between half-open lids, and a deep scratch disfigured his cheek. Pillowing the inert head on one arm, Desmond applied the spirit to his lips again and again, a few drops at a time: till the lids lifted heavily, and life returned with a slow shuddering breath.
Desmond bent down to him eagerly.
"Not going out this journey, Lenox, old chap."
But no answering gleam rewarded him; no movement of limb or feature. Only the lids fell again; and Desmond knew that this was no fainting fit, but collapse from probable damage to the brain.
After applying more brandy to the lips and temples without result, he removed his Norfolk coat—still warm and dry within—and with the help of two fir boughs contrived to shelter Lenox's head and chest from the chilling downpour. Then he set to work on the broken arm. The same fir,—springing sturdily from a cleft in the rock below,—provided a splint; and with two handkerchiefs (he had wrung the last drop of rain-diluted brandy from his own) he tied the injured limb skilfully and securely into place. That done, there remained nothing but to wait:—the hardest task that can be assigned to a man of action.
And to wait sitting was beyond him. Steady pacing in the cramped space available helped to deaden thought and promote warmth,—for by now his soaked shirt-sleeves clung to his arms.
He kept it up doggedly till approaching footsteps brought his damp vigil to an end; and Colonel Mayhew stepped on to the ledge.