“Shurly,” muttered he, his conjectural form of speech showing that he was still undecided, “Shurly arter all it can’t be a thing o’ the tother world—else I kedn’t a heern the cothug o’ my bullet? Sartin the lead struck agin somethin’ solid; an I reck’n thur’s nothin’ solid in the karkidge o’ a ghost?”
“Wagh!” he concluded, apparently resigning the attempt to obtain a solution of the strange physical phenomenon. “Let the durned thing slide! One o’ two things it air boun’ to be: eyther a bunnel o’ rags, or ole Harry from hell?”
As he re-entered the hut, the blue light of morning stole in along with him.
It was time to awaken Phelim, that he might take his turn by the bedside of the invalid.
The Connemara man, now thoroughly restored to sobriety, and under the impression of having been a little derelict in his duty, was ready to undertake the task.
The old hunter, before consigning his charge to the care of his unskilled successor, made a fresh dressing of the scratches—availing himself of the knowledge that a long experience had given him in the pharmacopoeia of the forest.
The nopal was near; and its juice inspissated into the fresh wounds would not fail to effect their speedy cure.
Zeb knew that in twenty-four hours after its application, they would be in process of healing; and in three days, entirely cicatrised.
With this confidence—common to every denizen of the cactus-covered land of Mexico—he felt defiant as to doctors; and if a score of them could have been procured upon the instant, he would not have summoned one. He was convinced that Maurice Gerald was in no danger—at least not from his wounds.
There was a danger; but that was of a different kind.