“It was a coup d’éclair, Captain,” said Raoul.
Good heavens! We had been struck by lightning! Raoul, being in the advance, had escaped.
The Frenchman soon left me and went to Clayley, who, with Chane and the hunter, lay close by—all three, as I thought, dead. They were pale as corpses, with here and there a spot of purple, or a livid line traced over their skins, while their lips presented the whitish, bloodless hue of death.
“Are they dead?” I asked feebly.
“I think not—we shall see;” and the Frenchman poured some water into Clayley’s mouth.
The latter sighed heavily, and appeared to revive.
Raoul passed on to the hunter, who, as soon as he felt the water, started to his feet, and, clutching his comrade fiercely by the throat, exclaimed:
“Yur cussed catamount! yer wud hang me, wud yur?”
Seeing who it was, he stopped suddenly, and looked round with an air of extreme bewilderment. His eye now fell upon the rifle, and, all at once seeming to recollect himself, he staggered towards it and picked it up. Then, as if by instinct, he passed his hand into his pouch and coolly commenced loading.
While Raoul was busy with Clayley and the Irishman, I had risen to my feet and looked back over the prairie. The rain was falling in torrents, and the lightning still flashed at intervals. At the distance of fifty paces a black mass was lying upon the ground motionless—a mass of men and horses, mingled together as they had fallen in their tracks. Here and there a single horse and his rider lay prostrate together. Beyond these, twenty or thirty horsemen were galloping in circles over the plain, and vainly endeavouring to head their frightened steeds towards the point where we were. These, like Raoul, had escaped the stroke.