He instantly whipped out his sheath-knife and a handkerchief. The latter he cut up into a bandage. Then, removing the silk scarf at his neck, he folded it into a soft pad, and bound it over the wound. Curiously he felt he must lend what aid he could first, and then send out adequate help from the village.
He stood up, took a final glance at the wounded face, and turned coldly away toward his horse.
But now events took an unexpected and disconcerting turn. When he reached his horse Elia was nowhere to be seen. He called, but received no answer. He called again, but still no answer. And suddenly he became alarmed. He remembered the boy’s condition. He must have collapsed somewhere.
He promptly began to search. Taking his horse as a central point he moved round it in ever widening circles, calling at intervals, and with his eyes glued to the long grass which swished under his feet. For more than ten minutes he searched in vain; and then, once more, he found himself beside the man he had knocked out.
He was thoroughly alarmed now. Eve was still anxiously awaiting news of her brother. The thing was quite inexplicable. He could never have attempted to 341 walk home. Why should he? Finally he decided that he must have strolled into the bush and sat down, and–––
His glance fell upon the man lying at his feet. How still he lay. How––– Hello, what was this? He had left him lying on his side. Now his pale face was turned directly up at the sky. And––he dropped on his knees at his side––his bandage had been removed. He glanced about. There it was, a yard away in the grass. In wondering astonishment his eyes came back to the ghastly face of the unconscious man. Somehow it looked different, yet–––
A glance at his body drew an exclamation of horror from his lips. For a moment every drop of blood seemed to recede from his brain, leaving him cold. A clammy moisture broke out upon his forehead at what he beheld. The man’s clothing had been torn open leaving his chest bare, and he now beheld his own knife plunged to the hilt in the white flesh. Will Henderson was dead––stabbed through the heart by–––
He sprang to his feet with a cry of horror, and his eyes flashed right and left as though in search of the murderer. Who had done this thing? Who–––? As though in answer to his thought, Elia’s voice reached him from out of the bushes.
“He’s sure dead. I hate him.”
Then followed a rustling of the brushwood, as though the boy had taken himself off.