Somebody knelt down behind me, and I laid back my head, feeling very sick and faint, but entirely conscious.
The awful screaming in the house had never ceased; Nick sat down on the grass and fumbled at my shirt with trembling fingers.
Presently the screaming ceased. Luysnes came out o' the house with a lighted lantern, followed by the Saguenay; and in the wavering radiance I saw behind them the feet of a man twitching above the floor.
"We hung the louse to the rafters," said Luysnes, "and your Indian asks your leave to scalp him as soon as he's done a-kicking."
"Let him have the scalp," said de Golyer, grimly. "He shot John Drogue through the body. Shine your lantern on him, Ben."
They crowded around me. Nick opened my shirt and drew off my leggins. I saw Johnny Silver, in tatters and all drenched with blood, come into the lantern's rays.
"Are you bad hurt, John?" I gasped.
"Bah! Non, alors. Onlee has Howell slash my shirt into leetle rags and I am scratch all raw. Zat ees nozzing, mon capitaine—a leetle cut like wiz a Barlow—like zat! Pouf! Bah! I laugh. I make mock!"
"Your ribs are broken, John," says Nick, still squatting beside me. "I think your bones turned the bullet, and it's not lodged in your belly at all, but in your right thigh.... Fetch a sop o' wet moss, Joe!"
De Luysnes also got up and went away to chop some stout alders for a litter. De Golyer was back in a moment, both hands full of dripping sphagnum; and Nick washed away the mess of blood.