“Good-bye, Sergeant. Good-bye, Kearney. Redgrave, you had better come home with me and get that arm seen to. By the way, Sergeant, leave word at the ‘Mailman’s Arms’ to send on Doctor Bateman, if he’s anywhere about.”
“So far so good,” said Jack, as they turned their horses’ heads towards Juandah. “They were not a very terrific set of ruffians, and had evidently not bound themselves by a dark and bloody oath never to be taken alive.”
“The sharpest shooting seems to have come your way,” said Stangrove, noticing that Jack’s face was growing pale. “I heard a bullet or two whistle near me; but I believe they were sick of their life and anxious to yield decently. I feel mercifully inclined towards them, inasmuch as I believe they let us off cheap at Juandah; whereas, if it had been one of the old gangs——”
“Here we are,” said Jack, as they reined up at the stable door. “Do you know I feel very queer.” Here he dismounted, and moving with some difficulty, that mortal paleness overspread his face which, once seen, is indelibly associated with real or temporary lifelessness, and down went Mr. John Redgrave, helpless as a new-born babe, or a young lady menaced by a black beetle.
Stangrove let go his horse, and raised his prostrate guest in his arms (and a most awfully heavy burden be found him) when out rushed Mrs. Stangrove and Maud.
“Oh, my darling, we have had the bushrangers here, the horrid men; they took both the rifles; and one of them took dear baby in his arms and frightened me to death. Have you seen them? And who is that? Why, it’s Mr. Redgrave. Is he wounded?”
“He was hit through the arm, but he is not desperately wounded. He lost some blood and fainted. Oh, you’re coming to; that’s right; sit up, old man, and we’ll soon have you in bed.”
Maud had come forward with a half-cry parting her lips, while her widely-opened eyes were expressive of pained yet warmest sympathy. She could not trust herself to speak, but, kneeling beside the insensible form, bathed Jack’s face with her handkerchief dipped in water, with a woman’s ready wit, and, loosening his neckerchief, watched with deepest earnestness the first faint signs of returning life.
“’Pon my word,” said Jack, as he sat up and stared rather wildly around him, “I feel awfully ashamed of myself to tumble down and give trouble all from a scratch like this. But I suppose it has bled and Sangrado-ed one a bit. It will soon pass off.”
“You have been fighting for us, Mr. Redgrave,” said Maud, with involuntary tenderness in every tone of her voice; “and we must not be ungrateful. Try if you can walk inside now. Lean on me. I am ever so strong, I can tell you.”