Half-way down, in a wood, we found a wounded trooper prone on the ground and gasping for breath; while beside him grazed his horse. He was bleeding from his side, and too faint to turn his head as we came up.
Our guide started as he saw him, and whispered:
“This is one of Merriman’s men.”
I knelt beside him and tried, in my clumsy way, to bind his wound, and help him back to life. But ’twas plain we were all too late for that. He lay gasping in my arms, his eyes, already glazed, looking vacantly skyward, and his arms feebly tossing in his battle for breath. Twas no time for questions. I ventured but one:
“Where is O’Neill’s daughter?” I asked in his ear.
He turned his head and stopped his panting for a moment.
“I could not save her,” he gasped; “Merrim—” and here he fell back in my arms a dead man.
We covered him hastily with the fallen leaves, and, taking his horse for our guide’s use, spurred grimly on.
There was no doubt now. The villain’s plot had succeeded only too well, and the fair innocents were already delivered over to his clutches.
At a little cluster of houses in the valley we halted a moment longer.