CHAPTER XXIV
ULRICH VON HAGEL'S TREASURE
For me in that moment the world seemed to end. I had plucked this girl from a placid, unruffled existence and plunged her into a vortex of adventure. Was she to leave her life, laid down for mine, in this desolate island while I, the author of all the mischief, was to escape unharmed?
Lawless was at Clubfoot's throat, worrying him like a terrier with a rat. Then, of a sudden, Carstairs and Mackay were there, twisting together with a leathern thong those great hairy wrists, one of which dripped blood. I stood helpless, watching, as in a dream, Garth raise up his daughter and rock her still form in his arms. In her right hand she still clasped my automatic with which she had saved my life.
There was a shrill cry from the entrance of the hollow. With skirts flying Yvonne, Marjorie's French maid, darted in. "O, ma chérie! Ma chérie!" she moaned as with tears rolling down her face, she dropped to her knees by the girl's side. Now Garth was holding a flask to his daughter's lips. Presently to my unspeakable relief, she stirred slightly, then opened her eyes.
"I'm all right," she murmured, "quite all right really! Ah! Yvonne!"
And she closed her eyes again.
Garth stood up, a tall and commanding figure of a man in his spotless white drill, and looked at me, tatterdermalion that I was, with a four days' growth of beard and unkempt hair, my clothes torn and stained, my boots gashed almost to ribbons by those cruel rocks.
"Is she.... is she.... wounded?" I faltered.