“I don’t know. He looked it. He was all bloody.”
“Colonel Dillon, did you see Neale?” went on the sharp, eager voice.
“Yes. He seemed dazed—wild. Probably badly hurt. Yet he moved steadily. No one could stop him,” answered another strange voice.
“Ah! here comes McDermott!” exclaimed General Lodge. Allie’s ears throbbed to a slow, shuffling, heavy tread. Her consciousness received the fact of Neale’s injury, but her heart refused to accept it as perilous. God could not mock her faith by a last catastrophe.
“Sandy—you’ve seen Neale?”
Allie loved this sharp, keen voice for its note of dread. “Shure. B’gorra, yez couldn’t hilp seein’ him. He’s as big as a hill an’ his shirt’s as red as Casey’s red wan. I wint to give him the little gun wot Durade pulled on him. Dom’ me! he looked roight at me an’ niver seen me,” replied the Irishman.
“Lee, you will see Neale?” queried General Lodge. There was a silence.
“No,” presently came a cold reply. “It is not necessary. He saved me—injury perhaps. I am grateful. I’ll reward him.”
“How?” rang General Lodge’s voice.
“Gold, of course. Neale was a gambler. Probably he had a grudge against this Durade.... I need not meet Neale, it seems, I am somewhat—overwrought. I wish to spare myself further excitement.”