CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.
HOW THE DOCTOR FOUND A PATIENT READY TO HIS HAND.
We waited for some minutes crouched there among the bushes listening tothe coming of those who forced their way through the trees, while momentby moment the morning light grew clearer, the small birds twittered, andthe parrots screamed. We could see nothing, but it was evident that twoif not three savages were slowly descending the slope of the ravinetowards where we were hidden. The wounded man uttered a low groan thatthrilled me and then sent a cold shudder through my veins, for I wasalmost touching him; and set aside the feeling of horror at having been,as it were, partner in inflicting his injury, there was the sensationthat he might recover sufficiently to revenge himself upon us by a blowwith his spear.
The sounds came nearer, and it was now so light that as we watched wecould see the bushes moving, and it seemed to me that more of thishorrible bloodshed must ensue. We were crouching close, but the woundedman was moaning, and his companions might at any moment hear him andthen discovery must follow; while if, on the other hand, we did notresist, all hope of rescuing my poor father would be gone.
"We must fight," I said to myself, setting my teeth hard and bringing mygun to bear on the spot where I could see something moving. At the sametime I tried to find where Jack Penny was hiding, but he was out ofsight.
At the risk of being seen I rose up a little so as to try and get aglimpse of the coming enemy; but though the movement among the busheswas plain enough I only caught one glimpse of a black body, and had Ibeen disposed to shoot it was too quick for me and was gone in aninstant.
They were coming nearer, and in an agony of excitement I was thinking ofattempting to back away and try to reach the cave, when I felt that Icould not get Jack Penny and the black to act with me unless I showedmyself, and this meant revealing our position, and there all the timewere the enemy steadily making their way right towards us.
"What shall I do?" I said to myself as I realised in a small way whatmust be the feelings of a general who finds that the battle is goingagainst him. "I must call to Jack Penny."
"_Cooey_!" rang out just then from a little way to my right, and Jimmylooked up from his hiding-place.
"Is Carstairs there?" cried the familiar voice of the doctor, and aswith beating heart I sprang up, he came staggering wearily towards methrough the clinging bushes.
"My dear boy," he cried, with his voice trembling, "what I have sufferedon your account! I thought you were a prisoner."
"No!" I exclaimed, delighted at this turn in our affairs. "Jimmyhelped me to escape. I say, you don't think I ran away and desertedyou?"
"My dear boy," he cried, "I was afraid that you would think this of me.But there, thank Heaven you are safe! and though we have not rescuedyour father we know enough to make success certain."
"I'm afraid not," I said hastily. "The savages have discovered ourhiding-place."
"No!"
"Yes; and one of them was approaching it just now when Jack Penny shothim down."
"This is very unfortunate! Where? What! close here?"
I had taken his hand to lead him to the clump of bushes where the poorwretch lay, and on parting the boughs and twigs we both started back inhorror.
"My boy, what have you done?" cried the doctor, as I stood speechlessthere by his side. "We have not so many friends that we could afford tokill them."
But already he was busy, feeling the folly of wasting words, and downupon his knees, to place the head of our friend, the prisoner of thesavages, in a more comfortable position before beginning to examine himfor his wound.
"Bullet--right through the shoulder!" said the doctor in a short abruptmanner; and as he spoke he rapidly tore up his handkerchief, and pluggedand bound the wound, supplementing the handkerchief with a long scarfwhich he wore round the waist.
"Now, Ti-hi! Jimmy! help me carry him to the cave."
"Jimmy carry um all 'long right way; put um on Jimmy's back!" cried myblack companion; and this seeming to be no bad way of carrying thewounded man in such a time of emergency, Jimmy stooped down,exasperating me the while by grinning, as if it was good fun, till thesufferer from our mistake was placed upon his back, when he exclaimed:
"Lot much heavy-heavy! Twice two sheep heavy. Clear de bush!"
We hastily drew the boughs aside, and Jimmy steadily descended the steepslope, entered the rivulet, crossed, and then stopped for a momentbeneath the overhanging boughs before climbing to the cabin.
"Here, let me help you!" said the doctor, holding out his hand.
"Yes," said Jimmy, drawing his waddy and boomerang from his belt; "holdum tight, um all in black fellow way."
Then, seizing the boughs, he balanced the wounded man carefully, anddrew himself steadily up step by step, exhibiting wonderful strength ofmuscle, till he had climbed to the entrance of the cave, where he bentdown and crawled in on hands and knees, waiting till his burden wasremoved from his back, and then getting up once more to look roundsmiling.
"Jimmy carry lot o' men like that way!"
We laid the sufferer on one of the beds of twigs that the savages hadmade for us, and here the doctor set himself to work to more securelybandage his patient's shoulder; Jack Penny looking on, resting upon hisgun, and wearing a countenance full of misery.
"There!" said the doctor when he had finished. "I think he will do now.Two inches lower, Master Penny, and he would have been a dead man."
"I couldn't help it!" drawled Jack Penny. "I thought he was a savagecoming to kill us. I'm always doing something. There never was such anunlucky chap as I am!"
"Oh, you meant what you did for the best!" said the doctor, laying hishand on Jack Penny's shoulder.
"What did he want to look like a savage for?" grumbled Jack. "Who wasgoing to know that any one dressed up--no, I mean dressed down--likethat was an Englishman?"
"It was an unfortunate mistake, Penny; you must be more careful if youmean to handle a gun."
"Here, take it away!" said Jack Penny bitterly. "I won't fire it offagain."
"I was very nearly making the same mistake," I said, out of compassionfor Jack Penny--he seemed so much distressed. "I had you and Ti-hicovered in turn as you came up, doctor."
"Then I'm glad you did not fire!" he said. "There, keep your piece,Penny; we may want its help. As for our friend here, he has a painfulwound, but I don't think any evil will result from it. Hist, he iscoming to!"
Our conversation had been carried on in a whisper, and we now stoppedshort and watched the doctor's patient in the dim twilight of thecavern, as he unclosed his eyes and stared first up at the ceiling andthen about him, till his eyes rested upon us, when he smiled.
"Am I much hurt?" he said, in a low calm voice.
"Oh, no!" said the doctor. "A bullet wound--not a dangerous one atall."
To my astonishment he went on talking quite calmly, and without any ofthe dazed look and the strange habit of forgetting his own tongue tocontinue in that of the people among whom he had been a prisoner for solong.
"I thought I should find you here," he said; "and I came on, thinkingthat perhaps I could help you."
"Help us! yes, of course you can! You shall help us to get MrCarstairs away!"
"Poor fellow; yes!" he said softly, and in so kindly a way that I creptcloser and took his hand. "We tried several times to escape, but theyovertook us, and treated us so hard that of late we had grown resignedto our fate."
I exchanged glances with the doctor, who signed to me to be silent.
"It was a very hard one--very hard!" the wounded man continued, and thenhe stopped short, looking straight before him at the forest, seenthrough the opening of the cave.
By degrees his eyelids dropped, were raised again, and then fell, and heseemed to glide into a heavy sleep.
The doctor motioned us to keep away, and we all went to the mouth of thecave, to sit down and talk over the night's adventure, the conversationchanging at times to a discussion of our f
riend's mental affection.
"The shock of the wound has affected his head beneficially, it seems,"the doctor said at last. "Whether it will last I cannot say."
At least it seemed to me that the doctor was saying those or similarwords from out of a mist, and then all was silent.
The fact was that I had been out all night, exerting myselftremendously, and I had now fallen heavily asleep.
Bunyip Land: A Story of Adventure in New Guinea Page 36
