Part 13 (1/2)

”Whatever is the matter, Alec, am I hurt?” at which he laughed and said, ”I ought to know better than he could tell me; perhaps I would inform him what I was doing there, and why, for more than half an hour since he found me I had been insensible?”

Then I remembered slipping carelessly over the edge of the path at a part that was not at all dangerous, and b.u.mping myself against a granite rock, but beyond that I remembered nothing whatever.

Alec had missed me for nearly three hours, so calling to ”Begum,” he strolled along to see what I was doing. It was our invariable custom to tell each other where we were going, and what we were going to do, whenever we separated for a time; but on this occasion I had purposely omitted this precaution. The dog had found me on the lower pathway doubled up, or as Alec put it, ”Standing on my head in a very undignified position, with my back against a granite boulder.”

I could not rise, in fact could scarcely move, so battered and bruised was I in my fall of about fifty yards. Of course this was not a perpendicular fall, or I should never have penned these lines; but as the slope was one that a man could not walk up without using his hands, it is a wonder to me to this day that I was not killed on the spot.

Evidently I had broken my swift fall by clutching at some furze bushes, for my right hand was dreadfully lacerated, and full of furze needles, and my shoulder so stiff that my arm seemed paralyzed; besides which, I found I was spitting blood, which frightened me very much, as I was afraid of some internal injury.

The cart was fetched, and Alec a.s.sisted me on it; but oh dear me! I thought the jolting would have shaken me literally to pieces, so I sang out ”Halt! Wo!” and told Alec I could go no farther, and then I fainted away.

It was only of five minutes' duration, but when I came to I felt as if I was dying, and told Alec I thought my time had come, which greatly alarmed the good fellow.

”Do you mind my leaving you a few minutes,” said he, ”while I fire the big gun for a.s.sistance?”

”No, no, Alec, I will not consent to that; for if my time has come, all the doctors[4] in the world cannot save me; and if I am not so badly hurt as I fear, I shall pull through. a.s.sist me to get on 'Eddy's'

back.”

By great exertion on the part of Alec, and great forbearance from crying out on mine, I was presently mounted on the donkey, and being supported on Alec's broad shoulder as he walked on the left side, I was at length able to reach the house.

Although in dreadful pain, I could not resist asking Alec if he did not notice how well our group on the rocky path realized the parable of the Good Samaritan. Here we were carrying out the story exactly. I was the ”Certain Man” wounded; Alec the Good Samaritan; and ”Eddy” the beast.

The house being reached, next came the dreadful dismounting, and being supported to bed; but even this was at last safely managed, and lying on the coverlet for a time I felt much easier.

Alec busied himself like a trained nurse, he took off my boots, gave me some brandy, washed the blood from my head and hands, and then without my knowledge gave me a sleeping draught from my medicine chest.

When I awoke it was still daylight, and Alec had prepared me a good supper, with which, like a good fellow, he fed me, and then we held a consultation as to the nature of my hurts.

We tried each leg, but beyond great black bruises there were no bones broken; my hands were a ma.s.s of cuts and scratches, and my head was in no better condition; but when we came to the right arm we found something radically wrong at the shoulder, which had now become greatly swollen, while as I sat on the edge of the bed the limb hung loosely down in a way that caused us to think it was broken; at any rate it was perfectly useless.

We consulted Dr. Ogilvie's book upon all kinds of accidents that bones are heir to, and came to the conclusion that either my collar bone was broken or displaced, or my arm was out of the socket at the shoulder.

Alec soon set to work, and ripped my coat and s.h.i.+rt off, and after a deliberate diagnosis of my upper man, concluded that my shoulder was out of joint and must be put in. Again my comrade wished to fire the big gun for a.s.sistance, but I made up my mind to attempt my own cure with his help, as I had seen several cases of a similar nature treated on the hunting field.

My arm is a strong one, and I must draw a veil over the agony which resulted from the clumsy way in which we hauled the poor limb about; but we clicked the bone in at last, and then faint from pain I must have gone off into a deep sleep, for the last I remember was feeling Alec wipe the perspiration from my forehead as I fell back on my pillow in a faint.

For days I kept my bed, as every part of my anatomy had received a tremendous battering when I took my flight over the jagged stones that barred my way.

My constant thought as I lay on the bed with the glorious suns.h.i.+ne streaming in from the open window, which gave me a view of the dark trees standing out against the azure sunlit sky, was about the hieroglyphics on the paper. What did the skull portend, and what did the letters and figures refer to?

The skull I set down as the point to which the most importance was to be attached, and as I believed it referred to some hidden articles or treasure stowed away more than a century ago, I was naturally very eager to find out its whereabouts.

Well, say the skull represented the treasure spot, what did the square surrounding it mean? I gave it up. ”Then what,” I asked myself, ”is the meaning of the letters at certain angles round the square both inside and out?” These I a.s.sumed to be the bearings of certain objects, as the person stood at the spot in which the goods were hidden; the figures I conjectured were the number of feet or yards distant of the ”treasure spot” from the various objects.

Next, where was it most likely a man would hide anything of value, beneath the sea or upon dry land? Land certainly. Would it be among the rocks or where the ground was softer? Certainly the latter, I should say.

Then I set to thinking of the different places on the island where the nature of the soil would allow of digging, and could call to mind but few, and these mostly on the higher parts of the island. I determined when I was able to get about that I would inspect all these places, and see if I could find objects to correspond with the bearings and distances given in the sketch. Having thus promised myself to pursue the search further at a more appropriate time, I dismissed the subject from my mind for the time being.

After several days of enforced idleness I was at length able once more to go out, but at first felt very weak in the legs for want of exercise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative scroll]