Part 30 (1/2)
That is all I know of this fight with the Firelanders.
Ritchie was unscathed. Poor Wrexham was stark and stiff, with, an arrow sticking in his heart, and two of the others were wounded, but not severely. It is unnecessary to add that the natives had suffered severely.
”Peter,” I said, as soon as I could gasp out a word or two, ”I'm so glad to see you.”
”I thought you wouldn't mind my paying you a visit,” said Peter, smiling.
”I dare say I'm talking a bit strange,” I said. ”I feel rather dazed.
I fainted, didn't I? So foolish to faint!”
”True, it's very foolish to faint, old man, but when a fellow gets. .h.i.t behind the ear with a pebble as big as an ostrich's egg, then fainting and folly are not quite synonymous terms.”
”Well, thank you,” I muttered. ”I'm obliged, really. How's--”
”How's things?” said Peter, helping me out.
”Yes, how--are you all at home?”
”Poor Jack!” said Peter. ”Why they've knocked you a kind of silly.
You'll be better when you've had a sleep.”
They carried me to the boat. I remember the motion of it, and I remember the bright moonlight on the water, but nothing else for another day.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
THE STORY OF OUR RESCUE--A DINNER AND A BALL--PETER AND DULZURA.
On our arrival at Sandy Point (_Puenta Arenas_) we, that is Jill and I, had been billeted at a pretty little bungalow belonging to a Chilian, and next morning early Peter came to see us, and tell us the story of our rescue.
”First and foremost,” he began, ”let me tell you that I'm precious glad to see you again, Jack, and you too, Greenie; though, bother me if I'm not beginning to think you're not half so green as you look, for the way he was fighting, Jack, when I landed to help you, was a caution to codgers, I can tell you. Ha, ha! why, I laugh to think how he was making the spear heads fly whenever a few of those Foogies made a thrust at him. How many Greenie killed I couldn't wager; but I'm pretty certain he has found the cannibals in food for a fortnight.
”And you too, Jack. I got a blink of you before you fell. You were back to back, you two; and what with you being so precious like Jill, and Jill being so precious like you, I'm sure the Foogies were frightened and took the two of you for one. And of course they're not far wrong, though you're not fastened together like the Siamese twins by a bit of skin.”
”How did you find us?”
”Ay,” said Jill, ”that's more to the point.”
”Well, I'm going to tell you, Greenie, if you'll only give me time. I'd have told you all about it yesterday, but you wouldn't spare a minute away from Jack.
”You see, then, when we got separated in that snow-squall, we did not take much thought about you at first. We remembered you had a boat compa.s.s, and that Ritchie was a good man, and naturally supposed you would find your way here.
”The squally weather continued, but in the very thick of it we found ourselves alongside a steamer--the same saucy little Chilian man-o'-war that so kindly went in search of you. And it isn't fun, I can tell you, to search all up and down among these coves and creeks and islands and forests and glens.
”Well, they took us on board, and made very much of us all the way to Sandy Point, and Captain Coates and our little mother Coates, with Leila, are now living with the governor.
”We waited two days to see if you would show your noses. Then matters looked serious, and as the captain of the gunboat had had several men killed by the Foogies two summers ago, he all the more readily consented to go to look for the missing boat.
”Well, we just looked till we found you. That is the long and the short of it. We searched the wrong sh.o.r.e first. But really I had hoped you had gone down in the squall; that your boat had foundered, and you had been all drowned-dead, as Ritchie would say.”
”But why, in the name of mystery, Peter, did you wish us drowned?”
”Why, because I imagined it would be death somehow; and, to tell you the truth, I couldn't bear the thoughts of your being killed and eaten.