to immediately. Wombo is hurt too.
The wounds must be washed and dressed.... Look at the poor creatures.'

Mrs Hensor contemptuously surveyed Wombo and his erring partner.

'Serve them right. He's stolen her from her husband and the Blacks have
given them what for. They don't need any fussing over, these niggers.
They are used to being knocked about.'

Lady Bridget's eyes blazed, but her tone was icy.

'I suppose you understand that I've given you my orders to attend to a
wounded fellow-creature.'

'Well, I don't call Blacks fellow-creatures. Do you suppose we should
not all be having spears thrown at us if the niggers weren't afraid of
Mr McKeith's gun?'

'You have my orders,' repeated Lady Bridget sharply, her wrath at white
heat.

'I take no orders from anybody but the Boss, and his orders were that
if Wombo brought the gin here, they'd got to be driven off,' retorted
Mrs Hensor.

'They will not be driven off. You will answer to your master for this
disobedience!' said Lady Bridget.

Mrs Hensor laughed insolently.

'Oh, I'm not afraid of Mr McKeith finding fault with ME,' and she
withdrew out of sight into the kitchen.

CHAPTER 12

Lady Bridget made as dignified a retreat as was possible in the
circumstances. She could have slain Mrs Hensor at that moment. She took
the blacks to the veranda of the old Humpey and went to look in the
office for antiseptics, lint and bandages. Chen Sing, the Chinese cook,
came at her call, and rendered assistance with the bland phlegm of his
race. The spear had been pulled out of Oola's arm by the time Lady
Bridget came back with the dressings. In her spasms of East End
philanthropy she had learned the first principles of surgical aid. When
Oola's arm and Wombo's gashed head had been washed and bandaged, the
trouble was to know what to do with the pair.

Now that they were comfortable and out of pain, fed and given tobacco
to smoke and a tot of rum apiece, they had time to remember
superstitious fears kept at bay while they had been running for their
life. Both were afraid to show themselves in the open. On one hand,
there was the terror of McKeith; on the other, of Oola's husband. Lady
Bridget gathered that Oola's husband was a medicine man, and that he
had 'pointed a bone at his faithless wife and her lover.' To 'point a
bone' at an enemy--the bone having first been smeared with human blood,
and subjected to magical incantations--is the worst spell that one
a