handkerchief was saturated
with the precious fluid. He sucked a mouthful from it with keen
satisfaction: then, using it for a wad, plugged up the bottle; and
undaunted by bruises, dizziness, torn hands, and smarting feet, lost no
time in starting afresh.

For the time being, progress was simpler, and less hazardous: and, once
through the undergrowth, he came with disconcerting abruptness upon that
which he sought.

Eight feet below him, on a merciful ledge of earth wide enough to check
the fatal rebound into space, Eldred Lenox lay face downward, his left
arm crumpled under him; the other flung outward as if in a last desperate
effort to ward off the inevitable. Shaitan was nowhere to be seen. The
sheer drop beyond told his fate.

Soldier as he was, and inured to the sight of death in its most barbarous
aspect, Desmond's heart stood still as he looked down upon that powerful
figure of manhood lying helpless and alone, pattered upon indifferently
by the dripping heavens.

Choosing a spot that promised a soft landing-place, Desmond dropped on to
the ledge; knelt beside the injured man; and speedily assured himself
that life was not extinct. Unconsciousness was due to a wound on the
back of his head, from which blood still trickled sluggishly through the
thick black hair. The arm crumpled under him was broken below the elbow.
Very gently, as though he were a child asleep, Desmond turned him on to
his back. His eyes showed fixed and glazed between half-open lids, and a
deep scratch disfigured his cheek. Pillowing the inert head on one arm,
Desmond applied the spirit to his lips again and again, a few drops at a
time: till the lids lifted heavily, and life returned with a slow
shuddering breath.

Desmond bent down to him eagerly.

"Not going out this journey, Lenox, old chap."

But no answering gleam rewarded him; no movement of limb or feature.
Only the lids fell again; and Desmond knew that this was no fainting fit,
but collapse from probable damage to the brain.

After applying more brandy to the lips and temples without result, he
removed his Norfolk coat--still warm and dry within--and with the help of
two fir boughs contrived to shelter Lenox's head and chest from the
chilling downpour. Then he set to work on the broken arm. The same
fir,--springing sturdily from a cleft in the rock below,--provided a
splint; and with two handkerchiefs (he had wrung the last drop of
rain-diluted brandy from his own)