We descended slowly and painfully, to get down in time to receive a
severe scolding from the doctor, while my father confirmed the news, as
Bigley was half-lifted off for Bob to mount the pony and go off for
help.
The British ships had had news brought them of the attack, and had
started at daybreak in full chase, and an hour afterwards all who could
climbed to where we could catch sight of the sea, to find out the
meaning of the firing that was going on.
It was plain enough. A large three-masted lugger was in full flight
with the frigate after her, and sending shot after shot without effect,
till one of them went home, cutting the lugger's principal mast in two,
and her largest sail fell down like a broken wing, leaving the lugger
helpless on the surface. Then a boat was lowered, and we saw her going
at full speed, pulled as she was by a dashing man-o'-war crew, and we
watched anxiously to see if there was going to be a fresh fight. But
no; the man-o'-war long-boat pulled alongside and the men leaped aboard
to send up the English colours directly, while the frigate went on in
full chase of the French sloop, and we soon after saw that the lugger
was being steered towards the mouth of the Gap.
But meantime the doctor had been busy with poor Bigley, who had been
laid upon a soft bed of heather to form his couch while his wound was
examined.
"Why, you cowardly young scoundrel!" he cried cheerfully, "the bullet is
embedded in the muscles of the calf of your leg, and it came in behind.
You dog: you were running away."
"So would you have run away, doctor," I said warmly, "if half a dozen
Frenchmen were after you and firing."
"Never, sir!" cried the doctor fiercely, as he probed the wound; "an
Englishman never runs. There, I can feel it--that's the fellow."
"Oh, doctor!" groaned poor Bigley.
"Hurt?" said Doctor Chowne. "Ah, well! I suppose it does. And so you,
an Englishman, ran away--eh?"
"English boy," said Bigley grinding his teeth with pain, while I felt
the big drops gathering on my forehead, and was wroth with the doctor
for being so cool and brutal.
"English boy!--eh?" he said. "Well, but boys are the stuff of which you
make young men. Ha, ha, ha! What do you think of that?"
"You're half-killing me, doctor!" groaned poor Bigley.
"Not I, my lad. I've got the rascal; come out, sir! There you are--see
there! What do you think of that for a nasty piece of French lead to be
sticking in your leg? If I hadn't fished it out it would have been
there making your leg swell and fester, and we should have had no end of
a game."
As he spoke he held out the bullet he had extracted at the end of a long
narrow pair of forceps; and, as Bigley looked at it with failing eyes,
he turned away with a shudder and whispered to me, as I supported his
head upon my arm:
"I'm glad Bob Chowne isn't here to see what a miserable coward I am,
Sep. Don't tell him--there's a good chap!"