Chapter 49

CHAPTER 7

At Herbert's cry, Pencroft, letting his gun fall, rushed towards him.

"They have killed him!" he cried. "My boy! They have killed him!"

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett ran to Herbert.

The reporter listened to ascertain if the poor lad's heart was still
beating.

"He lives," said he, "but he must be carried--"

"To Granite House? that is impossible!" replied the engineer.

"Into the corral, then!" said Pencroft.

"In a moment," said Harding.

And he ran round the left corner of the palisade. There he found a
convict, who aiming at him, sent a ball through his hat. In a few seconds,
before he had even time to fire his second barrel, he fell, struck to the
heart by Harding's dagger, more sure even than his gun.

During this time, Gideon Spilett and the sailor hoisted themselves over
the palisade, leaped into the enclosure, threw down the props which
supported the inner door, ran into the empty house, and soon, poor Herbert
was lying on Ayrton's bed. In a few moments, Harding was by his side.

On seeing Herbert senseless, the sailor's grief was terrible.

He sobbed, he cried, he tried to beat his head against the wall.

Neither the engineer nor the reporter could calm him. They themselves
were choked with emotion. They could not speak.

However, they knew that it depended on them to rescue from death the poor
boy who was suffering beneath their eyes. Gideon Spilett had not passed
through the many incidents by which his life had been checkered without
acquiring some slight knowledge of medicine. He knew a little of
everything, and several times he had been obliged to attend to wounds
produced either by a sword-bayonet or shot. Assisted by Cyrus Harding, he
proceeded to render the aid Herbert required.

The reporter was immediately struck by the complete stupor in which
Herbert lay, a stupor owing either to the hemorrhage, or to the shock, the
ball having struck a bone with sufficient force to produce a violent
concussion.

Herbert was deadly pale, and his pulse so feeble that Spilett only felt it
beat at long intervals, as if it was on the point of stopping.

These symptoms were very serious.

Herbert's chest was laid bare, and the blood having been stanched with
handkerchiefs, it was bathed with cold water.

The contusion, or rather the contused wound appeared,--an oval below the
chest between the third and fourth ribs. It was there that Herbert had been
hit by the bullet.

Cyrus Harding and Gideon Spilett then turned the poor boy over; as they
did so, he uttered a moan so feeble that they almost thought it was his
last sigh.

Herberts back was covered with blood from another contused wound,