The two men drew nearer, and the next minute we were all gazing down at where one of the enemy's wounded horses had evidently pitched forward upon its knees and thrown its wounded rider over its head to where he lay, a couple of yards in advance, with a terrible gash across his forehead, caused by falling upon a rough stone. But that was not the cause of his death, for his jacket and shirt were torn open and a rough bandage had slipped down from the upper part of his chest, where a bullet-wound showed plainly enough that his lungs must have been pierced, and that he had bled to death. "Poor chap!" said the Sergeant softly; "he's got it. Well, he died like a brave man. Came up here, I s'pose, for shelter." "There's another over yonder," I said excitedly, for about fifty yards away from where we were grouped, and high above us, the baboons were leaping about and chattering more than ever. "Shouldn't wonder," said the Sergeant; "and he aren't dead. Trying to scare those ugly little beggars away." "I'll soon see," I said; and as I urged Sandho on, the shrinking beast cautiously picked his way past the dead group, and we soon got up to a narrow rift full of bushes, the path among the rocks running right up to the highest point, towards which the baboons began to retire now, chattering away, but keeping a keen watch on our proceedings. "Another dead horse, Sergeant," I shouted back. "Never mind the horse," cried Briggs. "Be ready, and shoot the wounded man down at sight if he doesn't throw up his hands. 'Ware treachery." I pressed on into the gully, at whose entrance the second dead horse lay, and the next minute, as Sandho forced the bushes apart with his breast, I saw marks of blood on a stone just beneath where the apes had been chattering in their excitement; and then I drew rein and felt completely paralysed, for a faint voice, whose tones were unmistakable, cried: "Help! Wather, for the love of Heaven!" CHAPTER THIRTY. BRIGGS'S IRISH LION. "Why, it's an Irish lion!" cried the Sergeant, who was now close behind me. I was too much surprised to say anything then; but I felt afterwards that I might have said, "Irish jackal! The Irish lions are quite different." But somehow the sight of the badly-wounded man disarmed me, and I dismounted to part the bushes and kneel down beside where my enemy lay back with his legs beneath the neck and shoulders of his dead horse, blood-smeared and ghastly, as he gazed wildly in my face. "Wather!" he said pitifully. "I am a dead man." "Are you, now, Pat?" cried the Sergeant, in mocking imitation of the poor wretch's accent and high-pitched intonation. "Don't be a brute, Sergeant," I said angrily as I opened my water-bottle and held it to the man's lips. "Can't you see he's badly hurt?" "Serve him right," growled the Sergeant angrily. "What business has he fighting against the soldiers of the Queen? Ugh! he don't deserve help; he ought to be stood up and shot for a traitor."