“Have you looked to the General? is he uninjured?” was his first question. “I’m afear’d he’s terrible hurt, if he ain’t killed outright; leastways he’s onsensibul, and one of his arms seems crushed like,” was the consolatory reply. “Oh that I had come up a minute sooner!” exclaimed Lewis in a tone of bitter self-reproach. “You’d have been a dead man if yer had, sir,” was the reply. “If that willian there had had hold of your throat half a minute longer, you’d have been as stiff as a leg of mutton by this time.” “Better that I had perished than that this should have occurred,” murmured Lewis; then turning to the man, he continued, “Lend me your arm; I can walk now,” and rising with difficulty, he advanced towards the spot where General Grant lay. He was perfectly insensible; his hat had fallen off, and his grey hair, exposed to the night dews, imparted, as the moonlight streamed on it, a ghastly expression to his features, while his right arm was bent under him in an unnatural position, which left no doubt that it must be broken, probably in more places than one. Lewis knelt down beside him, and raising his uninjured hand, placed his finger on the wrist. “I can feel his pulse beat distinctly,” he observed, after a moment’s pause. “He is not dead, nor dying; indeed, except the injury to his arm, I hope he may not be seriously hurt. No time must be lost in carrying him to the house and procuring a surgeon.” “Somebody ought to go to Broadhurst to let’m know what’s happened and get us some help. We’ve more than we can manage here, you see,” urged the assistant. “It will take two on us to purwent that blackguard Hardy from getting away; he won’t lose no chance, you may depend.” “I’ll stay with General Grant if you’ll run to the house,” returned Lewis feebly. “Your arm’s a bleeding, sir. Did that willian stab you?” inquired the assistant. “No; I was hurt in the wood,” was the reply. “Do you think you could ride, sir?” continued the man; “ ’cos if you could, I’d try and catch the horse--he’s a grazin’ very quiet yonder--and then you could go to the house, start off one of the grooms to fetch a doctor, send some of the people down here to help us, get yer own wound dressed, and break the news to the family better than such a chap as me.”