"Stop!" she cried. "Mr. Theriere is down."
The mucker halted, and turned his head in the direction of
the Frenchman, who had raised himself to one elbow and was
firing at the advancing enemy. He dropped the girl to her feet.
"Wait here!" he commanded and sprang back toward Theriere.
Before he reached him another spear had caught the man
full in the chest, toppling him, unconscious, to the earth. The
samurai were rushing rapidly upon the wounded officer--it
was a question who would reach him first.
Theriere had been nipped in the act of reloading his revolver.
It lay beside him now, the cylinder full of fresh cartridges.
The mucker was first to his side, and snatching the weapon
from the ground fired coolly and rapidly at the advancing
Japanese. Four of them went down before that deadly fusillade;
but the mucker cursed beneath his breath because of his
two misses.
Byrne's stand checked the brown men momentarily, and in
the succeeding lull the man lifted the unconscious Frenchman
to his shoulder and bore him back to the forest. In the shelter
of the jungle they laid him upon the ground. To the girl it
seemed that the frightful wound in his chest must prove fatal
within a few moments.
Byrne, apparently unmoved by the seriousness of Theriere's
condition, removed the man's cartridge belt and buckled it
about his own waist, replacing the six empty shells in the
revolver with six fresh ones.
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