"Now,"said I,"I've got you;and you're gone up,and a good job too!Do you feel the point of that?That's for Underhill!And there's for Adams!And now here's for Uma,and that's going to knock your blooming soul right out of you!"With that I gave him the cold steel for all I was worth.His body kicked under me like a spring sofa;he gave a dreadful kind of a long moan,and lay still.
"I wonder if you're dead?I hope so!"I thought,for my head was swimming.But I wasn't going to take chances;I had his own example too close before me for that;and I tried to draw the knife out to give it him again.The blood came over my hands,Iremember,hot as tea;and with that I fainted clean away,and fell with my head on the man's mouth.
When I came to myself it was pitch dark;the cinders had burned out;there was nothing to be seen but the shine of the dead wood,and I couldn't remember where I was nor why I was in such pain nor what I was all wetted with.Then it came back,and the first thing I attended to was to give him the knife again a half-a-dozen times up to the handle.I believe he was dead already,but it did him no harm and did me good.
"I bet you're dead now,"I said,and then I called to Uma.
Nothing answered,and I made a move to go and grope for her,fouled my broken leg,and fainted again.
When I came to myself the second time the clouds had all cleared away,except a few that sailed there,white as cotton.The moon was up -a tropic moon.The moon at home turns a wood black,but even this old butt-end of a one showed up that forest,as green as by day.The night birds -or,rather,they're a kind of early morning bird -sang out with their long,falling notes like nightingales.And I could see the dead man,that I was still half resting on,looking right up into the sky with his open eyes,no paler than when he was alive;and a little way off Uma tumbled on her side.I got over to her the best way I was able,and when Igot there she was broad awake,and crying and sobbing to herself with no more noise than an insect.It appears she was afraid to cry out loud,because of the AITUS.Altogether she was not much hurt,but scared beyond belief;she had come to her senses a long while ago,cried out to me,heard nothing in reply,made out we were both dead,and had lain there ever since,afraid to budge a finger.The ball had ploughed up her shoulder,and she had lost a main quantity of blood;but I soon had that tied up the way it ought to be with the tail of my shirt and a scarf I had on,got her head on my sound knee and my back against a trunk,and settled down to wait for morning.Uma was for neither use nor ornament,and could only clutch hold of me and shake and cry.I don't suppose there was ever anybody worse scared,and,to do her justice,she had had a lively night of it.As for me,I was in a good bit of pain and fever,but not so bad when I sat still;and every time Ilooked over to Case I could have sung and whistled.Talk about meat and drink!To see that man lying there dead as a herring filled me full.
The night birds stopped after a while;and then the light began to change,the east came orange,the whole wood began to whirr with singing like a musical box,and there was the broad day.
I didn't expect Maea for a long while yet;and,indeed,I thought there was an off-chance he might go back on the whole idea and not come at all.I was the better pleased when,about an hour after daylight,I heard sticks smashing and a lot of Kanakas laughing,and singing out to keep their courage up.Uma sat up quite brisk at the first word of it;and presently we saw a party come stringing out of the path,Maea in front,and behind him a white man in a pith helmet.It was Mr.Tarleton,who had turned up late last night in Falesa,having left his boat and walked the last stage with a lantern.