The fight
was over, and, when they came to look round, Francis was the only
man who had suffered.
Morning had dawned even whilst they had been fighting. Little
wreaths of mist were curling upwards, and the sun shone down with
a cloudless, golden light, every moment more clear as the vapours
melted away. Francis was lying upon his face groaning heavily; the
Kru boys, to whom he was well known, were gathered in a little
circle around him. Trent brushed them on one side and made a brief
examination. Then he had him carried carefully into one of the
tents while he went for his medicine-chest.
Preparations for a start were made, but Trent was thoughtful. For
the second time within a few hours this man, in whose power it was
to ruin him, lay at his mercy. That he had saved his life went for
nothing. In the heat of battle there had been no time for thought
or calculation. Trent had simply obeyed the generous instinct of a
brave man whose blood was warm with the joy of fighting. Now it
was different. Trent was seldom sentimental, but from the first he
had had an uneasy presentiment concerning this man who lay now
within his power and so near to death. A mutual antipathy seemed
to have been born between them from the first moment when they had
met in the village of Bekwando.
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