The attempt was an absolute failure.  The cool brain dispatched the message, it flew along the telegraph-wires of the nerves, but the muscles refused to react.  He remembered that the teeth of the mugger had met in one of the muscles of his upper arm, but before unconsciousness had come upon him he had been able to lift the gun to shoot.  Possibly infection from the bite had in some manner temporarily paralyzed the arm.  He turned, wracked with pain, on his side and lifted his left arm.  In doing so his hand crossed before his eyes—­and then he smiled wanly in the darkness.

It was quite like Warwick, sportsman and English gentleman, to smile at a time like this.  Even in the gray darkness of the jungle night he could see the hand quite plainly.  It no longer looked slim and white.  And he remembered that the mugger had caught his fingers in one of its last rushes.

He paused only for one glance at the mutilated member.  He knew that his first work was to see how Singhai had fared.  In that glance he was boundlessly relieved to see that the hand could unquestionably be saved.  The fingers were torn, yet their bones did not seem to be severed.  Temporarily at least, however, the hand was utterly useless.  The fingers felt strange and detached.

He reached out to the still form beside him, touching the dark skin first with his fingers, and then, because they had ceased to function, with the flesh of his wrist.  He expected to find it cold.  Singhai was alive, however, and his warm blood beat close to the dark skin.

But he was deeply unconscious, and it was possible that one foot was hopelessly mutilated.

For a moment Warwick lay quite still, looking his situation squarely in the face.  He did not believe that either he or his attendant was mortally or even very seriously hurt.  True, one of his arms had suffered paralysis, but there was no reason for thinking it had been permanently injured.  His hand would be badly scarred, but soon as good as ever.  The real question that faced them was that of getting back to the bungalow.

Walking was out of the question.  His whole body was bruised and lacerated, and he was already dangerously weak from loss of blood.  It would take all his energy, these first few hours, to keep his consciousness.  Besides, it was perfectly obvious that Singhai could not walk.  And English gentlemen do not desert their servants at a time like this.  The real mystery lay in the fact that the beaters had not already found and rescued them.

He wore a watch with luminous dial on his left wrist, and he managed to get it before his eyes.  And then understanding came to him.  A full hour had passed since he and his servant had fought the mugger in the ford.  And the utter silence of early night had come down over the jungle.