In her spasms of East End philanthropy she had learned the first principles of surgical aid.

When Oola's arm and Wombo's gashed head had been washed and bandaged, the trouble was to know what to do with the pair.
Now that they were comfortable and out of pain, fed and given tobacco to smoke and a tot of rum apiece, they had time to remember superstitious fears kept at bay while they had been running for their life.

Both were afraid to show themselves in the open.

On one hand, there was the terror of McKeith; on the other, of Oola's husband.

Lady Bridget gathered that Oola's husband was a medicine man, and that he had 'pointed a bone at his faithless wife and her lover.' To 'point a bone' at an enemy--the bone having first been smeared with human blood, and subjected to magical incantations--is the worst spell that one aboriginal can cast upon another.