When Captain Smith armed with his Yumi, Cnut, Alan and Hippolyta came to Alexander's aid, they found the caracal laying upon the grass, torn and bleeding, yet thankfully alive. The battle had been short, but brutal and had Alexander not taken Miltiades' left eye, it was likely that the Canada Lynx would have slain him.
Upon their arrival, Alexander lifted his head and stared at them with an expression that said the obvious: "It hurts."
"Oh, good lord..." Captain Smith uttered on his deep and powerful voice, approaching the wounded feline and dropping his Japanese. Coming to his knees, the Veteran of the Second Boer War gently picked up the cat, saying: "My poor Alexander... My good caracal..."
Cnut watched this, his ears down as he made a whining sound. Were they so quickly to lose Alexander?
Tears were streaming from Hippolyta's eyes as she tried her hardest not to cry. It was her fault. She knew that it was. If she had not been so far from the country house picking flowers, this never would have happened.
Alan could only stare with wide eyes as he quietly asked, his voice rich and smooth: "God, why must you do this?"
Captain Smith carried Alexander back to the country house, his daughter, nephew and wolfdog following after him, Cnut even carrying the Yumi as if it was a branch. Naturally, the sight of the Captain carrying the wounded caracal caused a huge commotion amongst the students, but there was no question or wonder when it came to who had done this. They knew that Miltiades had struck again.
To say that many of the students followed Captain Smith all the way to the parlour on the second floor would be untrue, for all forty of them went following him, filled with worry for Alexander. The teachers, now once again five as the three that had been on leave had returned, Captain Smith's fiancée Ms. Igraine Lombard, Mr. Cook and his sixteen-year-old daughter Gemma all took to calming down the students and attempted to get them to stop following, but a few did follow Captain Smith to the parlour.
The Egyptologist placed Alexander down upon a blanket on the chesterfield, right next to the female caracal Roxana. Once she had been hostile to Alexander, then cold, but now seeing him in such a state, the sandy-coloured female from India was overcome with worry. Immediately, she took licking the wounds of the Northern caracal.
As a female, Roxana was smaller than Alexander, sixteen inches tall at the shoulder, forty-inches in head-and-body length and with a tail of twelve inches in length. She was a year old, just as Alexander was, yet had come from a harder life. Having been acquired in India by Herr Ludwig von Fell, an exiled German noble and world-famous huntsman, for his circus, Roxana had been treated cruelly to the point that she had become cantankerous, mean-spirited and barbaric. She had much improved since Captain Smith had rescued Roxana from the Herr Ludwig von Fell Circus, yet had not been completely friendly when Alexander had arrived, only being completely comfortable with two people touching her: Captain Smith and Gemma.
Upon seeing the students behind Captain Smith, Roxana arched her back, narrowed her eyes, flattened her ears, growled and placed herself between Alexander and the students. The students all backed away, while Captain Smith gently stroked Roxana, saying: "They are fine, Roxana." Then to the students, he said: "Hercules, go and grab me another blanket! Daphne, go get cloths for me to help with the cleaning of the wounds! Philip, go tell Ms. Watson to call for the veterinarian! Quickly, children! Go! Now!"