Then another shot was fired, and this time, although apparently the shooter had missed his aim, Lord Henry quickly seized the whole tragic meaning of what had occurred.
He was nothing if not a quick thinker. It was clear to him now, particularly in view of all he knew, that whoever had fired that first shot had meant to hit Leonetta. It was also abundantly clear that the second shot was a second attempt because the first had failed, and concluding from the sound that the assailant would be somewhere between him and the shooting party, he swerved without any further hesitation, sharply to the left, and ran as hard as he could in the direction of the group that had now gathered round Stephen. He dodged the trees and undergrowth as well as he could, and tried as he proceeded to scan all the intervening ground.
He knew Cleopatra was reported to be a good shot; he had little doubt, therefore, as to who the assailant was; but as he tore through the undergrowth he was too much appalled by the thought of the tragic development he had just witnessed, to think with anything but consternation on behalf of the creature who, during the past week, had become so dear to him.
He was not a bow-shot from the shooting party, however, when all of a sudden, at a distance of a couple of yards from him, crouching behind a tangle of bushes, her face deathly white, and her hands struggling to adjust the fire-arm she held in such a position as to do herself some mortal injury, he espied Cleopatra,—Cleopatra now a dangerous murderess.
He dashed madly towards her, stooped to snatch her weapon, a rook-rifle, from her, and swinging it high in the air, flung it back among the bushes and bracken he had just crossed.
"Are you mad!" he cried.
But there was no response. The girl had fallen back in a swoon, and a twitching of her fingers showed that even now her half-conscious mind was busy trying to find the trigger of the deadly rook-rifle.
A rapid examination revealed the fact that she was quite uninjured, and concluding that she could be safely left where she was for a few minutes, he ran off again in the direction of the wounded or murdered man.
As to what happened after that, the reader has already been informed.