"Good God, man, are you dead?" he cried, and then came running at the thought. At the same instant Denis stepped from behind his tree.
"Throw up your hands before I fire!"
And up they both went, but one barked and flashed on the way, and the ball whispered in Denis's ear as he took deliberate aim and shot the scoundrel down.
"Take care!" he shouted to the others, rushing up. "I aimed low. He isn't dead. Don't trust him an inch!"
But the man had been drilled through the sciatic nerve, and he leaped where he lay like a landed fish. He had let fall the pistol in his pain, and Moseley had the pleasure of picking up his own.
"Has anybody any brandy?" asked Denis, for the wounded man looked ghastly, writhing in the starlight, and he was bearing his torments without a word; but when Moseley produced a flask, and Denis held it to him, the unbeaten brute only seized the opportunity of snatching at the revolver in his other hand.
"The blackguard!" piped Doherty, as Denis disengaged without a shot. "I'd finish him for that!"
"No, you wouldn't, Jimmy; but if he wants to grin and bear it, why, he's welcome—till they come for him! Come on, Moseley," added Denis, as that placid person characteristically took his time, under the gagged man's nose, over his stolen belongings. But in a few moments the three were off at the double, and in a few more the contents of a third revolver followed them without effect.
"I expected that," said Denis as they ran. "But what a fine villain! Not a word in his pain. Educated man, I should say."
"Mean to put the police on 'em to-night or in the morning?" called Moseley, with languid interest, as he jogged along last.