At last, however, the vessel was loaded up, and nothing remained to be done except to bid some friends good-bye, and make purchase of a few curios to take to the old folks at home.
Tom and Captain Herbert were on shore, and had dined at one of the best hotels. Leaving his friend for a time Tom went out for a stroll and to enjoy the evening breeze, for the day had been very hot and sultry.
He stayed out longer than he had intended, and was making the best of his way back, when, in a side street through which he was passing by way of taking a short cut, he came suddenly upon a wildly-excited group of men and women, who had rushed pell-mell and fighting from the door of an inn.
Suddenly there was the short, sharp ring of a revolver, then a shrill scream, and next moment the crowd dispersed, running in all directions.
Tom hastened up to where by the dim light of a hanging lamp he could see a man supporting himself on his elbow, groaning and in agony.
“Are you much hurt?” asked Tom, bending over him.
“I’m—dying—O! I’m dying,” was the man’s reply.
In the arms of the landlord of the inn and a single watchman he was borne inside and laid on the floor of a badly-lighted room, and soon a medical man entered. The wounded man, a dark evil-countenanced foreigner, lay so still and white one might have taken him for dead.
“His hours are numbered,” said the surgeon at last. “Send for a priest.”
The doomed wretch opened his eyes now.