"We heard a shot and a cry. Did you call out?" he asked. "You are hurt. Can we do anything?"
The man was an undersized, mean-featured, ill-conditioned looking fellow. He had a low beetling brow, and his cheeks were black with the unshorn growth of several weeks. He was evidently badly hurt, and, villainous though he looked, Jack was eager to aid him.
"It is nothing," said the man, in a low and surly tone, with a slight foreign accent. "I am getting better, if only the bleeding would stop!"
Jack could see the handkerchief was drenched with blood.
"You were shot! Who fired?" he asked.
"Ah, who? I want to know. It was all at once. I did not see."
"And how did it happen, then?"
"Why, I walk along, looking straight in front, when behind me a shot is fired. I feel the pain. I call out; the pain indeed is no little; see, the bullet cut my scalp three inches long, at least. A little lower, and without doubt I am a dead man."
"And you did not see who fired?"
"No, how can I? I turn round; but the villain hears you as you come, and he escapes. That way I hear him go."