Before they could come near enough to use a weapon, however, the three ruffians scattered like frightened cats, leaping the wall near an adjoining woodland, into the gloom of which they speedily vanished.
It was obvious to Nick that pursuit would be vain, so he hastened to the side of the fallen man, who had been left prostrate in the road, and helped him to his feet.
The man was Jean Pylotte.
He was panting hard after the conflict, the fake character of which Nick could not then foresee. His coat was ripped up the back, his linen collar torn off, and he was deathly pale, with a smutch of blood across his cheek. In one hand he held a revolver, and in the other—a chunk of coal.
"Are you wounded, stranger?" Nick quickly demanded, as he studied the man's pale face.
"Not much—not badly, I think," gasped Pylotte, trembling violently. "But it's lucky you came. They'd surely have killed me."
Nick noticed that he spoke with a slight foreign accent, and was a man of considerable physical prowess.
"There's blood on your face," said he.
"It came from one of them, I think," said Pylotte, drawing his sleeve across his cheek to remove the stain. "I must have wounded one of them."
"It's a pity you did not kill him," said Nick, bluntly. "Was it you who fired the gun?"