Miles had aimed, he thought, at the man’s breast, but the bullet entered under his chin and went crashing into his brain. A gush of warm blood spouted over Miles’s face as the wretch plunged over him, head first, and fell close by his side. He did not die at once. The nature of the ground prevented Miles from seeing him, but he could hear him gradually gasp his life away.
A few minutes later and footsteps were heard ascending the hillock. Miles grasped his revolver with a hand that now trembled from increasing weakness, but he was by that time unable to put the weapon on full cock. Despair had well-nigh seized him, when a familiar voice was heard.
“This way, lads. I’m sure it was hereabouts that I saw the flash.”
“Macleod!” gasped Miles, as the big Scotsman was about to pass.
“Losh me! John Miles, is that you? Are ye leevin?”
“Scarcely!” was all that the poor youth could utter ere he became again insensible.
A fatigue party tramped up with a stretcher at the moment. Macleod with a handkerchief checked the ebbing tide of life, and they bore away from the bloody field what seemed little more than the mortal remains of poor Miles Milton.