Suddenly, as I was marching on a ridge of moorland about half a mile from the camp, I received a most shocking whack under the right ear, as if somebody had struck me with a big hockey-stick; and at the same moment a flash of broad fire started up, and then a roar from a clump of bushes just beneath me. How I saved myself from falling is more than I can tell, for I staggered very heavily, and my head went round. I cannot remember at all what I did, much less what I thought in this frightful amazement, though afterwards I tried to make it out more clearly. But I must have kept hold of my gun, although my right hand was jarred and tingling with it, and then I must have leaped into the bushy hollow, without time enough to realise the peril. And I shouted, which was a most stupid thing to do; but I know that I shouted, because one of the first things that fetched me to myself was the sound of my own voice. But there was no one for me to lay hold of, or to let drive at with the butt of my gun. The place was all silent and empty, and I saw a great star shining through the naked twigs from the crown of the ridge I had been crossing, and I knew that I had been shot at by the advantage of that star. To the inhabitants of a lawless country this may be little to dwell upon; but never having been among such crooked lines of action, I knew not what to make of it. My blood ran cold at the enormity of the thing; but without further reasoning I pulled out a brace of cartridges, which I ought to have done before entering the hollow, and slipped them into my old breechloader. Then I found that the right hammer would not move, and began to perceive what had happened. There was no time to go into that question now. With the left hammer cocked, and the muzzle level and ready for a snap-shot--though probably my nerve would have failed me at a fellow-creature--I searched every yard of the thicket, and then the gully which led to a little watercourse below. The night, having only that big star to help it, was so dark and baffling that a dozen men might have slipped away without leaving me any the wiser; and the only trace vouchsafed to me was a rustle of some bushes at the bottom of the slope where a hedge ran along. At this I brought my gun to my shoulder, for I might just have peppered a man down there, and that would have been a caution to him. However, on second thoughts, I did not fire, for by this time I was quite cool again, and the blaze might have brought another bullet at me before I could pop another cartridge in. So I marked the spot very carefully, and hurried home with gratitude.