And truly, when I had lighted both my candles, and taken a good draught of ale to refresh me, I perceived that my escape had been marvellous, and I knelt down and thanked God for it; though I have never been able, as many persons are, to believe myself the main shareholder of Divine protection. A heavy bullet had been fired at me with accuracy undeniable. And it must have dropped me as dead as a stone, passing upward into my poor brain, if my own good trusty gun had not been on my shoulder. Happily for me the lead had struck the lock-plate just above the trigger, and failing to enter the steel of course, had glanced upward and passed through the brim of my hat, cutting a groove in the crown as well, but touching never a hair of my head. My right ear was red as a radish from the jar of the stock against it, and the spring and tumblers of the lock were jammed; but I soon put them to right again. What cowardly and cold-blooded miscreant could thirst for the life of a harmless, quiet, and unpretentious fellow thus? No enemy had I, to the best of my knowledge, in all the wide world, for the simple reason that I never wronged, insulted, or looked down upon anybody; and whenever I could not get on with a man, I let him go his way, while I went mine--unless he brought a pole across my shins; and even then, if he was sorry, I forgave him. But one thing was very clear to my mind, when I had lighted an eager pipe, and dwelt on it (sliding along the gentle slope, where a blue cloud routs black vapours), that no Englishman ever would have crawled like that, to pot a brother Englishman. Then I thought of the sneaking shot from the gun of Rakhan which had killed Sûr Dadian, when he was returning full of joy to his ancestral castle; and the thing became almost as plain to me as if the sunlight had been poured on it. Captain Strogue would never have done it; a bravo he might be, but not a Thug--if there is any meaning in any man's eyes. But the tall dark fellow, that son of Rakhan who would not come up to look at me, Hafer, who was come to fetch Sûr Imar, he was the miscreant who tried to shoot me.