The next moment the sound of snapping twigs fell distinctly on his ear. He turned suddenly and caught a momentary glimpse of a white face peering over a hedge. "By Heaven, it's that scoundrel Penlogan!" was the thought that darted suddenly through his mind. The next moment there was a flash, a report, a stinging pain in his left arm and cheek, and then a moment of utter mental confusion. He recovered himself in a moment or two and took to his heels. He had been shot, he knew, but with what effect he could not tell. His left arm hung limply by his side and felt like a burning coal. His cheek was smarting intolerably, but the extent of the damage he had no means of ascertaining. He might be fatally hurt for all he knew. Any moment he might fall dead in the road, and the young villain who had shot him might go unpunished. "I must prevent that if possible," he said to himself, as he kept running at the top of his speed. "I must hold out till I get home. Oh, I do hope my strength will not fail me! It's a terrible thing to be done to death in this way." The perspiration was running in streams down his face. His breath came and went in gasps, but he never slackened his pace for a moment; and still as he ran the conviction grew and deepened in his mind that a deliberate attempt had been made to murder him. He came within sight of the house at length, and began to shout at the top of his voice-- "Help! help! Murder! Be quick----" The coachman and the stable boy, who happened to be discussing politics in the yard at the moment, took to their heels and both ran in the same direction. They came upon their master, hatless and exhausted, and were just in time to catch him in their arms before he sank to the ground. "Oh, I've been murdered!" he gasped. "Think of it, murdered in my own plantation! Carry me home, and then go for the doctor and the police. That young Penlogan shall swing for this." "But you can't be murdered, master," the coachman said soothingly, "for you're alive and able to talk." "But I'm nearly done for," he groaned. "I feel my life ebbing away fast. Get me home as quickly as you can. I hope I'll live till the policeman comes." The two men locked hands, and made a kind of chair for their master, and then marched away towards the house. Sir John talked incessantly all the distance. "If I die before I get home," he said, "don't forget what I am telling you. Justice must be done in a case like this. Won't there be a sensation in the county when people learn that I was deliberately murdered in my own plantation!" "But why should Ralph Penlogan want to murder you?" the coachman queried. "Why? Don't ask me. He came to the house the day his father died and threatened me. I saw murder in his eyes then. I believe he would have murdered me in my own library if he had had the chance. But make haste, for my strength is ebbing out rapidly." "I don't think you are going to die yet, sir," the coachman said cheerfully.