'Ah, the sleuth-hounds are everywhere around,' he cried, as faint
and confused shouts came from the road and the country side. 'But I
am safe here, at least for a time;' and he looked gratefully at the
grand sheltering solitude about him. No footprint desecrated this
sanctuary of nature.
He had taken nothing to eat since the evening before; and pangs of
hunger began to gnaw him. He walked a short way toward a large, grey
rock near which he heard a gurgling sound; and as he advanced he saw
that a little stream of water gushed from beneath the base. He drank
copiously of the pure, cold spring, and bathed his temples; but in
carrying the water to his forehead he noticed that one of his hands
was crusted with blood. Then for the first time had the thought of
his wound recurred to him.
Stripping himself of his coat, waistcoat and shirt, he perceived
that he had lost an immense quantity of blood. Tearing a piece off
his linen shirt he proceeded to moisten the coagulated blood to
ascertain the nature of his hurt. He soon found that the ball had hit
him obliquely upon the breast, glanced, and gone round, making a
serious flesh wound.
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