l?" he asked, when he had tightened it to his
satisfaction.

"I've got much the same sort of feeling here," I replied, tapping my
chest gingerly.

His face grew grave again, and before doing anything more he fished my
flask out of my pocket, and insisted upon my taking a liberal draught of
the contents. Not until then would he examine me.

"Your bleeding powers would do credit to a bullock," he commented, as he
cut away my shirt: "but beyond loss of blood, I don't think there's much
harm done."

His first impression was correct. A cursory examination was quite
sufficient to convince him that I was not much hurt.

"Just a nasty furrow," he remarked. "Pretty painful, I suppose. The
bullet glanced off, turned by that leather coat of yours, I presume.
Lucky for you; as it is, you will be all right in the fortnight."

I felt relieved by his tone, and assured him, when he had patched me up
temporarily with strips torn from my shirt-sleeves and my own
handkerchief, that I felt very little of the injury.

"Now take my seat," he said, as he buttoned my coat round me. "I think
I have had enough experience of motoring to ensure my taking you in
safety to the nearest surgeon. It's infernally bad luck, though," he
continued. "I would swear one of us must have hit our friend, and if we
were only in a position to follow him up, we should be pretty certain to
effect a capture."

My mind had been considerably relieved to find that I was not seriously
injured, and the dose of whisky I had taken had pulled me together.

"You've bound me up pretty tightly?" I asked.

"You are right enough until we find a doctor," he answered.

"In that case," I said, "if there's any chance of our catching our man
to-night, I'm not going to chuck it away. Put the light back and let us
get on."

My mind was made up on the subject. One reason was that physical pain
always makes me feel mad, and I would have given a great deal to get
even with the Pirate for that reason alone. Besides, call it vanity or
what you will, I wasn't going to let any one say I had allowed a scratch
to bowl me over. So the moment Forrest had replaced the light, I resumed
my seat in the car, asserting that I was fully capable of driving.

The detective attempted to dissuade me from the attempt, but I was bent
upon having my own way. He did not argue the question at any length, for
as soon as he was in the car I backed into the middle of the road and
jammed on our highes