was finished; for his stolen pleasures had lost a considerable part of
their original sweetness, and their cost _was_ heavy. It would be
quite a change, too, to get back to Grim and the others, and be the
ordinary common sort of fellow again.

Raffles went and wound up the throwing apparatus, and set the clay pigeon
on the rest. Jack took his breech-loader, raised it to the shoulder, and
said, "Ready!" Raffles pulled the string, the dummy bird rocketed up, and
Jack pressed the trigger.

For one second afterwards Jack did not rightly know what had happened.
There was a blinding flash before his eyes, a something tore off his cap,
and something stung his cheeks like spirts of scalding water. His left
hand felt numb and dead. This all happened in the fraction of a moment.

Jack looked at the gun in stupid wonder. The breech was clean blown out!
With a groan of horror, he dropped the gun. He realized that he had
escaped death by a miracle. He put up his right hand to his face, which
felt on fire, and stared blankly at Raffles.

That worthy was scared out of his wits; but when he saw Jack was more or
less alive, he managed to jerk out--

"That was a squeak, young shaver! Hurt any?"

"Don't know," said Jack, blankly.

Raffles anxiously examined him, and it was with no end of relief he
said--

"Clean bill, sir--bar those flecks of powder on your cheek.
Considering--well you're--we're--lucky."

"Rather," said Jack, dizzily. "That's my cap isn't it?"

Yards away was Jack's cap, and Raffles brought it. His face was
white--white above a bit. There was a clean cut through the brim, and a
neat, straightforward tear-out of an inch or so of the front just above
the crest.

"Well," said Raffles, looking narrowly at that business-like damage. "All
I can say is you're lucky."

"Lucky! Yes," said Jack. "I suppose I'd better go. Let's have the thing.
An inch lower down, and I'd have had that piece of barrel in my head--or
through it. It wants thinking over."

"I suppose, sir, you're going to----"

"Oh, the cash you mean! Eh?"

"Yes, that was my meaning."

"Your cash will be all right, man. Come down for it on Friday--can't
you?"

"How if I can't, young shaver?" said Raffles of Rotherhithe.

"Then do without it! Anyhow, I'm going now--I'm too sick."

"All right," said Raffles, sulkily. "On Thursday."

Jack, without another word, stumbled across the fields into the farmyard,
and luckily found Acton ready for home.