The ball, which he had meant for the heart, his sight being taken under
the fore-shoulder, was raised and thrown forward by the motion of the
horse, and passed clean through the neck close to the blade bone.
Another leap, wilder and loftier than the last! yet still the stag
dashed onward, with the blood gushing out in streams from the wide
wound, though as yet neither speed nor strength appeared to be impaired,
so fleetly did he scour the meadow.
"He will cross, Frank yet!" cried Archer. "Mark! mark him, Forester!"
But, as he spoke, he set his rifle down against the fence, and halloaed
to the hounds, which instantly, obedient to his well known and cheery
whoop, broke covert in a body, and settled, heads up and sterns down, to
the blazing scent.
At the same moment A--- came trotting out from his post, gun in hand;
while at a thundering gallop, blaspheming awfully as he came on, and
rating them for "know-nothins, and blunderin' etarnal spoil-sports," Tom
rounded the farther hill, and spurred across the level. By this time
they were all in sight of Forester, who stood on foot, close to his
horse, in the mouth of the last gorge, the buck running across him sixty
yards off, and quartering a little from him toward the road; the hounds
were, however, all midway between him and the quarry, and as the ground
sloped steeply from the marksman, he was afraid of firing low--but took
a long, and, as it seemed, sure aim at the head.
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