Seven hours! Again he lifted his hands to his head.

His hair was stiff and matted with blood.

It had congealed thickly on his cheek and neck and had soaked the top of his coat.

He had bled a great deal, so much that he wondered he was alive, and yet during those hours his captors had given him no assistance, had not even bound a cloth about his head.
Did they believe that the shot had killed him, that he was already dead when they flung him into the dungeon?
Or was this only one other instance of the barbaric brutishness of those who so insistently sought his life?
The fighting blood rose in him with returning strength.

If they had left him a weapon, even the small knife they had taken from his pocket, he would still make an effort to settle a last score or two.
But now he was helpless.
There was, however, a ray of hope in the possibility that they believed him dead.