As it was, the point of the shoulder was riddled,
and so to a somewhat smaller extent was the back of his neck and the
region of the right ear. One or two outside pellets had also struck
the head higher up, and the skin and muscles along the back were torn
by the passage of shot.
"By Jove!" said Mr. Quest, "I think he is done for."
The Colonel nodded. He had some experience of shot wounds, and the
present was not of a nature to encourage hope of the patient's
survival.
"How did it happen?" asked Mr. Quest presently, as he mopped up the
streaming blood with a sponge.
"It was an accident," groaned the Colonel. "Your wife was looking at
my new gun. I told her it was loaded, and that she must be careful,
and I thought she had put it down. The next thing that I heard was the
report. It is all my cursed fault for leaving the cartridges in."
"Ah," said Mr. Quest. "She always thought she understood guns. It is a
shocking accident."
Just then one of the doctors, followed by Belle Quest, ran up the lawn
carrying a box of instruments, and in another minute was at work. He
was a quick and skilful surgeon, and having announced that the patient
was not dead, at once began to tie one of the smaller arteries in the
throat, which had been pierced, and through which Edward Cossey was
rapidly bleeding to death.
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