: the ball had luckily buried itself in the ground.

Tom turned, to rush down hill again, and meet the impatient Stangrave.

Crack--whing--g--g!

"A bullet!"

Yes! And, prodigy on prodigy, up the hill towards him charged, as he
would upon a whole army, a Prussian gendarme, with bayonet fixed.

Tom sat down upon the mountain-side, and burst into inextinguishable
laughter, while the gendarme came charging up, right toward his very
nose.

But up to his nose he charged not; for his wind was short, and the noise
of his roaring went before him. Moreover, he knew that Tom had a
revolver, and was a "mad Englishman." Now, he was not afraid of Tom, or
of a whole army: but he was a man of drills and of orders, of rules and
of precedents, as a Prussian gendarme ought to be; and for the modes of
attacking infantry, cavalry, and artillery, man, woman, and child, thief
and poacher, stray pig, or even stray wolf, he had drill and orders
sufficient: but for attacking a Colt's revolver, none.

Moreover, for arresting all manner of riotous Burschen, drunken boors,
French red Republicans, Mazzini-hatted Italian refugees, suspect Polish
incendiaries, or other feras naturse, he had precedent and regulation:
but for arresting a mad Englishman, none. He held fully the opinion of
his superiors, that there was no saying what an Englishman might not,
could not, and would not do. He was a sphinx, a chimera, a lunatic broke
loose, who took unintelligible delight in getting wet, and dirty, and
tired, and starved, and all but lolled; and called the same "taking
exercise:" who would see everything that nobody ever cared to see, and
who knew mysteriously everything about everywhere; whose deeds were like
his opinions, utterly subversive of all constituted order in heaven and
earth; being, probably, the inhabitant of another planet; possibly the
man in the moon himself, who had been turned out, having made his native
satellite too hot to hold him. All that was to be done with him was to
inquire whether his passport was correct, and then (with a due regard to
self-preservation) to endure his vagaries in pitying wonder.

So the gendarme paused panting; and not daring to approach, walked
slowly and solemnly round Tom, keeping the point of his bayonet
carefully towards him, and roaring at intervals--

"You have murdered the young man!"

"But I have not!" said Tom. "Look and see."

"But I saw him fall!"

"But he has got up again, and run away."