time had come.
What I long suspected arrived, and he told me in his own study he knew
me, and wanted money. The money didn't matter; of that I could spare
abundance, though 'tis the nature of such a tax to swell to
confiscation. But the man who gets a sixpence from you on such terms is
a tyrant and your master, and I can't brook slavery.

'I owed the fellow no ill-will; upon my honour, as a gentleman; I
forgive him, as I hope he has forgiven me. It was all fair he should
try. We can't help our instincts. There's something wolfish in us all. I
was vexed at his d----d folly, though, and sorry to have to put him out
of the way. However, I saw I must be rid of him.

'There was no immediate hurry. I could afford to wait a little. I
thought he would walk home on the night I met him. He had gone into town
in Colonel Strafford's carriage. It returned early in the afternoon
without him. I knew his habits; he dined at Keating's ordinary at four
o'clock; and Mercer, whom he had to speak with, would not see him, on
his bill of exchange business, in his counting-house. Sturk told me so;
and he must wait till half-past five at his lodgings. What he had to say
was satisfactory, and I allowed five minutes for that.

'Then he might come home in a coach. But he was a close-fisted fellow
and loved a shilling; so it was probable he would walk. His usual path
was by the Star Fort, and through the thorn woods between that and the
Magazine. So I met him. I said I was for town, and asked him how he had
fared in his business; and turned with him, walking slowly as though to
hear. I had that loaded whalebone in my pocket, and my sword, but no
pistol. It was not the place for firearms; the noise would have made an
alarm. So I turned sharp upon him and felled him. He knew by an
intuition what was about to happen, for as the blow fell he yelled
"murder." That d----d fellow, Nutter, in the wood at our right, scarce a
hundred yards away, halloed in answer. I had but time to strike him two
blows on the top of his head that might have killed an ox. I felt the
metal sink at the second in his skull, and would have pinked him through
with my sword, but the fellow was close on me, and I thought I knew the
voice for Nutter's. I stole through the bushes swiftly, and got along
into the hollow under the Magazine, and thence on.

'There was a slight fog upon the park, and I met no one. I got across
the park-wall, over the quarry, and so down by the stream at