ol.

Mr. Saul made a last frantic effort to restrain his friend; he seized
the judge's arm just as the latter's finger pressed the trigger, and
an instant later Fentress staggered back with the judge's bullet in his
shoulder.

CHAPTER XXXVI. THE END AND THE BEGINNING

It was not strange that a number of gentlemen in and about Raleigh
yielded to an overmastering impulse to visit newer lands, nor was it
strange that the initial steps looking toward the indulgence of their
desires should have been taken in secrecy. Mr. Pegloe was one of the
first to leave; Mr. Saul had informed him of the judge's declared
purpose of shooting him on sight. Even without this useful hint the
tavern-keeper had known that he should experience intense embarrassment
in meeting the judge; this was now a dreary certainty.

"You reckon he means near all he says?" he had asked, his fat sides
shaking.

"I'd take his word a heap quicker than I would most folks," answered Mr.
Saul with conviction.

Pegloe promptly had a sinking spell. He recalled the snuffing of
the candles by the judge, an extremely depressing memory under the
circumstances, also the reckless and headlong disregard of consequences
which had characterized so many of that gentleman's acts, and his plans
shaped themselves accordingly, with this result: that when the judge
took occasion to call at the tavern, and the hostile nature of his visit
was emphasized by the cautious manner of his approach, he was greatly
shocked to discover that his intended victim had sold his business
overnight for a small lump sum to Mr. Saul's brother-in-law, who had
appeared most opportunely with an offer.

Pegloe's flight created something of a sensation, but it was dwarfed by
the sensation that developed a day or so later when it became known
that Tom Ware and Colonel Fentress had likewise fled the country. Still
later, Fentress' body, showing marks of violence, was washed ashore at a
wood-yard below Girard. It was conjectured that he and Ware had set
out from The Oaks to cross the river; there was reason to believe that
Fentress had in his possession at the time a considerable sum of money,
and it was supposed that his companion had murdered and robbed him. Of
Ware's subsequent career nothing was ever known.

These were, after all, only episodes in the collapse of the Clan,
sporific manifestations of the great work of disintegration that was
going forward and which the judge, more than an