the eyes,
upon which they were cramped with a spasm not yet relaxed.

"It is Hopkin ap Howel!" I cried, as the great eyes, glaring with the
horror of death, stood forth. "Black Hopkin once, white Hopkin now!
Robert Bowring, you have slain the man who slew your father."

"You know that I never meant to do it," said Bob. "Surely, uncle, it was
his own fault!"

"How did he come? I see no way. He was not here when I showed you the
place, or else we must have seen him."

"He came round the corner of that rock, that stands in front of the
furze-bush."

Now that we had the clue, a little examination showed the track. Behind
the furze-bush, a natural tunnel of rock, not more than a few yards
long, led into a narrow gorge covered with brushwood, and winding into
the valley below the farmhouse of the Dewless Crags. Thither we hurried
to obtain assistance, and there the whole mystery was explained.

Black Hopkin (who stole behind George Bowring and stunned, or, perhaps,
slew him with one vile blow) has this and this only to say at the
Bar--that he did it through love of his daughter.

Gwenthlian, the last of seven, lay dying on the day when my friend and
myself came up the valley of the Aydyr. Her father, a man of enormous
power of will and passion, as well as muscle, rushed forth of the house
like a madman, when the doctor from Dolgelly told him that nothing more
remained except to await the good time of heaven. It was the same deadly
decline which had slain every one of his children at that same age, and
now must extinguish a long descended and slowly impoverished family.

"If I had but a gold watch I could save her!" he cried in his agony, as
he left the house. "Ever since the old gold watch was sold, they have
died--they have died! They are gone, one after one, the last of all my
children!"

In these lonely valleys lurks a strange old superstition that even Death
must listen to the voice of Time in gold; that, when the scanty numbered
moments of the sick are fleeting, a gold watch laid in the wasted palm,
and pointing the earthly hours, compels the scythe of Death to pause,
the timeless power to bow before the two great gods of the human
race--time and gold.

Poor George in the valley must have shown his watch. The despairing
father must have been struck with crafty madness at the sight. The
watch was placed in his daughter's palm; but Death had no regard for
it. Thenceforth Black Hopkin was a blasted man, racked w