life by simulating
death. But why recount all the attempts on my life? Another time, perhaps.
The subject is not a pleasant one, but this I will say: I never spared a
Griscelli that I had not cause to regret my clemency. The last I spared
was the young man who tried to murder me down in the wood there; and if he
does not repay my forbearance by repeating the attempt, he will be false
to the traditions of his race.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

EPILOGUE.

It is scarcely necessary to observe that the deciphering of Mr.
Fortescue's notes and the writing of his memoirs were not done in a day.
There were gaps to be filled up, obscure passages to be elucidated, and
parts of several chapters and the whole of the last were written to his
dictation, so that the summer came and went, and another hunting-season
was "in view," before my work, in its present shape, was completed. I
would fain have made it more complete by giving a fuller account of Mr.
Fortescue's adventures (some of which must have been very remarkable)
between his first return from South America and his appearance at Matching
Green, and I should doubtless have been able to do so (for he had promised
to continue and amplify his narrative during the winter, as also to give
me the recipe of his elixir), had not our intercourse been abruptly
terminated by one of the strangest events in my experience and, I should
think, in his.

But, before going further, I would just observe that Mr. Fortescue's
cynicism, which, when I first knew him, had rather repelled me, was only
skin-deep. Though he held human life rather cheaper than I quite liked, he
was a kind and liberal master and a generous giver. His largesses were
often princely and invariably anonymous, for he detested everything that
savored of ostentation and parade. On the other hand, he had no more
tolerance for mendicants in broadcloth than for beggars in rags, and to
those who asked he gave nothing. As an instance of his dislike of
publicity, I may mention that I had been with him several months before I
discovered that he had published, under a pseudonym, several scientific
works which, had he acknowledged them, would have made him famous.

After Guiseppe Griscelli's attempt on his life, I prevailed on Mr.
Fortescue never to go outside the park gates unaccompanied; when he went
to town, or to Amsterdam, Ramon always went with him, and both were armed.
I also gave strict orders to the lodge-keepers to admit no str