f,
and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed over the long moor,
reckless whether seen or not. But only once the other man turned round
and looked back again, and then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp
behind me.

Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as ride he might, I
saw that he had something on the horse in front of him; something which
needed care, and stopped him from looking backward. In the whirling of
my wits, I fancied first that this was Lorna; until the scene I had been
through fell across hot brain and heart, like the drop at the close of
a tragedy. Rushing there through crag and quag, at utmost speed of a
maddened horse, I saw, as of another's fate, calmly (as on canvas laid),
the brutal deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold despair.

The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to Cloven Rocks,
through which John Fry had tracked Uncle Ben, as of old related. But as
Carver entered it, he turned round, and beheld me not a hundred yards
behind; and I saw that he was bearing his child, little Ensie, before
him. Ensie also descried me, and stretched his hands and cried to me;
for the face of his father frightened him.

Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his flagging horse,
and laid one hand on a pistol-stock; whence I knew that his slung
carbine had received no bullet since the one that had pierced Lorna. And
a cry of triumph rose from the black depths of my heart. What cared I
for pistols? I had no spurs, neither was my horse one to need the rowel;
I rather held him in than urged him, for he was fresh as ever; and I
knew that the black steed in front, if he breasted the steep ascent,
where the track divided, must be in our reach at once.

His rider knew this; and, having no room in the rocky channel to turn
and fire, drew rein at the crossways sharply, and plunged into the black
ravine leading to the Wizard's Slough. "Is it so?" I said to myself
with a brain and head cold as iron; "though the foul fiend come from the
slough, to save thee; thou shalt carve it, Carver."

I followed my enemy carefully, steadily, even leisurely; for I had him,
as in a pitfall, whence no escape might be. He thought that I feared to
approach him, for he knew not where he was: and his low disdainful laugh
came back. "Laugh he who wins," thought I.

A gnarled and half-starved oak, as stubborn as my own resolve, and
smitten by some storm of old, hung from the crag above me. Risi