tolerably unlucky in your face." And indeed the
Under-Sheriff had set out from Truro at dawn and imbibed much brandy on
the road.

"Open the gate!" he foamed.

Roger stepped back and chose his gun. "You'd best lead him away quiet,"
he advised the men in the road. "You won't? Then I'll give the fool till
I count three. One--two--three." And he let off his gun full in the
Under-Sheriff's face.

The poor man staggered back, clapped his hand to his jaw, and howled; for
the discharge was close enough to scorch his face and singe his wig.
Also one eyebrow was burnt, and before he knew if he still retained his
sight, his horse had plunged free and was galloping down the road with the
whole posse in pursuit, and only too glad of the excuse for running.

"Turn loose the bull!" shouted Roger, swinging round towards the house.

The Under-Sheriff found his legs, and bolted for dear life after his horse.

X.

Travellers in the Great Sahara report many marvels, but none so mysterious
and inexplicable as its power of carrying rumour. The desert (say they)
is one vast echoing gossip-shop, and a man cannot be killed in the dawn at
Mabruk but his death will be whispered before night at Bel Abbas or Amara,
and perhaps bruited before the next sun rises on the sea-coast or beside
the shores of Lake Chad.

We need not wonder, therefore, that within a few hours the whole of West
Cornwall knew how Roger Stephen had defied the Under-Sheriff and fired
upon him. Indeed, it is likely enough that in the whole of West Cornwall,
at the moment, Roger Stephen was the man least aware of the meaning of the
Under-Sheriff's visit and least alive to its consequences. Ever since his
father's death that desolate county had been humming with his fame: his
wrongs had been discussed at every hearthside, and his probable action.
There were cottages so far away as St. Ives where the dispute over Steens
had been followed intently through each step in the legal proceedings and
the issue of each step speculated on, while in Steens itself the master
sat inert and blind to all but the righteousness of his cause--thanks in
part to Malachi, but in part also to his own taciturn habit. Men did not
gossip with him; they watched him. He was even ignorant that Mrs. Stephen
had been pelted with mud in the streets of Penzance, and forced to pack
and take refuge in Plymouth.

Next morning Malachi brought word of another small body of men on the
road, a