eper stared; the shot was one he had thought beyond
any man's range, and he set food and drink before his guest with a
crestfallen surprise, oddly mingled with veneration.

"You might have let me buy my breakfast, without making me do murder,"
said Bertie quietly, as he tried to eat. The meal was coarse--he could
scarcely touch it; but he drank the beer down thirstily, and took a
crust of bread. He slipped his ring, a great sapphire graven with his
crest, off his finger, and held it out to the man.

"That is worth fifty double-Fredericks. Will you take it in exchange for
your rifle and some powder and ball?"

The German stared again, open-mouthed, and clinched the bargain eagerly.
He did not know anything about gems, but the splendor of this dazzled
his eye, while he had guns more than enough, and could get many others
at his lord's cost. Cecil fastened a shot-belt round him, took a
powder-flask and cartridge-case, and with a few words of thanks, went on
his way.

Now that he held the rifle in his hand, he felt ready for the work
that was before him; if hunted to bay, at any rate he could now have a
struggle for his liberty. The keeper stood bewildered, gazing blankly
after him down the vista of pines.

"Hein! Hein!" he growled, as he looked at the sapphire
sparkling in his broad, brown palm; "I never saw such a
with-lavishness-wasteful-and-with-courteous-speech-laconic gentleman! I
wish I had not let him have the gun; he will take his own life, belikes;
ach, Gott! He will take his own life!"

But Cecil had not bought it for that end--though he had called himself
a fool for not sending a bullet through his brain, to quench in eternal
darkness this ruined and wretched life that alone remained to him. He
walked on through the still summer dawn, with the width of the country
stretching sun-steeped around him. The sleeplessness, the excitement,
the misery, the wild running of the past night had left him strengthless
and racked with pain, but he knew that he must press onward or be
caught, sooner or later, like netted game in the poacher's silken
mesh. Where to go, what to do, he knew no more than if he were a child;
everything had always been ready to his hand; the only thought required
of him had been how to amuse himself and avoid being bored; now thrown
alone on a mighty calamity, and brought face to face with the severity
and emergency of exertion, he was like a pleasure-boat beaten under
high billows, and driven