e
road, had popped his head out of his garden door at the very moment
that Tristram whizzed by, followed by the detonation. The burgher,
too, was uncertain about the bullet, but determined on the instant to
take the gloomier view. He therefore fell across the pavement on his
stomach and bellowed.

The distraction was so sudden that two of the pursuers tripped over
his prostrate form and fell headlong. Their swords clanged on the
cobbles. With the clang there mingled the sound of a muffled
explosion.

"Curse the idiot! You've killed him, Dick."

The pair picked themselves up as their comrades leapt past them.
Dick snatched up his second pistol, and resumed the pursuit without
troubling his head about the burgher.

The burgher picked himself up and extracted the ball--from the folds
of his voluminous breeches. Then he went indoors for ointment and
plaster, the flame of the powder having scorched him severely.
Later he had the bent guelder (which had diverted the bullet)
fastened to a little gold chain, and his wife wore it always on the
front of her bodice. Finally it became an heirloom in a thriving
Dutch family.

But he was a very slow man, and all this took a considerable time.
Meanwhile we have left Tristram running, about thirty yards ahead of
his foremost enemy.

He gained the end of the quiet suburb, still maintaining his
distance, and scanned the landscape in front. Evening was descending
fast. To his right he saw the waters of a broad canal glimmering
under the grey sky. Straight before him the high-road ran, without
so much as a tree to shelter him, for miles. On the horizon a score
of windmills waved their arms like beckoning ghosts. He was a good
swimmer. It flashed upon him that his one hope was to make for the
canal and strike for the farther bank. There was a reasonable chance
of shaking off one or more of his pursuers by this device.

He leapt the narrow ditch that ran parallel with the road, and began
to bear across the green meadows in a line which verged towards the
canal-bank, at an angle sufficiently acute to prevent his foes from
intercepting him by a short cut. By their shouts he judged that his
guess was fairly correct, and the prospect of having to swim the
canal daunted them somewhat. He looked over his shoulder. The pace
had told upon three of them, but one man had actually gained on him,
and could not be more than twenty strides behind.

"I shall have to settle with