ick. Suppose it had gone off!"

"I wish it had," panted the prostrate boy, with a vicious look.

"What! Why, it might have killed me!" cried Waller.

"I wish it had," repeated the boy viciously.

"Stuff! You are savage because you are beaten."

"Get off!" cried the stranger; and he made a desperate effort to throw
his adversary from his chest, but only for Waller to wrench out his
hands plant them upon the other's breast, and thrust him down helpless
and exhausted, while he raised himself up, got well astride, and sat up,
laughing in the stranger's face, as he raised one hand and dragged the
strap of the creel over his head and tossed it aside.

"Got rid of you," he muttered. "There, it's no good," he cried. "I
have you quite tight. If you try to get up again I will give you such a
drubbing."

"Oh-oh!" groaned the boy addressed, passionately; and his breast heaved
with the despairing, hysterical sobs that struggled for utterance.

"Ah, that's right!" cried Waller. "You had better lie still. I am too
strong for a fellow like you."

"Yes," panted the other; "I'm beaten. It's all over now."

"Then you give in?" cried Waller, who grew more and more excited in his
triumph, while he gazed down at the distorted countenance beneath him,
wondering who the lad was and why there was a something un-English in
his accent and the turn of his words, though they sounded native all the
same.

"Yes, I give up," panted the boy; "and you can be proud of having
mastered a poor starving wretch who never did you any harm."

"No, because I stopped you," cried Waller. "Who are you, and where did
you steal that pistol?"

"It was my own," said the other proudly.

"But what were you doing with that pistol here?--poaching, I suppose?
Lucky for you my fine fellow, that I stopped you. Do you know what
would have happened to you if you had killed one of the deer? Ha, ha,
ha! Killed one of the deer! Why, you could not have hit a haystack
with that thing."

"Deer!" cried the lad. "I did not want to kill the deer."

"Don't believe you!" cried Waller.

The lad's face flushed, and an indignant flash darted from his eyes.

"How dare you doubt my word of honour," he cried. "Here, let me get
up."

"Shan't! Lie still!" shouted Waller, flinging out his doubled fist and
holding it within a few inches of his prisoner's nose. "Your word of
honour, eh? Why, who do you call yourself, my dirty, ragged Jack, with
your honour!