es he glide over the open ground. Though
going in a gallop, every now and then, as before, he keeps slewing round
in the saddle and gazing back with apprehensiveness, in fear he may see
forms issuing from the timber's edge, and coming on after.

None appear, however; and, at length, arriving by the bluffs base, he
draws up under its shadow, darker now, for clouds are beginning to
dapple the sky, making the moon's light intermittent. Again, he appears
uncertain about the direction he should take; and seated in his saddle,
looks inquiringly along the facade of the cliff, scrutinising its
outline.

Not long before his scrutiny is rewarded. A dark disc of triangular
shape, the apex inverted, proclaims a break in the escarpment. It is
the embouchure of a ravine, in short the pass he has been searching for,
the same already known to the reader. Straight towards it he rides,
with the confidence of one who has climbed it before. In like manner he
enters between its grim jaws, and spurs his horse up the slope under the
shadow of rocks overhanging right and left. He is some twenty minutes
in reaching its summit, on the edge of the upland plain. There he
emerges into moonlight; for Luna has again looked out.

Seated in his saddle he takes a survey of the bottom-land below. Afar
off, he can distinguish the dark belt of timber, fringing the river on
both sides, with here and there a reach of water between, glistening in
the moon's soft light like molten silver. His eyes rest not on this,
but stray over the open meadow, land in quest of something there.

There is nothing to fix his glance, and he now feels safe, for the first
time since starting on that prolonged retreat.

Drawing a free breath he says, soliloquising:--

"No good my going farther now. Besides I don't know the trail, not a
foot farther. No help for it but stay here till Borlasse and the boys
come up. They can't be much longer, unless they've had a fight to
detain them; which I don't think at all likely, after what the
half-blood told us. In any case some of them will be this way. Great
God! To think of Sime Woodley being here! And after me, sure, for the
killing of Clancy! Heywood, too, and Harkness along with them! How is
that, I wonder? Can they have met my old jailer on the way, and brought
him back to help in tracing me? What the devil does it all mean? It
looks as if the very Fates were conspiring for my destruction.

"And who the fel