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s you told it to me.' Ryder seated himself on a block near the tent entrance, his back half turned to the others, and neither spoke nor moved throughout the narration. Stony looked from one to the other, and then commenced his story. He told it in a monotonous voice, with a dull face and eyes heavy with drink. 'We were always enemies, Dick Done and I--enemies as boys at school at Chisley, fighting over everything, picking at each other from morn till night. As young chaps we remained enemies. It seemed as if God or the devil had sent us to plague each other. Our enmity grew with us. In manhood we were as bitter as death. Then the woman came. We both wanted her. It was just natural of us to get set on the same girl. She liked him--she didn't care a snap of her fingers for me; but I didn't give up. I followed her, plagued her, persecuted her, and hated Done worse than poison. With all my soul I hated him! Of course, we quarrelled over her, and Done went so far as to talk of killing. He didn't mean it, perhaps, but it told against him later. One bright night I came on him and her sitting on Harry's Crag. 'Twasn't an accident. I'd been told they'd gone down to the sea, and I followed. I interfered, furious at heart, but making a show of civility, knowing that would madden him. He was soon up in arms. He tried to drive me off, struck me. I used my stick, and we fought there and then--fought like madmen on the cliff edge, two hundred feet above the sea. The girl, frightened almost to death, ran away. Done got my stick from me, and we fought with our hands. He could beat me at that game, and at length struck me a blow that stunned me; then he left me lying there, and went after the girl.' Stony paused for a moment, and, drawing a bottle from the back of his bunk, took a long drink. Then his eyes wandered to Ryder again, and he went on: 'When I came to I was alone. I crept a little further from the edge of the cliff, and lay down again. I was pretty badly knocked about; my nose was bleeding freely. Presently, moving my hand, I struck a knife--his knife! It was closed. I opened it, looking at the long blade. The idea had already formed in my mind. I smeared the blade with blood, and dropped the knife, open as it was, over the cliff, being careful that it should fall on the ledge about twenty feet below. Then I smeared blood upon the brink, tore a scrap from my coat, and left it there, throwing the coat with the hat into
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