and they too,
though they were borne too rapidly by Aram to be able to rein in their
horses on the spot, had seen the solitary traveller, and already wheeled
round, and called upon him to halt!

The lightning was again gone, and the darkness snatched the robbers and
their intended victim from the sight of each other. But Aram had not
lost a moment; fast fled his horse across the moor, and when, with the
next flash, he looked back, he saw the ruffians, unwilling even for
booty to encounter the horrors of the night, had followed him but a few
paces, and again turned round; still he dashed on, and had now nearly
passed the moor; the thunder rolled fainter and fainter from behind, and
the lightning only broke forth at prolonged intervals, when suddenly,
after a pause of unusual duration, it brought the whole scene into a
light, if less intolerable, even more livid than before. The horse, that
had hitherto sped on without start or stumble, now recoiled in abrupt
affright; and the horseman, looking up at the cause, beheld the Gibbet
of which Houseman had spoken immediately fronting his path, with its
ghastly tenant waving to and fro, as the winds rattled through the
parched and arid bones; and the inexpressible grin of the skull fixed,
as in mockery, upon his countenance.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH WE RETURN TO WALTER.--HIS DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO
MR. PERTINAX FILLGRAVE.--THE CORPORAL'S ADVICE,
AND THE CORPORAL'S VICTORY.

Let a Physician be ever so excellent,
there will be those that censure him.
--Gil Blas.

We left Walter in a situation of that critical nature, that it would be
inhuman to delay our return to him any longer. The blow by which he had
been felled, stunned him for an instant; but his frame was of no common
strength and hardihood, and the imminent peril in which he was placed,
served to recall him from the momentary insensibility. On recovering
himself, he felt that the ruffians were dragging him towards the hedge,
and the thought flashed upon him that their object was murder. Nerved by
this idea, he collected his strength, and suddenly wresting himself from
the grasp of one of the ruffians who had seized him by the collar, he
had already gained his knee, and now his feet, when a second blow once
more deprived him of sense.

When a dim and struggling consciousness recurred to him; he found that
the villains had dragged him to the opposite si