on fire and made his blood rush into his face, and beat on his
ear-drums like thunder. He could scarcely stand. A fierce joy ran
through his veins, and the fiery radiations of his life colored
the air around him; he saw everything red. The venn, a narrow morass
with only one safe crossing, was before them; in a few moments they
were on its margin. Liot suddenly stopped; the leather strings of
his _rivlins_[2] had come unfastened, and he dropped the stick he
carried in order to retie them. At this point there was a slight
elevation on the morass, and Bele looked at Liot as he put his
foot upon it, asking sharply:

"Is this the crossing?"

Liot fumbled at his shoe-strings and said not a word; for he knew it
was _not_ the crossing.

"Is this the crossing, Liot?" Bele again asked. And again Liot
answered neither yes nor no. Then Bele flew into a passion and cried
out with an oath:

"You are a cursed fellow, Liot Borson, and in the devil's own temper;
I will stay no longer with you."

He stepped forward as he spoke, and instantly a cry, shrill with
mortal terror, rang across the moor from sea to sea. Liot quickly
raised himself, but he had barely time to distinguish the white
horror of his enemy's face and the despair of his upthrown arms. The
next moment the moss had swallowed the man, and the thick, peaty
water hardly stirred over his engulfing.

For a little while Liot fixed his eyes on the spot; then he
lifted his stick and went forward, telling his soul in triumphant
undertones: "He has gone down quick into hell; the Lord has brought
him down into the pit of destruction; the bloody and deceitful man
shall not live out half his days; he has gone to his own place."

Over and over he reiterated these assurances, stepping securely
himself to the ring of their doom. It was not until he saw the light
in Paul Borson's house that the chill of doubt and the sickness of
fear assailed him. How could he smile into Karen's face or clasp her
to his breast again? A candle was glimmering in the window of a
fisherman's cottage; he stepped into its light and looked at his
hands. There was no stain of blood on them, but he was angry at the
involuntary act; he felt it to be an accusation.

Just yet he could not meet Karen. He walked to the pier, and talked
to his conscience as he did so. "I never touched the man," he urged.
"I said nothing to lead him wrong. He was full of evil; his last
words were such as slay a woman's honor.