ir horses, a poor clergyman, the curate of the place, came out of a
small cottage, and entreated any of the company who might know aught of
surgery to look in for an instant on a dying man.

The empiric Wayland undertook to do his best, and as the curate
conducted him to the spot, he learned that the man had been found on
the highroad, about a mile from the village, by labourers, as they were
going to their work on the preceding morning, and the curate had given
him shelter in his house. He had received a gun-shot wound, which seemed
to be obviously mortal; but whether in a brawl or from robbers they
could not learn, as he was in a fever, and spoke nothing connectedly.
Wayland entered the dark and lowly apartment, and no sooner had the
curate drawn aside the curtain than he knew, in the distorted features
of the patient, the countenance of Michael Lambourne. Under pretence
of seeking something which he wanted, Wayland hastily apprised
his fellow-travellers of this extraordinary circumstance; and both
Tressilian and Raleigh, full of boding apprehensions, hastened to the
curate's house to see the dying man.

The wretch was by this time in the agonies of death, from which a much
better surgeon than Wayland could not have rescued him, for the bullet
had passed clear through his body. He was sensible, however, at least in
part, for he knew Tressilian, and made signs that he wished him to stoop
over his bed. Tressilian did so, and after some inarticulate murmurs, in
which the names of Varney and Lady Leicester were alone distinguishable,
Lambourne bade him "make haste, or he would come too late." It was in
vain Tressilian urged the patient for further information; he seemed
to become in some degree delirious, and when he again made a signal to
attract Tressilian's attention, it was only for the purpose of desiring
him to inform his uncle, Giles Gosling of the Black Bear, that "he had
died without his shoes after all." A convulsion verified his words a few
minutes after, and the travellers derived nothing from having met with
him, saving the obscure fears concerning the fate of the Countess, which
his dying words were calculated to convey, and which induced them to
urge their journey with the utmost speed, pressing horses in the Queen's
name when those which they rode became unfit for service.

CHAPTER XLI.

The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,
An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the