g sky,
the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister
hills.

The wagonette swung round into a side road, and we curved upward through
deep lanes worn by centuries of wheels, high banks on either side, heavy
with dripping moss and fleshy hart's-tongue ferns. Bronzing bracken and
mottled bramble gleamed in the light of the sinking sun. Still steadily
rising, we passed over a narrow granite bridge and skirted a noisy
stream which gushed swiftly down, foaming and roaring amid the gray
boulders. Both road and stream wound up through a valley dense with
scrub oak and fir. At every turn Baskerville gave an exclamation of
delight, looking eagerly about him and asking countless questions. To
his eyes all seemed beautiful, but to me a tinge of melancholy lay upon
the countryside, which bore so clearly the mark of the waning year.
Yellow leaves carpeted the lanes and fluttered down upon us as we
passed. The rattle of our wheels died away as we drove through drifts of
rotting vegetation--sad gifts, as it seemed to me, for Nature to throw
before the carriage of the returning heir of the Baskervilles.

"Halloa!" cried Dr. Mortimer, "what is this?"

A steep curve of heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay in
front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian statue
upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his rifle
poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the road along which we
travelled.

"What is this, Perkins?" asked Dr. Mortimer.

Our driver half turned in his seat. "There's a convict escaped from
Princetown, sir. He's been out three days now, and the warders watch
every road and every station, but they've had no sight of him yet. The
farmers about here don't like it, sir, and that's a fact."

"Well, I understand that they get five pounds if they can give
information."

"Yes, sir, but the chance of five pounds is but a poor thing compared
to the chance of having your throat cut. You see, it isn't like any
ordinary convict. This is a man that would stick at nothing."

"Who is he, then?"

"It is Selden, the Notting Hill murderer."

I remembered the case well, for it was one in which Holmes had taken an
interest on account of the peculiar ferocity of the crime and the
wanton brutality which had marked all the actions of the assassin. The
commutation of his death sentence had been due to some doubts as to his
complete sanity, so atrocious was his conduc