than before.

"Where is it?" Holmes whispered; and I knew from the thrill of his voice
that he, the man of iron, was shaken to the soul. "Where is it, Watson?"

"There, I think." I pointed into the darkness.

"No, there!"

Again the agonized cry swept through the silent night, louder and much
nearer than ever. And a new sound mingled with it, a deep, muttered
rumble, musical and yet menacing, rising and falling like the low,
constant murmur of the sea.

"The hound!" cried Holmes. "Come, Watson, come! Great heavens, if we are
too late!"

He had started running swiftly over the moor, and I had followed at his
heels. But now from somewhere among the broken ground immediately in
front of us there came one last despairing yell, and then a dull, heavy
thud. We halted and listened. Not another sound broke the heavy silence
of the windless night.

I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted. He
stamped his feet upon the ground.

"He has beaten us, Watson. We are too late."

"No, no, surely not!"

"Fool that I was to hold my hand. And you, Watson, see what comes of
abandoning your charge! But, by Heaven, if the worst has happened we'll
avenge him!"

Blindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders, forcing
our way through gorse bushes, panting up hills and rushing down slopes,
heading always in the direction whence those dreadful sounds had come.
At every rise Holmes looked eagerly round him, but the shadows were
thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its dreary face.

"Can you see anything?"

"Nothing."

"But, hark, what is that?"

A low moan had fallen upon our ears. There it was again upon our left!
On that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which overlooked
a stone-strewn slope. On its jagged face was spread-eagled some dark,
irregular object. As we ran towards it the vague outline hardened into
a definite shape. It was a prostrate man face downward upon the ground,
the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the shoulders rounded
and the body hunched together as if in the act of throwing a somersault.
So grotesque was the attitude that I could not for the instant realize
that that moan had been the passing of his soul. Not a whisper, not a
rustle, rose now from the dark figure over which we stooped. Holmes laid
his hand upon him and held it up again with an exclamation of horror.
The gleam of the match which he struck shone upon his clotted fingers
and