lting in our faces--along
roads so deserted, that our carriage-wheels made the only sound
audible, and that might have been heard distinctly for miles.

All of a sudden, the horses were pulled up. Three or four ill-looking
figures had started out of a ditch-bank, and caught hold of the reins.

"Holloa there!--What do you want?"

"Money."

"Let go my horses! They're spirited beasts. You'll get trampled on."

"Who cares?"

This brief colloquy passed in less than a minute. It showed at once
our position--miles away from any house--on this desolate moor; showed
plainly our danger--John's danger.

He himself did not seem to recognize it. He stood upright on the box
seat, the whip in his hand.

"Get away, you fellows, or I must drive over you!"

"Thee'd better!" With a yell, one of the men leaped up and clung to
the neck of the plunging mare--then was dashed to the ground between
her feet. The poor wretch uttered one groan and no more. John sprang
out of his carriage, caught the mare's head, and backed her.

"Hold off!--the poor fellow is killed, or may be in a minute. Hold
off, I say."

If ever these men, planning perhaps their first ill deed, were struck
dumb with astonishment, it was to see the gentleman they were intending
to rob take up their comrade in his arms, drag him towards the
carriage-lamps, rub snow on his face, and chafe his heavy hands. But
all in vain. The blood trickled down from a wound in the temples--the
head, with its open mouth dropping, fell back upon John's knee.

"He is quite dead."

The others gathered round in silence, watching Mr. Halifax, as he still
knelt, with the dead man's head leaning against him, mournfully
regarding it.

"I think I know him. Where does his wife live?"

Some one pointed across the moor, to a light, faint as a glow-worm.
"Take that rug out of my carriage--wrap him in it." The order was at
once obeyed. "Now carry him home. I will follow presently."

"Surely not," expostulated Lord Ravenel, who had got out of the
carriage and stood, shivering and much shocked, beside Mr. Halifax.
"You would not surely put yourself in the power of these scoundrels?
What brutes they are--the lower orders!"

"Not altogether--when you know them. Phineas, will you drive Lord
Ravenel on to Beechwood?"

"Excuse me--certainly not," said Lord Ravenel, with dignity. "We will
stay to see the result of the affair. What a singular man Mr. Halifax
is, and always was