, if it were not too much, offering to make it
good. Ideas of settlement vanished; ideas of honour, morality, and even
escape vanished too; all merged in the one fixed idea of giving the
other man a harder blow than he had given.

For a minute or two the battle raged fairly equally; both were securing
a fair amount of punishment. Then, under a heavy blow from Flower, his
foe went down suddenly. For a second or two the skipper held his breath
with fear, then the other man raised himself feebly on his knees, and,
throwing away his whip, staggered to his feet and, unfastening the
reins, clambered unsteadily into his gig and drove off without a word.

The victorious skipper looked up and down the lonely road, and shaking
his head sadly at the noble steed which had brought him into this mess,
tenderly felt his bruised and aching head, and then set off as fast as
his foot would permit up the road.

He looked about eagerly as he went for a place of concealment, fully
aware of the inability of a lame shipmaster to outdistance horseflesh.
Hedges and fields bounded both sides of the road, but half a mile
farther along, on the right-hand side, the field stretched away upwards
to meet a wood. Towards this wood Captain Flower, having first squeezed
himself through a gap in the hedge, progressed with all speed.

He sat on the trunk of a fallen pine to regain his breath, and eagerly
looked about him. To his disappointment he saw that the wood was of no
great depth, but was a mere belt of pines running almost parallel with
the road he had quitted. With the single idea of getting as far away
from the scene of his crime as possible, he began to walk through it.

The wood was very still, and the shade grateful after the heat of the
sun. Just beyond, the fields were shimmering in the heat, and he pricked
up his ears as the unmistakable sound of wheels and hoofs came across
the silent fields. He looked round wildly, and seeing a tiny cottage
standing in a bit of a clearing, made towards it.

A little old man twisted with rheumatism rose as he stood at the open
door and regarded him with a pair of bloodshot, but sharp, old eyes,
while an old woman sitting in a Windsor-chair looked up anxiously.

"Can I come in?" asked Flower.

"Aye," said the old man, standing aside to let him pass.

"Hot day," said the skipper, taking a seat.

"No, 'tain't," said the old man.

"Not so hot as yesterday," said Flower, with a conciliatory smile.