I had descended about twenty feet, when
I came to the spot where, by craning forward, I could catch sight of
the spit of rock, and the Quick-Boy Sand to the right of it.

The sun--a blazing ball of red--was just now setting behind us, and
its level rays fell full upon the man we were chasing. He stood on
the very edge of the rocks, a black spot against the luminous yellow
of sea and sand. He seemed to be meditating. His back was towards
us, and he perceived neither his pursuers above nor the heads that at
this moment appeared over the ridge behind him, and not fifteen yards
away. The party on the beach had dismounted and were clambering up
stealthily. Five seconds more and they could spring upon him.

But they under-estimated a madman's instinct. As if for no reason,
he gave a quick start, turned, and at the same instant was aware of
both attacking parties. A last gleam of sunlight fell on the
snuff-box in his left hand; his right thumb and fore-finger hung
arrested, grasping the pinch. For fully half a minute nothing
happened; hunters and hunted eyed each other and waited.
Then carrying the snuff to his nose, and doffing his hat, with a
satirical sweep of the hand and a low bow, he turned again and
tripped off the ledge into the jaws of the Quick-Boy.

There was no help now. At his third step the sand had him by the
ankles. For a moment he fought it, then, throwing up his arms, sank
forward, slowly and as if bowing yet, upon his face. Second by
second we stood and watched him disappear. Within five minutes the
ripples of the Quick-Boy Sand met once more above him.

In the course of the next afternoon the Vicar of Bleakirk called at
the Hall with a paper which he had found pinned to the church door.
It was evidently a scrap torn from an old letter, and bore, scribbled
in pencil by a clerkly hand, these words: "The young Squire
Cartwright in straits by the foot-bridge, six miles toward
Netherkirk. _Orate pro anima Guliemli Teague_."

II.--THE CONSTANT POST-BOY.

It was a stifling August afternoon. Not a breath of wind came over
the downs, and the sky was just a great flaming oven inverted over
them. I sat down under a dusty gorse-bush (no tree could be seen)
beside the high-road, and tugging off a boot, searched for a prickle
that somehow had got into it. Then, finding myself too hot to pull
the boot on again, I turned out some crumbs of tobacco from a
waistcoat pocket, lit my pipe, and unbu