the middle of a trodden path across a ploughed field; showing
that there were other game depredators besides himself abroad. The way
seemed longer than it was in the daytime, but at last he got to the
wood-stack, where he saw no one, but presently a figure stole round the
corner and joined him: Marriner with the air-gun and a sack.

"It's all right," he said, "I heard the guns nigh half-an-hour ago.
There's never a watcher nor keeper within more nor a couple of miles
off, and we have a clear field to ourselves."

Saurin took the gun, for it was an understood thing beforehand that he
was to have all the shooting, which indeed was but fair, and Marriner,
carrying the sack, led the way to a coppice hard by, indeed the wood
forming the stack had been cut out of it. He crept on hands and knees
through the hedge and glided into the brushwood, Saurin following, for
some little distance. Suddenly he stopped, laid his hand on his
companion's arm, and pointed upwards. Perched on the branch of a tree,
and quite clear against the moonlit sky, was a round ball.

"Pheasant?" asked Saurin.

"Yes," was the reply. "And there's another roosting there, and another
yonder, and another--"

"I see them," replied Saurin in the same whispered tones. And raising
his air-gun he got the roosting bird in a line with the sights, which
was as easy to do pretty nearly as in broad day, and pressed the
trigger. The black ball came tumbling down with a thump on the ground,
and Marriner, pouncing upon it, put it in his sack. A second, a third
were bagged without stirring from the spot. A few steps farther on
another, who had been disturbed by the whip-cracks of the air-gun, had
withdrawn his head from under his wing. But he did not take to flight
at once, being comfortable where he was and the sounds not very
alarming, and while he hesitated he received a violent shock in the
middle of his breast, which knocked him off his perch powerless and
dying. A little further on another, and then yet another were bagged:
it was a well-stocked coppice, and had not been shot yet. Lord Woodruff
was reserving that part for some friends who were coming at Christmas,
and with the prospects of whose sport I fear that Saurin somewhat
interfered that night. The sack indeed was pretty heavy by the time
they had gone through the wood, and then Marriner thought that it would
be more prudent to decamp, and they retraced their steps by a path which
traversed t