two months."

The fellow paused, smiling at me. I took the liberty of ending his
period for him.

"And there is," I said, returning the smile, "as we know by now, a
particularly sudden and fatal form of fever in the island."

"Certainly; you may chance to find that out," said he.

"But is there no antidote?" I asked; and I showed him the butt of my
revolver in the pocket of my coat.

"It may keep it off for a day or two; not longer. You have the bottle
there, but most of the drug is with your baggage at the inn."

His parable was true enough; we had only two or three dozen cartridges
apiece.

"But there is plenty of food for Constantine's rifle," said I,
pointing to the muzzle of it, which protruded from the window.

He suddenly became impatient.

"Your answer, sir?" he demanded, peremptorily.

"Here it is," said I. "I'll keep the island, and I'll see Constantine
hanged."

"So be it, so be it!" he cried. "You are warned; so be it!" and
without another word he turned his pony and trotted rapidly off down
the road. And I went back to the house, feeling, I must confess, not
in the best of spirits. But when my friends heard all that had passed,
they applauded me, and we made up our minds to "see it through," as
Denny said.

That day passed quietly. At noon we carried the old lord out of his
house, having wrapped him in a sheet, and we dug for him as good a
grave as we could, in a little patch of ground that lay outside the
windows of his own chapel, a small erection at the west end of the
house. There he must lie for the moment. This sad work done, we came
back, and--so swift are life's changes--we killed a goat for dinner,
and watched Watkins dress it. Thus the afternoon wore away, and when
evening came we ate our goat flesh, and Hogvardt milked our cows, and
we sat down to consider the position of the garrison.

But the evening was hot, and we adjourned out of doors, grouping
ourselves on the broad marble pavement in front of the door.
Hogvardt had just begun to expound a very elaborate scheme of escape,
depending, so far as I could make out, on our reaching the other side
of the island, and finding there a boat, which we had no reason to
suppose would be there, when Denny raised his hand, saying, "Hark!"

From the direction of the village and the harbor came the sound of a
horn, blown long and shrill, and echoed back in strange, protracted
shrieks and groans from the hillside behind us; and following on