the course."

"I know he was, sir; but he ain't now; he was pisined; but I've a trick
with a 'oss that'll set that sort o' thing--if it ain't gone too far,
that is to say--right in a brace of shakes. I doctored him; he's hisself
agen; he'll take you till he drops."

The King thrust his noble head closer in his master's bosom, and made a
little murmuring noise, as though he said, "Try me!"

"God bless you, Rake!" Cecil said huskily. "But I cannot take him, he
will starve with me. And--how did you know of this?"

"Begging your pardon, your honor, he'll eat chopped furze with you
better than he'll eat oats and hay along of a new master," retorted Rake
rapidly, tightening the girths. "I don't know nothing, sir, save that I
heard you was in a strait; I don't want to know nothing; but I sees them
cursed cads a-runnin' of you to earth, and thinks I to myself, 'Come
what will, the King will be the ticket for him.' So I ran to your room
unbeknown, packed a little valise, and got out the passports; then
back again to the stables, and saddled him like lightning, and got 'em
off--nobody knowing but Bill there. I seed you go by into the Kursaal,
and laid in wait for you, sir. I made bold to bring Mother o' Pearl for
myself."

And Rake stopped, breathless and hoarse with passion and grief that he
would not utter. He had heard more than he said.

"For yourself?" echoed Cecil. "What do you mean? My good fellow, I am
ruined. I shall be beggared from to-night--utterly. I cannot even help
you or keep you; but Lord Rockingham will do both for my sake."

The ci-devant soldier struck his heel into the earth with a fiery oath.

"Sir, there ain't time for no words. Where you goes I go. I'll follow
you while there's a drop o' blood in me. You was good to me when I was
a poor devil that everyone scouted; you shall have me with you to the
last, if I die for it. There!"

Cecil's voice shook as he answered. The fidelity touched him as
adversity could not do.

"Rake, you are a noble fellow. I would take you, were it possible;
but--in an hour I may be in a felon's prison. If I escape that, I shall
lead a life of such wretchedness as--"

"That's not nothing to me, sir."

"But it is much to me," answered Cecil. "As things have turned--life
is over with me, Rake. What my own fate may be I have not the faintest
notion--but let it be what it will, it must be a bitter one. I will not
drag another into it."

"If you send me away, I'll shoot