the course now pointed out to me. Who showed me the course I cannot
tell. I only know that I took it. And the men fell back before me.

Weapon of no sort had I. Unarmed, and wondering at my strange attire
(with a bridal vest wrought by our Annie, and red with the blood of the
bride), I went forth just to find out this--whether in this world there
be or be not a God of justice.

With my vicious horse at a furious speed, I came up Black Barrow Down,
directed by some shout of men, which seemed to me but a whisper. And
there, about a furlong before me, rode a man on a great black horse, and
I knew that man was Carver Doone.

"Your life, or mine," I said to myself; "as the will of God may be. But
we two live not upon this earth one more hour together."

I knew the strength of this great man; and I knew that he was armed with
a gun--if he had time to load again, after shooting my Lorna--or at any
rate with pistols, and a horseman's sword as well. Nevertheless, I had
no more doubt of killing the man before me than a cook has of spitting a
headless fowl.

Sometimes seeing no ground beneath me, and sometimes heeding every leaf,
and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed over the long moor,
reckless whether seen or not. But only once the other man turned round
and looked back again, and then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp
behind me.

Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as ride he might, I
saw that he had something on the horse in front of him; something which
needed care, and stopped him from looking backward. In the whirling of
my wits, I fancied first that this was Lorna; until the scene I had been
through fell across hot brain and heart, like the drop at the close of a
tragedy. Rushing there through crag and quag at utmost speed of a
maddened horse, I saw, as of another's fate, calmly (as on canvas laid),
the brutal deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold despair.

The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to Cloven Rocks,
through which John Fry had tracked Uncle Ben, as of old related. But as
Carver entered it, he turned round, and beheld me not a hundred yards
behind; and I saw that he was bearing his child, little Ensie, before
him. Ensie also descried me, and stretched his hands and cried to me;
for the face of his father frightened him.

Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his flagging horse,
and laid one hand on a pistol-stock, whence I knew that his slung
ca