world spun round him in a blaze of colored lights, and his head felt
as if it were filled with fireworks. Then in an instant all sensation
ceased as though cut off with the clean sweep of a naked sword. Mr.
Cumshaw lay still and lifeless under the shadow of the brushwood-covered
gully.

Some half an hour later, when Bryce happened on this very spot, he
pulled the bushes aside cautiously and peered down almost between his
toes; but the shadows lay thick beneath him, and the edge of the gully
so projected that he could not see the body of the man for whom he was
searching. Slowly he retraced his steps. He was deeply puzzled by this
new aspect of the affair. It seemed impossible that Cumshaw could have
completely disappeared in so short a space of time, yet the fact that he
could not be found was in itself proof conclusive. Had Bryce lingered a
couple of seconds longer he would have seen the rapidly-recovering
Cumshaw turn over on his side, raise one hand to his head, and present a
startled face to the scanty rays of light that filtered down to him. In
a sense his revival was something more than a recovery; it was a
resurrection. The years rolled away in an instant, and he ceased to be
the Abel Cumshaw who had fallen down the side of the gully and cracked
his head against an extra-large sized boulder; he became the Abel
Cumshaw who had just been knocked into unconsciousness by the butt of
Mr. Bradby's revolver, and whose head still throbbed with the force of
the blow.

He stared uncomprehendingly at the steep sides of the gully; they had no
place in his gallery of mental pictures. He had a vague idea that there
should be a creek somewhere close at hand. His head was throbbing,
pulsing as if some mighty engine were working inside it. He rose
unsteadily to his feet and regarded the steep declivities which formed
the sides of the gully with a contemplative eye. He decided that they
were climbable, but that he must wait awhile before he made the attempt.
He was weak yet; one does not recover instantaneously from a crack on
the head. He moved very carefully when he moved at all, and he kept well
within the shadows of the overhanging banks. Mr. Bradby was somewhere
handy, he argued, extremely ready and willing to finish him off, and it
would never do to give him another chance. He had no idea that Mr.
Bradby had died long years ago. Time had telescoped and he was back
again in the early eighties. With the addled craftiness of a