et offer for his reaching the bridge, and escaping
through the park--the other way by the village he dared not try--when,
with a rush, McCray came right through the thicket where he crouched;
and, like a hare roused from its form, away he darted, and the pursuit
commenced anew.

There was no hiding now: there was too much light, and pursuer and
pursued were too close together. Making almost frantic efforts to get
away, after dodging and doubling again and again, to the great injury of
McCray's long legs, which, when at speed, carried him again and again
past his foe, Gurdon made a feint or two and then dashed fiercely for
the bridge once more.

"If I'd only got one of those powdered loons to stop his gait there,"
muttered McCray; and he made a furious effort, nearly catching his prey,
and completely cutting off his retreat, for as the Scot shot by him,
Gurdon doubled again, and ran along the lake, but only for a little way.
There was a bend there, and the water was on both sides of him as he
ran along the tongue of land: he must either face his enemy in another
rush for the bridge, or take to the black water, gleaming below him.

But Gurdon had, to his cost, always been a hater of the limpid element,
and, turning now like a beast at bay, he dashed, with clenched fists, at
the gardener, intending to fell him, and then rush on for liberty. But
he did not know his man: as he came down, with a fierce charge, McCray
merely leaned a little on one side so as to avoid the blow, and the next
instant his arms were wreathed tightly round the ex-butler's body, and
the two were struggling furiously upon the turf, rolling over and over,
their muttered ejaculations and execrations mingling in a fierce growl
as of two savage beasts of prey.

"Ah! would ye?" exclaimed McCray, at last. "Ye murderous-minded villin,
would ye use a knife? Take that--and that, and--Save us, we shall be--"

McCray's ejaculation was suddenly brought to an end, for in the fierce
struggle made for the possession of the knife Gurdon had managed to draw
and open, at a time when the gardener thought him about to succumb, they
had, unnoticed, drawn nearer and nearer to the edge of the lake, and,
perhaps to the saving then of the Scotchman's life, suddenly plunged
together into one of the deepest parts.

Gurdon dropped the knife as he rose to the surface, and, loosing his
grasp of his pursuer, he struggled furiously to reach the bank; but
McCray's northern