ome way to escape."

"Oh, Martin!" cried Margaret, "what if we were to part company? Gerard's
life alone is forfeit. Is there no way to draw the pursuit on us twain
and let him go safe?"

"Girl, you know not the bloodhound's nature. He is not on this man's
track or that; he is on the track of blood. My life on't they have taken
him to where Ghysbrecht fell, and from the dead man's blood to the man
that shed it that cursed hound will lead them, though Gerard should run
through an army or swim the Meuse." And again he leaned upon his bow,
and his head sank.

The hound's mellow voice rang through the wood.

A cry more tunable
Was never halloed to, nor cheered with horn,
In Crete, in Sparta, or in Thessaly.

Strange that things beautiful should be terrible and deadly' The eye
of the boa-constrictor, while fascinating its prey, is lovely. No royal
crown holds such a jewel; it is a ruby with the emerald's green light
playing ever upon it. Yet the deer that sees it loses all power of
motion, and trembles, and awaits his death and even so, to compare
hearing with sight, this sweet and mellow sound seemed to fascinate
Martin Wittenhaagen. He stood uncertain, bewildered, and unnerved.
Gerard was little better now. Martin's last words had daunted him, He
had struck an old man and shed his blood, and, by means of that very
blood, blood's four-footed avenger was on his track. Was not the finger
of Heaven in this?

Whilst the men were thus benumbed, the woman's brain was all activity.
The man she loved was in danger.

"Lend me your knife," said she to Martin. He gave it her.

"But 'twill be little use in your hands," said he.

Then Margaret did a sly thing. She stepped behind Gerard, and furtively
drew the knife across her arm, and made it bleed freely; then stooping,
smeared her hose and shoes; and still as the blood trickled she smeared
them; but so adroitly that neither Gerard nor Martin saw. Then she
seized the soldier's arm.

"Come, be a man!" she said, "and let this end. Take us to some thick
place, where numbers will not avail our foes."

"I am going," said Martin sulkily. "Hurry avails not; we cannot shun the
hound, and the place is hard by;" then turning to the left, he led the
way, as men go to execution.

He soon brought them to a thick hazel coppice, like the one that had
favoured their escape in the morning.

"There," said he, "this is but a furlong broad, but it will serve our
turn."