What happened after this was not so clear. Probably the robber was proceeding in his desperation to rifle the open depositories of the letters and gear, which the searchers found strewed up and down the floor, when Theophilus Ruff sat up suddenly in the centre coffin, with his revolver in his hand, just as Cleg had seen him the first time he entered the chamber of death. Whether the ruffian had first attacked the madman, or whether he had simply been shot down where he stood, will never be known. But certain it is that he died instantly, and that the horror of the sight killed Sal Kavannah where she sat crouched low in the corner, as if trying to get as far as possible from the grisly horrors of the three coffins. Then, having done his work, Theophilus Ruff calmly swallowed all that remained of his drugs, and slept himself into the land where vengeance is not, with the mouthpiece of his pipe in his mouth and his revolver upon his knees. The heads of the embalmed bodies were turned so that they looked towards Theophilus Ruff as he sat in his coffin. For twenty years it is probable that he had gone to sleep every night with those dead faces looking at him. The coffins were buried as privately as possible, the two embalmed bodies being laid within the private mausoleum at the foot of the garden; for in noble families a private burying-place is a great convenience in such emergencies. Here also Tim Kelly and Sal Kavannah took their places with nobler sinners, and no doubt they lie there still, mixing their vulgar earth with finer clay, and so will remain until the final resurrection of good and evil. Doctor Sidey certified truthfully that the death of General Theophilus Ruff was due to an overdose of opium. And as there is no coroner's inquest in Scotland (another convenience), matters were easily arranged with the Procurator-Fiscal of the county—who was, in fact, a friend of the distinguished and discreet firm of Hewitson & Graham at Drumnith. ADVENTURE LIX. THE BEECH HEDGE. "And the queer thing o' it a' is," said Cleg, "that there's no as muckle as a brass farthin's worth o' lyin' siller to be found." "Ye tak' it brave and cool, my man," said Mistress Fraser. "My certes, gin I had been left thirty thoosand pound, and then could find nane o't, I wad be fair oot o' my mind wi' envy and spite. Save us a', man. Ye hae nae spunk in ye ava." "And what a wonderfu' thing is it," said Mirren Douglas, "that Maister Iverach, the young lad frae Edinburgh, gets a' the land and the hooses, but no a penny forbye!" They were sitting—a large company for so small a place—in the little ben room of Sandyknowes, with the roses again looking in the window. For another spring had come, and a new year was already stretching itself awake from its winter swaddling bands. "What was it that the lawyer man wrote aboot your bequest?" asked Mistress Fraser.