‘Dear heaven, how impatient he is!’ exclaimed the little German, puffing stolidly at his pipe, and without the faintest intention of quickening his accustomed jog-trot pace. ‘It was long ways off, it was long times after I wisht you both farewell at New Vestminster. I leaf you, and go off to San Francisco, and then to the dickens. Here I find rough savage men. I have no chance among them; the life is hart. I am knocked about; I am not strong enough for the work. I wish myself—ach, how I wish myself at home here in my snug little guddy, or sitting to watch the sun go down on my poop-deck! I begin to feel what it is to be olt. One day after I have toiled—all zu nichts—I stretch my veary limbs to rest unter my wretched shelter. At mitternacht I hear a lout voice in a tent near at hant—the voice of a man playing at euchre with other men—a voice I know. My heart beats fast and lout. “It is that teufel,” I say to myself, “who eats his fellow-men!” I grawl out of my tent along the ground, to the tent from which I hear the sound of that voice—a tent which had been set up only that night; they are close together, my own tent and this new one, just a little space between, in which I am hidden, in the dark night. I lift the edge of the canvas and look in. There are men playing cards on the head of a barrel by the light of a candle. The candle shines on the face of one man. He is talking, with loud voice and excited gestures. “If this new claim over here turns out as well as our claim yonder, mates, a month longer I shall go back to England,” he says. “Pack to England,” I say to myself; “you are von vicked liar; for in the log-hut you tell us you have never to England been.” I stopped to listen to no more. Varever your pullet may have hit him—and it did hit him somevare, for I saw the bloot—there he vas.’ ‘You have mistaken some one else for him,’ said Lucius, ‘in that doubtful light.’ ‘Mistaken! Den I am’mistaken in myself; dis is not me, but only some von like me. De light vas not toubtful. I see his face blain as I see yours; dis eye-vink, dis moment, de teep-set plack eyes—such eyes, eyes like der teufel’s—and ze little beak of hair on ze forehead. There was no mistakes. No, Daforen, es war der mann.’ ‘Did you see any more of him?’ ‘Nein,’ answered the little man, shaking his head vehemently; ‘ein mal vas enough. I vent back to San Francisco next day, and started for England in the first fessel dat vould confey me. I had had enough of de dickens.’ ‘How long ago was this?’ ‘It is von year dass I am returned.’ ‘A year!’ repeated Lucius dreamily. ‘And I did not kill that man after all—grazed his shoulder perhaps, instead of shooting him through the heart. The wretch was wriggling in at the window like an eel when I fired, and care and famine may have made my hand unsteady. Thank God—ay, with all my heart and soul—that his blood is not on my head. He deserved to die; but I am glad he did not die by my hand.’