Here both men rose; but now it was my turn. Throughout their foul plotting my blood had risen pell-mell, till now, with the dastardly completion of their bargain, ’twas surging through me like a burning flood, which drowned all power of reasoning, and seemed to make me someone that I knew not. ’Twas wildly, madly planned, I know--nay, ’twas not planned at all. I had done better to have crept up to the ridge and tried to shoot them thence without their knowing it. I had done ten times better still, to have used the knowledge I had gained to save my father and gone off silently, leaving those thrice-accursed fellows in their ignorance. I see that clearly now. But then the power to reason, plan, nay, even think, had clean forsaken me; while as for caution, danger, fear--I knew them not. One fierce, ungovernable wish was mine--namely, to kill these would-be murderers of my father and regain the box. Drawing a pistol from my belt I rose suddenly and sprang upon the ridge. Ferguson had just picked up the lantern, but now he flung it far away, and uttering one loud, whelping cry of terror, fled off--with both hands raised above his head--into the night. I took a flying shot at him, but all in vain, for he had vanished ere I pulled the trigger. ’Twas far different with Tubal Ammon; snatching up his money-bags he leapt back with a ringing oath, and there I could just make him out, a dim, black, post-like blotch amid the darkness. In haste I whipped the other pistol from my belt. *CHAPTER VIII* *A Fight for Life* Click!--click! went both our pistol locks together, and, an instant later, two shots rang out as one. Nor was there much to choose between the aims. Tubal Ammon’s bullet grazed my right side beneath the arm-pit; while mine went smash into his money-bag, and ripping it, brought forth a stream of coins which jingled thick and fast upon the ground. Had it not been for this protection, it had most surely been a stream of blood instead, for he had held the bag pressed tightly to his side. Strange that gold should save the life of one who had but just been bartering life for gold! Again, had it not been for that wild, chancy shot at Ferguson I might have had friend Tubal now, for, instead of fleeing, he dropped straight down and grovelled in the gold, filling his pockets with it while he muttered oaths and curses terrible to hear. Doubtless greed held him as its own just then, for though my second pistol had been fired, he must have known he ran great risk; and indeed I might have got him with my sword before he could have saved himself. But the truth is, that the pistol flashes had discovered that which for the nonce made Tubal Ammon seem of small account. The Black Box, bound with cord, lay there straight below me on the turf, dropped or for gotten, as I judged it, by the chaplain in his terror-stricken flight.