“Do you think,” he cried fiercely, “that I am going to let you go? By Heaven—I have not waited here for nothing.” The King’s messenger wrenched himself free: “Spy—who betrayed us?” he burst forth, and he gave a wild glance round the desolate fen; the other seemed to read his thoughts. “There is no ambush,” he said scornfully, “’tis you and I alone. Who think you is the better man? Will you try issues with me?” The King’s messenger an instant studied his opponent; he saw a man of regal height and make, whose face was hidden by his drooping beaver and whose figure was shrouded in a heavy traveling cloak; a hopeless look crossed his face; he stepped back desperately. “You or I,” he said through his teeth—“Well—” he put his hand to his bosom and there was the dull gleam of metal. But the other had marked his action and instantly his hand flew from his cloak; there was the flash and report of a pistol-shot and the King’s messenger fell backwards silently into the mist. “How is William of Orange served now?” cried the man peering forward; his smoking pistol in his hand, “where are you, you popish dog?” He sprang forward through the pools and morasses, and confused by the gathering gloom, stumbled over the body. The King’s messenger had fallen prone, his head down among the mud and stones; his slayer lifted him up, and taking his face in his hands peered down into it. The Jacobite was quite dead; from a little hole in his temple the thin black blood trickled; it had been a true shot; the man who held him smiled. “I was afraid—in this cursed light,” he muttered, “that I might have bungled.” Opening the dead man’s coat, he went swiftly through the pockets. He found papers, sealed and loose; a purse and a few trinkets. The money he flung out into the marsh; the other matters he thrust carefully into the breast of his coat; it was not light enough to distinguish the papers; he took every scrap the dead man carried, without pausing to select. Then he rose beside the body and looked round. It would soon be utterly dark; the snow was recommencing to fall heavily; it was now nearly completely dark; he had to feel his way cautiously over the marsh as he turned in the direction of the light that glanced through the snow-storm. He made steadily toward it; the snow stinging in his face, and saw it grow larger till he could discern the snowflakes drifting swiftly through the faint halo it cast upon the dark. The ground grew firmer under foot; he had gained a tongue of dry land, and in front of him, barely visible, was the black outline of the smuggler’s hut with the lamp flaring yellow in the square window; with this aid he found his way to the door and, using the hilt of his sword, knocked heavily. There was a little silence, then the sound of cautious footsteps. The door was slowly unbolted, opened an inch or so. “Who is it?” said a woman’s voice in a quick whisper. “Mr. Wedderburn—the King’s messenger,” he answered. “The password?”