Mark stood there with his arm still rigidly extended, but altering his position now. Then, taking a step or two forward, he bent over, gazing fixedly at his cousin's distorted face, and taking aim once more as he stooped. He was about to draw the trigger, when the sharp barking of a dog arose from two or three hundred yards away. The barking ceased, and Mark hurriedly thrust the pistol back in his pocket, but a sudden thought struck him, and, quickly stooping down, he seized his cousin's clenched right hand, dragged the fingers apart, and placed the weapon in his grasp; then laying the broken piece of hop-pole back, as if it had been broken in the fall, he rose and looked sharply up and down the alley, and stepped into the next, after peering through and looking up and down that. The next moment his white and alarmed face reappeared, avoiding the body lying prone, as his eyes peered here and there till they fell upon the freshly-lit cigar he had dropped from his lips; for a faint streak of smoke rose from where it lay, and betrayed its presence. Reaching forward, he caught it up, drew back and disappeared through the drooping hops, passing from one alley to another, till he elected to walk straight on to a coppice on the other side; here lighting his cigar afresh, he began to walk back toward Ratcham at a slow steady pace, and without meeting a soul; neither did he hear the barking of the dog again. CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT. SOMETHING IN THE HOPS. The hops that year had been looking magnificent, and some of the growers were chuckling as they thought of the number of hundredweight that would go to the acre, while others took a prejudiced view of the case from a dread of the plentifulness of the crop bringing them down to a state of cheapness that would, when the cost of growing, picking, kilning, and packing had been deducted, leave nothing to pay the rent. Then a change had come--a rapid change. There had been a fortnight's dry weather, and, as if by magic, the beautiful growths began to look foul, black, and yellow. It was very simple--a few tiny flies came and laid eggs: the eggs hatched into little insects, and before many hours had elapsed these little insects, without waiting to become flies, had children, and these had children, and these had children as hard as ever they could, while the mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers kept on increasing until the vine-leaves became covered. These grew into hundreds, hundreds into thousands and tens and hundreds of thousands, then millions, and then into hundreds and thousands of millions, and then on and on till billions and trillions, and all the other brain-devouring lions covered the hop-grower's crops, threatening destruction to his hopes. Then out came the engine to attack the plague.