But it was not the man who led the girl away. Bella saw the labourer's face, guessed, with a shudder, what he had said, and, catching Cyril's arm, dragged him away from that awful spot. The young fellow, with a blanched face and tottering limbs, stumbled blindly along as she pulled him forward. In all his expectations, he had never counted upon such a terrible dramatic discovery as this. His father, the missing man, the murdered man, who had been hunted for alive and dead for many weeks, had been used by Captain Huxham as a scarecrow to frighten the birds. No wonder they had kept away from those sinister fields. "Oh, great God!" moaned Cyril, sick and faint, "let this be the end." CHAPTER XXV RUN TO EARTH The quiet village of Marshely, in Essex, was getting to be as well-known through the length and breadth of England as Westminster Abbey. The murder of Captain Huxham had caused a sensation, the death of Durgo and Vand had created another one, but the discovery of the ghastly scarecrow which had warned the birds from the corn-fields of Bleacres, startled everyone greatly. The news flew like wild fire through the village, and in less than an hour the inhabitants were surveying the terrible object. Shortly the constable of the village who had superseded Dutton--in disgrace for his share in the escape of Mrs. Vand--appeared, and, armed with the authority of the law and assisted by willing hands, removed the poor relic of humanity from the pole whereupon it had hung for so long. The explanation of its being there was easy. Undoubtedly Captain Huxham, after he had committed the crime, and while Tunks and Pence were away, the one through horror and the other through sheer worry, had carried out the dead body to fasten it to the pole. He undressed the straw-stuffed figure, with which everyone was familiar, and having destroyed it arrayed the corpse of Edwin Lister in its military clothes. Then he pulled the tattered grey felt cap well over the face so that it should not be suspected as being that of a human being, and bound the dead to the pole. Of course, no one, not even the Vands, suspected that the figure was other than what it had always been, and it said much for the cruel ingenuity of Captain Jabez Huxham that he had selected so clever a mode of disposing of the body. Had he thrown it into the boundary channel it might have been fished out; had he concealed it in the house, it would probably have been discovered; and had he buried it in the garden near the house, it might have been dug up. But no one ever dreamed that the scarlet-coated scarecrow was the man who was wanted. Huxham had been struck down almost immediately after he had put his scheme into execution, and it was doubtful if he had intended to leave the body there. Probably he did, as it was isolated by the corn, and when the field was reaped he doubtless intended to get rid of the corpse in some equally ingenious way. The removal of the scarecrow would have