“Reu-ben! Reuben Gedges!” call’d a voice by the gate. The fellow turn’d; and peeping between the bramble twigs, I saw the moonlight glittering on his blade. A narrow, light-hair’d man he was, with a weak chin: and since then I have paid him out for the fright he gave us. “What’s the coil?” he shouted back. “The stable roofs ablaze—for the Lord’s sake come and save the hosses!” He strode back, and in a minute the field was clear. Creeping out with caution, I grew aware of two mournful facts: first, that the stable was indeed afire, as I perceiv’d by standing on tiptoe and looking over the hedge; and second, that my knee was hurt by Black Dick’s bullet. The muscles had stiffened while we were crouching, and now pain’d me badly. Yet I kept it to myself as we started off again to run. But at the stile that, at the top of the field, led into the woods, I pull’d up— “Sorry I am to say it, but you must go on without me.” “O—oh!” cried the girl. “’Tis for your safety. See, I leave a trail of blood behind me, so that when day rises they will track us easily.” And sure enough, even by the moon, ’twas easy to trace the dark spots on the grass and earth beside the stile. My left boot, too, was full of blood. She was silent for awhile. Down in the valley we could hear the screams of the poor horses. The light of the flames lit up the pine trunks about us to a bright scarlet. “Sir, you hold our gratitude cheaply.” She unwound the kerchief from her neck, and making me sit on the stile, bound up my knee skillfully, twisting a short stick in the bandage to stop the bleeding. I thank’d her, and we hurried on into the depths of the wood, treading silently on the deep carpet of pine needles. The ground rose steeply all the way: and all the way, tho’ the light grew feebler, the roar and outcries in the valley follow’d us. Toward the hill’s summit the trees were sparser. Looking upward, I saw that the sky had grown thickly overcast. We cross’d the ridge, and after a minute or so were in thick cover again. ’Twas here that Sir Deakin’s strength gave out. Almost without warning, he sank down between our hands, and in a second was taken with that hateful cough, that once already this night had frightened me for his life. “Ah, ah!” he groaned, between the spasms, “I’m not fit—I’m not fit for it!” and was taken again, and roll’d about barking, so that I fear’d the sound would bring all Settle’s gang on our heels. “I’m not fit for it!” he repeated, as the cough left him, and he lay back helpless, among the pine needles. Now, I understood his words to bear on his unfitness for death, and judg’d them very decent and properly spoken: and took occasion to hint this in my attempts to console him. “Why, bless the boy!” he cried, sitting up and staring, “for what d’ye think I’m unsuited?” “Why, to die, sir—to be sure!”