A mile or more away out on the marshes, just before you come to the well-known quicksands, which have, tradition says, swallowed so many unfortunates, and which shudder palpably at times and are unpleasant to look on, stands a lock-house, inhabited by one solitary man, who has charge of the sluice. On this very night it is necessary for him to open his sluice-gates at a particular moment, and now he stands awaiting that propitious time. He is an ancient mariner; his hands are in his pockets, his pipe is in his mouth, his eyes are fixed upon the sea. We have met him before. Suddenly he hears the sound of a powerful horse galloping furiously. He turns, and his hair begins to rise upon his head, for this is what he sees in the bright moonlight: Fast, fast towards him thunders a great coal-black horse, snorting with mingled rage and terror, and on its bare back there sits a man with a grip of iron—an old man, for his gray locks stream out behind him—who waves above his head the fragment of a spear. On they come. Before them is the wide sluice; if they are mortal, they will turn or plunge into it. No; the great black horse gathers himself, and springs into the air. By Heaven, he has cleared it! No horse ever took that leap before, or will again. On at whirlwind speed towards the shuddering quicksand two hundred yards away! _Splash!_ Horse and man are in it, making the moist mass shake and tremble for twenty yards round. The bright moonlight shows it all. The horse shrieks in fear and agony, as only a horse can; the man on its back waves the spear. The horse vanishes, the man vanishes; the spear glitters an instant longer in the moonlight, and then vanishes too. They have all vanished for ever. They have all vanished, and again the perfect silence sleeps in the moonlight. “Bust me!” says the ancient one, aloud, and shaking with a mortal dread; “bust me, I have stood still and seed many a queer thing, but I never seed a thing like that!” And he turned and fled fast as his old legs would carry him, forgetful of Dutch cheeses and of sluice-gates, forgetful of everything except that demon horse and man. Thus ended “Hard-riding Atterleigh’s” maddest gallop, and thus, too ended the story of Mr. Cardus and his revenge. [Illustration: Mad Atterleigh’s last Ride.] CHAPTER X. DOROTHY’S TRIUMPH Some years passed before Eva Plowden returned to Kesterwick, and then she was carried thither. Alive she did not return, nor during all those years did she and Ernest ever meet. They buried her, in obedience to her last wishes, there in the churchyard where lay generation upon generation of her ancient race, and the daisies grew above her head. Twice had they bloomed above her before Sir Ernest Kershaw stood by the spot, hallowed by the presence of what once held the spirit of the woman he had loved.