«iid he was cheated at every torn by the fntastic shadows of the moonlight and the palms. His foe had escaped him; before the dawn broke he might have slipped down to the shore and be far out at sea beyond the Dardanelles; or if the gardens were the known lair for which he had purposely headed in the race along the beach, he would be safe beyond pursuit wherever he made his den.
Erceldoune dropped the bridle on the chestnut's neck, and let him take his own pace; a terrible bitterness of baffled effort, of foiled wrath, was on him—a passion, like a weapon which recoils, and bits the one who holds it hard. This man's life had been in his hands, and had escaped him!—and the unexpiated vengeance rolled back on his own heart, fierce, heavy, dark, almost as though it were twin crime with what it had hitherto failed to punish. A night-assassin, only of the viler stamp because of the gentler breed, went through the world unbranded and unpunished, whilst honest men died by the score of cold and famine in the snows of Caucasus and the streets of cities! Erceldoune's teeth ground together; when they met again, he swore it should be for shorter shrive and deadlier work.
The Monarch, with his head drooped and the
