With my vicious horse at a furious speed, I came upon Black Barrow Down, directed by some shout of men, which seemed to me but a whisper.  And there, about a furlong before me, rode a man on a great black horse, and I knew that the man was Carver Doone.

“Your life or mine,” I said to myself; “as the will of God may be.  But we two live not upon this earth, one more hour together.”

I knew the strength of this great man; and I knew that he was armed with a gun—­if he had time to load again, after shooting my Lorna—­or at any rate with pistols, and a horseman’s sword as well.  Nevertheless, I had no more doubt of killing the man before me than a cook has of spitting a headless fowl.

Sometimes seeing no ground beneath me, and sometimes heeding every leaf, and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed over the long moor, reckless whether seen or not.  But only once the other man turned round and looked back again, and then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp behind me.

Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as ride he might, I saw that he had something on the horse in front of him; something which needed care, and stopped him from looking backward.  In the whirling of my wits, I fancied first that this was Lorna; until the scene I had been through fell across hot brain and heart, like the drop at the close of a tragedy.  Rushing there through crag and quag, at utmost speed of a maddened horse, I saw, as of another’s fate, calmly (as on canvas laid), the brutal deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold despair.

The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to Cloven Rocks, through which John Fry had tracked Uncle Ben, as of old related.  But as Carver entered it, he turned round, and beheld me not a hundred yards behind; and I saw that he was bearing his child, little Ensie, before him.  Ensie also descried me, and stretched his hands and cried to me; for the face of his father frightened him.

Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his flagging horse, and laid one hand on a pistol-stock; whence I knew that his slung carbine had received no bullet since the one that had pierced Lorna.  And a cry of triumph rose from the black depths of my heart.  What cared I for pistols?  I had no spurs, neither was my horse one to need the rowel; I rather held him in than urged him, for he was fresh as ever; and I knew that the black steed in front, if he breasted the steep ascent, where the track divided, must be in our reach at once.

His rider knew this; and, having no room in the rocky channel to turn and fire, drew rein at the crossways sharply, and plunged into the black ravine leading to the Wizard’s Slough.  “Is it so?” I said to myself with a brain and head cold as iron; “though the foul fiend come from the slough, to save thee; thou shalt carve it, Carver.”

I followed my enemy carefully, steadily, even leisurely; for I had him, as in a pitfall, whence no escape might be.  He thought that I feared to approach him, for he knew not where he was:  and his low disdainful laugh came back.  “Laugh he who wins,” thought I.