“Your scheme is futile.  There are fifty men about the pit’s mouth now.  I have told them—­”

“Liar!” Solomon darted forward; and Richard, throwing away the torch, as though disdaining to use any advantage in the way of weapon, grappled with him at once.  At the touch of his foe his scruples vanished, and his hate returned with tenfold fury.  But he was in the grasp of a giant.  Privation had doubtless weakened Solomon, but he had still the strength of a powerful man, and his rage supplied him for the time with all that he had lost.  They clung to one another like snakes, and whirled about with frantic violence.  Whichever fell undermost was a dead man for certain.  For a few moments the expiring torch still showed them each other’s hot, vindictive faces; then they battled in the dark, with laboring breath and eager strain, swaying they knew not whither.  At last the huge weight of Solomon overbore his lesser antagonist.  Richard’s limbs gave way beneath him, and he fell, but fell through space; for in their gyrations they had, without knowing it, returned to the top of the ladder.  His foe, fast clutched, fell with him, but, pitching on his head, was killed, as we have seen, upon the instant.

This was the true history of what had occurred in the mine, as Richard, on his bed of pain, recalled it step by step, and strove to shape it to his ends.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MAKING PEACE.

Whether Richard’s own injuries proved fatal or not was with him a matter of secondary importance.  His anxiety was to prove that they were received by misadventure; upon the whole, matters promised favorably for this, and were in other respects as satisfactory as could reasonably be expected.  The blood of Solomon Coe was upon his own head.  Richard had no need even to reproach himself with having struck in self-defense the blow that killed his enemy; and he did not reflect that he was still to blame for having, in the first instance, placed him in the mine.  He had at least done his best to extricate him, and his conscience was (perhaps naturally) not very tender respecting the man who had repaid his attempt at atonement with such implacable animosity.  At all events, Richard’s mind was too much engaged in calculating the consequences of what had happened to entertain remorse.  The question that now monopolized it was, what conclusion was likely to be arrived at by the coroner’s inquest that would, of course, be held upon the body.  The verdict was of the most paramount importance to him, not because upon it depended his own safety (for he valued his life but lightly, and, besides, his inward pain convinced him that it was already forfeited), but all that now made life worth having—­the good regards of Harry and her son.  He had no longer any scruple on his own part with respect to accepting or returning their affection.  His fear was, lest, having been compelled to take so active a part in the rescue of the unhappy Solomon, something should arise to implicate him in his incarceration.