“Come along, Stamboul!” he said suddenly, as he put on his hat.  The hound leaped up and laid his heavy paws on the squire’s shoulders, trying to lick his face in his delight, then, almost upsetting the sturdy man he sprang back, slipped on the polished floor, recovered himself and with an enormous stride bounded past Mr. Juxon, out into the park.  But Mr. Juxon quickly called him back, and presently he was following close at heel in his own stately way, looking neither to the right nor to the left.  The squire felt nervous, and the sensation was new to him.  He did not believe that Goddard would really attack him at all, certainly not that he would dare to attack him in broad daylight.  But the knowledge of the threat the fellow had uttered made him watchful.  He glanced to the right and left as he walked and gripped his heavy blackthorn stick firmly in his hand.  He wished that if the man were to appear he would come quickly—­it might be hard to hold Stamboul back if he were attacked unawares.

He reached the gate, crossed the road and rang the bell of the cottage.  As he stood waiting, Stamboul smelled the ground, put up his head, smelled it again and with his nose down trotted slowly to the window on the left hand of the door.  He smelled the ground, the wall and presently put both his fore paws upon the outer ledge of the window.  Then he dropped again, and looked at his master.  Martha was a long time in coming to the door.

“After him, Stamboul!” said the squire, almost unconsciously.  The dog put his nose down and began to move slowly about.  At that moment the door opened.

“Oh, sir,” said Martha, “it’s you, sir.  I was to say, if you please, that if you called, Mrs. Goddard was poorly to-day, sir.”

“Dear me!” said Mr. Juxon, “I hope she is not ill.  Is it anything serious, Martha?”

“Well, sir, she’s been down this mornin’, but her head ached terrible bad and she went back to her room—­oh, sir, your dog—­he’s a runnin’ home.”

As she spoke a sound rang in the air that made Martha start back.  It was a deep, resounding, bell-like note, fierce and wild, rising and falling, low but full, with a horror indescribable in its echo—­the sound which no man who has heard it ever forgets—­the baying of a bloodhound on the track of a man.

The squire turned deadly pale, but he shouted with all his might, as he would have shouted to a man on the topsail yard in a gale at sea.

“Stamboul!  Stamboul!  Stamboul!” Again and again he yelled the dog’s name.

Stamboul had not gone far.  The quickset hedge had baffled the scent for a moment and he was not a dozen yards beyond it in the park when his master’s cry stopped him.  Instantly he turned, cleared the six-foot hedge and double ditch at a bound and came leaping back across the road.  The squire breathed hard, for it had been a terrible moment.  If he had not succeeded in calling the beast back, it might have been all over with Walter Goddard, wherever he was hidden.