Oxton was within one mile; and, clearly, this was not like flying from danger as a coward, but fleeing from attempted crime, as a brother and a Christian.  Julian snatched at him to catch him as he passed:  and, failing in this, rushed after him.  It was a race for life! and they went like the wind, for two hundred yards, along that muddy high-banked walk.

Suddenly, Charles slipped upon the clay, that he fell; and Julian, with a savage howl, leapt upon him heavily.

Poor youth, he knew that death was nigh, and only uttered, “God forgive you, brother! oh, spare me—­or, if not me, spare yourself—­Julian, Julian!”

But the monster was determined.  Exerting the whole force of his herculean frame, he seized his scarce-resisting victim as he lay, and, lifting him up like a child, flung his own twin-brother head foremost into that darkly-flowing current!

There was one piercing cry—­a splash—­a struggle; and again nothing broke upon the silent night, but the murmur of that swingeing tide, as the Mullet hurried eddying to the sea.

Julian listened a minute or two, flung some stones at random into the river, and then hastily ran back to Burleigh, feeling like a Cain.

CHAPTER XII.

The escape.

But the overruling hand of Him whose aid that victim had invoked, was now stretched forth to save! and the strong-flowing tide, that ran too rapidly for Charles to sink in it, was commissioned from on High to carry him into an angle of that tortuous stream, where he clung by instinct to the bushes.  Silence was his wisdom, while the murderer was near:  and so long as Julian’s footsteps echoed on the banks, Charles stirred not, spoke not, but only silently thanked God for his wonderful deliverance.  However, the footsteps quickly died away, though heard far off clattering amid the still and listening night; and Charles, thankfully, no less than cautiously, drew himself out of the stream, very little harmed beyond a drenching:  for the waters had recovered him at once from the effects of that desperate blow.

It was with a sense of exultation, freedom, independence, that he now hastened scatheless on his way; dripping garments mattered nothing, nor mud, nor the loss of his demolished hat:  the pocket-book was safe, and Emmy’s portrait, (how he kissed it, then!) and luckily a travelling cap was in his great-coat pocket:  so with a most buoyant feeling of animal delight, as well as of religious gratitude, he sped merrily once more upon his secret expedition.  Thank Heaven!  Emmy could not know the peril he had past:  and wretched Julian would now have dreadful reason of his own for this mysterious absence:  and it was a pleasant thing to trudge along so freely in the starlight, on the private embassy of love.  Happy Charles!  I know not if ever more exhilarated feelings blessed the youth; they made him trip along