Just then the animal keeled over, and immediately there followed the report of a rifle.  The crawler behind the beast slid back into the hollow and disappeared.  Then, from the left of the house came a volley that woke the echoes all round; it was the explosion of the Captain’s blunderbuss.  The detective ran along the fence to Mr. Terry’s beat, and found the veteran reloading his rifle from the muzzle.  “Keep your post, Mr. Terry,” he cried, “while I run and see what it is you have bagged.  I imagine your son-in-law will look after the Captain.”  Mr. Nash ran down the hill, closely followed by the lawyer, who had come out to see the fun.  All the bedroom windows were lit up, and eager eyes strained to learn the cause of the firing, while the remaining sentinels prepared for action.  The animal shot was a large bloodhound, in life a dangerous brute with horrid, cruel-looking fangs, but now in the agonies of death.  The detective drew his long dagger-like knife, and drove it into the creature’s heart.  Then, while Coristine lifted it by the two hind legs, he took a grasp of its collar, and they carried the trophy of the veteran’s rifle on to the lawn in front of the house.  There they learned that the Captain, being half asleep with no chance of an enemy in sight, dreamt his ship had been saluted coming into port on a holiday, and, as in duty bound, returned the salute.  The blunderbuss had not exploded; it always made that grand, booming, rattling, diffusive sort of a report.  The dead hound’s collar was examined, and was discovered to bear the initials A.R.  “Who is A.R.?” asked the Squire; and Mr. Nash replied:  “He is no doubt my affianced bridegroom, Haltamont Rawdon.”

It was two o’clock in the morning; so the guard was relieved, and the former sentries returned to their posts; but the Squire noticed, with a frown, that, just as the relief arrived at Mr. Errol’s beat, a female form clothed in black darted round the stables towards the kitchen door.  Also, he saw that the minister had a most unmilitary muffler, in the shape of a lady’s cloud, round his neck, which he certainly had not when he went on duty.  His high respect for the reverend gentleman hindered any outward expression of his combined amusement and annoyance.  Muggins came back with Mr. Perrowne, but obstinately refused to go near the dead hound.

“Do you think he has ever seen it before?” asked the detective.

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” replied the clergyman.

“I lawst Muggins, you know, at Tossorontio, and there was a man there at the time, a short man in a pea-jacket or cowt, down’t you know, who had a big dawg.  When Muggins disappeared, I thought the big dawg might have killed him.  But now I think the man with the pea-cowt saved him from the big dawg, and that’s how Muggins came to gow after him.  What do you imagine that beast was after, coming up the hill towards Muggins?”

“I think he was coming to overpower you, Mr. Perrowne, and bring all our forces to your aid, while the fellow behind him slipped in and fired the house or did some similar mischief.”