“It don’t matter,” he thought, with the old idle indifference, oddly becoming in that extreme moment the very height of stoic philosophy, without any thought or effort to be such; “I was going to the bad of my own accord; I must have cut and run for the debts, if not for this; it would have been the same thing, anyway, so it’s just as well to do it for them.  Life’s over, and I’m a fool that I don’t shoot myself.”

But there was too imperious a spirit in the Royallieu blood to let him give in to disaster and do this.  He rose slowly, staggering a little, and feeling blinded and dazzled with the blaze of the morning sun as he went out of the beech wood.  There were the marks of the hoofs on the damp, dewy turf; his lips trembled a little as he saw them—­he would never rid the horse again!

Some two miles, more or less, lay between him and the railway.  He was not certain of his way, and he felt a sickening exhaustion on him; he had been without food since his breakfast before the race.  A gamekeeper’s hut stood near the entrance of the wood; he had much recklessness in him, and no caution.  He entered through the half-open door, and asked the keeper, who was eating his sausage and drinking his lager, for a meal.

“I’ll give you one if you’ll bring me down that hen-harrier,” growled the man in south German; pointing to the bird that was sailing far off, a mere speck in the sunny sky.

Cecil took the rifle held out to him, and without seeming even to pause to take aim, fired.  The bird dropped like a stone through the air into the distant woods.  There was no tremor in his wrist, no uncertainty in his measure.  The keeper stared; the shot was one he had thought beyond any man’s range, and he set food and drink before his guest with a crestfallen surprise, oddly mingled with veneration.

“You might have let me buy my breakfast, without making me do murder,” said Bertie quietly, as he tried to eat.  The meal was coarse—­he could scarcely touch it; but he drank the beer down thirstily, and took a crust of bread.  He slipped his ring, a great sapphire graven with his crest, off his finger, and held it out to the man.

“That is worth fifty double-Fredericks.  Will you take it in exchange for your rifle and some powder and ball?”

The German stared again, open-mouthed, and clinched the bargain eagerly.  He did not know anything about gems, but the splendor of this dazzled his eye, while he had guns more than enough, and could get many others at his lord’s cost.  Cecil fastened a shot-belt round him, took a powder-flask and cartridge-case, and with a few words of thanks, went on his way.

Now that he held the rifle in his hand, he felt ready for the work that was before him; if hunted to bay, at any rate he could now have a struggle for his liberty.  The keeper stood bewildered, gazing blankly after him down the vista of pines.

“Hein!  Hein!” he growled, as he looked at the sapphire sparkling in his broad, brown palm; “I never saw such a with-lavishness-wasteful-and-with-courteous-speech-laconic gentleman!  I wish I had not let him have the gun; he will take his own life, belikes; ach, Gott!  He will take his own life!”