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“What had happened? Nobody knew, sir. But Exciseman Jones was in his bed for a fortnight; and when he got on his legs again, it was pretty evident there was a hate between the two men that only blood-spillin’ could satisfy.

“So far as is known, they never spoke to one another again. They played their game of death in silence–the lawful, cold and unfathomable; the unlawful, swaggerin’ and crool–and twenty year separated the first move and the last.

“This were the first, sir–as Dark Dignum leaked it out long after in his cups. This were the first; and it brought Exciseman Jones to his grave on the cliff here.

“It were a deep soft summer night; and the young smuggler sat by hisself in the long room of the Black Boy. Now, I tell you he were a fox-ship intriguer–grand, I should call him, in the aloneness of his villainy. He would play his dark games out of his own hand; and sure, of all his wickedness, this game must have seemed the sum.

“I say he sat by hisself; and I hear the listening ghost of him call me a liar. For there were another body present, though invisible to mortal eye; and that second party were Exciseman Jones, who was hidden up the chimney.

“How had he inveigled him there? Ah, they’ve met and worried that point out since. No other will ever know the truth this side the grave. But reports come to be whispered; and reports said as how Dignum had made an appointment with a bodiless master of a smack as never floated, to meet him in the Black Boy and arrange for to run a cargo as would never be shipped; and that somehow he managed to acquent Exciseman Jones o’ this dissembling appointment, and to secure his presence in hidin’ to witness it.

“That’s conjecture; for Dignum never let on so far. But what is known for certain is that Exciseman Jones, who were as daring and determined as his enemy–p’r’aps more so–for some reason was in the chimney, on to a grating in which he had managed to lower hisself from the roof; and that he could, if given time, have scrambled up again with difficulty, but was debarred from going lower. And, further, this is known–that, as Dignum sat on, pretendin’ to yawn and huggin’ his black intent, a little sut plopped down the chimney and scattered on the coals of the laid fire beneath.

“At that–‘Curse this waitin’!’ said he. ‘The room’s as chill as a belfry’; and he got to his feet, with a secret grin, and strolled to the hearthstone.

“‘I wonder,’ said he, ‘will the landlord object if I ventur’ upon a glint of fire for comfort’s sake?’ and he pulled out his flint and steel, struck a spark, and with no more feelin’ than he’d express in lighting a pipe, set the flame to the sticks.

“The trapt rat above never stirred or give tongue. My God! what a man! Sich a nature could afford to bide and bide–ay, for twenty year, if need be.

“Dignum would have enjoyed the sound of a cry; but he never got it. He listened with the grin fixed on his face; and of a sudden he heard a scrambling struggle, like as a dog with the colic jumping at a wall; and presently, as the sticks blazed and the smoke rose denser, a thick coughin’, as of a consumptive man under bed-clothes. Still no cry, nor any appeal for mercy; no, not from the time he lit the fire till a horrible rattle come down, which was the last twitches of somethin’ that choked and died on the sooty gratin’ above.

“When all was quiet, Dignum he knocks with his foot on the floor and sits hisself down before the hearth, with a face like a pillow for innocence.

“‘I were chilled and lit it,’ says he to the landlord. ‘You don’t mind?’