"Why not? You are no better than I. Three gold pieces! That should content you."
"You have my answer, Gautran. Leave me, I have had enough of you."
"You will have had more than enough before I have done with you," said Gautran, and Vanbrugh was satisfied now, from the man's brutal tones, that it was a deadly foe who stood within a few inches of him, "if you do not do as I bid you. Say, done and done; you had better. By fair means or foul I mean to have what I want."
"Not by fair means, you murderous villain. Be warned. I am on my guard."
"If you will have it, then!" cried Gautran, and with a savage shout he threw himself upon Vanbrugh.
So sudden and fierce was the attack that Vanbrugh could not escape from it; but although he was no match for Gautran in strength, he had had, in former years, some experience in wrestling which came to his aid now in this terrible crisis. The struggle that ensued was prolonged and deadly, and while the men were locked in each other's arms, the storm broke immediately over their heads. The thunder pealed above them, the lightning played about their forms.
"You villain!" gasped Vanbrugh, as he felt himself growing weaker. "Have you been paid by the Advocate to do this deed?"
"Yes," answered Gautran, between his clenched teeth; "he is the fiend's agent, and I am his! He bade me kill you. Your last moment has come!"
"Not yet," cried Vanbrugh, and by a supreme and despairing effort he threw Gautran clear from him, and stood again on the defensive.
Simultaneously with the movement a flash of forked lightning struck the tree against which Vanbrugh had been leaning when Gautran first accosted him, and cleft it in twain; and as Gautran was about to spring forward, a huge mass of timber fell upon him with fatal force, and bore him to the earth--where he lay imprisoned, crushed and bleeding to death.
FATHER CAPEL DISCOVERS GAUTRAN IN HIS PERIL
Father Capel was wending his way slowly over the hill from the bedside of the sick woman whom he had attended for two nights in succession. On the first night she was in a state of delirium, and Father Capel could not arouse her to a consciousness of surrounding things. In her delirium she had repeatedly uttered a name which had powerfully interested him. "Madeline! Madeline! my Madeline," she moaned again and again. "Is it possible," thought the priest, "that the girl whose name she utters with agonised affection is the poor child who was so ruthlessly murdered?" On this, the second night, the woman whose last minutes on earth were approaching, was conscious, and she made certain disclosures to Father Capel which, veiled as they were, had grievously disturbed his usually serene mood. She had, also, given him a mission to perform which did not tend to compose his mind. He had promised faithfully to obey her, and they were to meet again within a few hours. To his earnest request that she would pray with him, she had impatiently answered: