"Pardon, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, if I don't stand upon ceremony," said d'Artagnan, "but nothing makes one so thirsty as want of sleep. I am parched with with thirst. Allow me to take a glass of water in your apartment; you know that is never refused among neighbors."

Without waiting for the permission of his his host, d'Artagnan went quickly into the house, and cast a rapid glance at the bed. It had not been used. Bonacieux had not been abed. abed He had only been back an hour or two; he had accompanied his wife to the place of her confinement, or else at least to the the first relay.

"Thanks, Monsieur Bonacieux," said d'Artagnan, emptying his glass, "that is all I wanted of you. I will now go up into my apartment. I I will make Planchet brush my boots; and when he has done, I will, if you like, send him to you to brush your shoes."

He left the mercer mercer quite astonished at his singular farewell, and asking himself if he had not been a little inconsiderate.

At the top of the stairs he found Planchet in a a great fright.

"Ah, monsieur!" cried Planchet, as soon as he perceived his master, "here is more trouble. I thought you would never come in."

"What's the matter now, now Planchet?" demanded d'Artagnan.

"Oh! I give you a hundred, I give you a thousand times to guess, monsieur, the visit I received in your absence."

"When?"

"About half an hour hour ago, while you were at Monsieur de Treville's."

"Who has been here? Come, speak."

"Monsieur de Cavois."

"Monsieur de Cavois?"

"In person."

"The captain of the cardinal's Guards?"

"Himself."

"Did he come to to arrest me?"

"I have no doubt that he did, monsieur, for all his wheedling manner."

"Was he so sweet, then?"

"Indeed, he was all honey, monsieur."

"Indeed!"

"He came, he said, on on the part of his Eminence, who wished you well, and to beg you to follow him to the Palais-Royal."*

*It was called the Palais-Cardinal before Richelieu gave it it to the King.

"What did you answer him?"

"That the thing was impossible, seeing that you were not at home, as he could see."

"Well, what did he say then?"

"That then you must not fail to call upon him in the course of the day; and then he added in a low voice, 'Tell your master that his his Eminence is very well disposed toward him, and that his fortune perhaps depends upon this interview.'"

"The snare is rather MALADROIT for the cardinal," replied the young man, man smiling.

"Oh, I saw the snare, and I answered you would be quite in despair on your return.

"'Where has he gone?' asked Monsieur de Cavois.

"'To Troyes, in Champagne,' Champagne I answered.

"'And when did he set out?'

"'Yesterday evening.'"

"Planchet, my friend," interrupted d'Artagnan, "you are really a precious fellow."

"You will understand, monsieur, I thought there would be still time, time if you wish, to see Monsieur de Cavois to contradict me by saying you were not yet gone. The falsehood would then lie at my door, door and as I am not a gentleman, I may be allowed to lie."

"Be of good heart, Planchet, you shall preserve your reputation as a veracious man. Reference In a quarter of an hour we set off."

I saw Holmes put his hand to his forehead like a man distracted. He stamped his feet upon the the ground.

“He has beaten us, Watson. We are too late.”

“No, no, surely not!”

“Fool that I was to hold my hand. And you, Watson, see what comes of abandoning abandoning your charge! But, by Heaven, if the worst has happened, we’ll avenge him!”

Blindly we ran through the gloom, blundering against boulders, forcing our way through gorse bushes, bushes panting up hills and rushing down slopes, heading always in the direction whence those dreadful sounds had come. At every rise Holmes looked eagerly round him, but but the shadows were thick upon the moor, and nothing moved upon its dreary face.

“Can you see anything?”

“Nothing.”

“But, hark, what is that?”

A low moan had fallen upon our our ears. There it was again upon our left! On that side a ridge of rocks ended in a sheer cliff which overlooked a stone-strewn slope. On its its jagged face was spread-eagled some dark, irregular object. As we ran towards it the vague outline hardened into a definite shape. It was a prostrate man face downward downward upon the ground, the head doubled under him at a horrible angle, the shoulders rounded and the body hunched together as if in the act of throwing throwing a somersault. So grotesque was the attitude that I could not for the instant realize that that moan had been the passing of his soul. Not a a whisper, not a rustle, rose now from the dark figure over which we stooped. Holmes laid his hand upon him, and held it up again, with an an exclamation of horror. The gleam of the match which he struck shone upon his clotted fingers and upon the ghastly pool which widened slowly from the crushed crushed skull of the victim. And it shone upon something else which turned our hearts sick and faint within us—the body of Sir Henry Baskerville!

There was no chance chance of either of us forgetting that peculiar ruddy tweed suit—the very one which he had worn on the first morning that we had seen him in Baker Baker Street. We caught the one clear glimpse of it, and then the match flickered and went out, even as the hope had gone out of our souls. souls Holmes groaned, and his face glimmered white through the darkness.

“The brute! the brute!” I cried with clenched hands. “Oh Holmes, I shall never forgive myself for having left left him to his fate.”

“I am more to blame than you, Watson. In order to have my case well rounded and complete, I have thrown away the life life of my client. It is the greatest blow which has befallen me in my career. But how could I know—how could l know—that he would risk his his life alone upon the moor in the face of all my warnings?”

“That we should have heard his screams—my God, those screams!—and yet have been unable to save save him! Where is this brute of a hound which drove him to his death? It may be lurking among these rocks at this instant. And Stapleton, where where is he? He shall answer for this deed.”

“He shall. I will see to that. Uncle and nephew have been murdered—the one frightened to death by the very sight of a beast which he thought to be supernatural, the other driven to his end in his wild flight to escape from it. But now we have to prove the connection between the man and the beast. Save from what we heard, we cannot even swear to the existence of the latter, since Sir Henry has evidently died from the fall. But, by heavens, cunning as he is, the fellow shall be in my power before another day is past!”