Furnum Regis, or the King’s Oven, is a wild and lonely spot lying beneath a cairn-crested hill of mid Dartmoor. Here in centuries past was practised the industry of tin-smelting, and to the present time a thousand decaying evidences of that vanished purpose still meet the eye. The foundations of ruins are yet apparent in a chaos of shattered stone; broken pounds extend their walls into the waste around about; hard by a mine once worked, and much stone from the King’s Oven was removed for the construction of buildings which are to-day themselves in ruins. Now the fox breeds in this fastness, and only roaming cattle or the little ponies have any business therein. A spot better adapted for the bestowal of stolen property could hardly be conceived.

Three hundred yards from the entrance of the Oven, Daniel stopped the trap and the men alighted.

“I must get two of the rocks in line with the old stones ’pon top the hill,” said Daniel. “That done, I know where to set you fellows digging.”

They proceeded as he directed. Corder walked on one side of the prisoner and Gregory upon the other; while Luke Bartley, with two spades and a pickaxe on his shoulder, came behind them.

The moon now rose and the darkness lifted. Sweetland walked about for some time until a certain point arrested him. This rock, after some shifting of their position, he presently brought into line with another, and then it seemed that both were hidden by the towering top of the cairn that rose into the moonlight beyond them.

“Here we are,” he said. “An’ first you’ve got to shift this here gert boulder. It took three men to turn it over and then pull it back into its place; an’ it will ax for all you three can do to treat it likewise.”

The rope was brought, and with the help of the mighty Corder a large block of granite was dragged out of its bed. The naked earth spread beneath.

“You’ll find solid stone for two feet,” declared Daniel, “for we filled up with soil an’ granite, an’ trampled all so hard an’ firm as our feet could do it. The hole we dug goes two feet down; then it runs under thicky rock to the left.”

Without words the men set to work and Daniel expressed increasing impatience.

“Lord! to see you chaps with spades! But, of course, you haven’t been educated to it. You’ll be all night. I wish I could help you; but I can’t.”

“We’ll shift it,” declared Corder. “Wait till the moon’s a thought higher; then we’ll see what we’re at easier.”

He toiled mightily and cast huge masses of earth out of a growing hole; but the ground was full of great stones; and sometimes all three officers had to work together to drag a mass of granite out of the earth.

“You chaps wouldn’t have made your fortunes at spade work—that’s a fact,” said Daniel. “I wish you’d let me help. If you freed my hands, there’d be no danger in it so long as you tied my legs.”

Bartley stopped a moment to rest his aching back.

“’Tis a fair offer,” he said. “If you make fast the man’s legs, he couldn’t give us the slip. I can’t do no more of this labour, anyway. I’ve earned my living with my brains all my life, an’ I ban’t built to do ploughboy’s work now I’m getting up in years. I be sweating my strength out as ’tis.”

Gregory agreed.

“Time’s everything,” he said. “If you take that there rope an’ tie him by the leg to this stone what we’ve moved, he’s just as safe as if he was handcuffed. Then he can dig for us, as he well knows how.”

Mr Corder considered this course, and then agreed to it. The rope was knotted round Daniel’s leg, and he found himself tied fast to the great rock that had been recently moved; then Mr Corder took off the handcuffs.

“No tricks mind,” he said. “I’m a merciful man an’ wish you no harm; but if you try to run for it, I’ll knock you down as if you was a rabbit.”

“You’re right not to trust me,” answered the poacher, calmly; “but give me that spade an’ you’ll see I’m in earnest. I want two hundred pound for my wife, don’t I? If we take turn an’ turn about, we’ll soon shift this muck. ’Twill be better for two to dig. Ban’t room for three.”

The critical moment of Daniel’s plot now approached; but he kept a grip on his nerves and succeeded in concealing his great excitement. All depended on the next half hour.

He and Corder now began to work steadily, while the others rested and watched them. The moon shone brightly, and a mound of earth and stone increased beside the hole they dug. Presently Gregory and Bartley took a turn; but the latter had not dug five minutes when Daniel snatched his spade from him and continued the work himself.

“I can’t stand watching you,” he said. “Such weak hands I never seed in my life. A man would be rotten long afore his grave was dug, if you had the digging.”

“I works with the intellects,” answered Mr Bartley. “My calling in life is higher than a sexton’s, I hope.”

After another period of labour, Corder took the inspector’s place, and soon the aperture gaped two feet deep.

“That’s it; now we’ve got to sink to the left,” explained Sweetland. “We run another two feet under this here ledge and then we come to the stuff.”

Now he was working with Gregory again and the moment for action had arrived. Opportunity had to be made, however, and Daniel’s escape depended entirely upon Mr Corder’s answer to his next question. He knew that with the giant present his plans must fail; but if Corder could be induced to go aside, Daniel felt that the rest was not difficult.

“Can’t see no more,” he said. “If you’ll fetch one of the gig lamps, Mr Corder, us will know where we are. You’ll want the lamp in a minute anyway, when we come to the plate, for ’twas all thrown loose into the earth.”

Without answering, the big policeman fell into the trap. He had to go nearly three hundred yards for the lamp, and, allowing him above a minute for that journey, Daniel Sweetland made his plunge for liberty. Suddenly, without a moment’s warning, he turned upon Gregory as the inspector bent beside him, and struck the man an awful blow with his spade full upon the top of the head.

“Sorry, Greg!” he cried, as the officer fell in a heap, “but if I’ve got to swing, it shall be for something, not nothing.”

Even as he spoke Daniel had reached to the length of his rope and collared Bartley. The strong man he had struck senseless according to his intention; the weak one he now prepared to deal with. Bartley screamed like a hunted hare, for he supposed that his hour was come. Then Daniel saw the distant light leap forward. Only seconds remained, and only seconds were necessary.

“Be quiet and hand me your knife, or I’ll smash your skull in too!” he shouted to the shaking policeman; then he stretched for the handcuffs, which Corder had put on a stone beside him, and in a second Luke Bartley found himself on the ground beside his colleague. A moment later and he was chained to the recumbent and senseless person of the inspector, while Daniel knelt beside him and extracted from his pocket the knife he now required. With this he cut the rope that held him prisoner and, during the ten seconds that remained, before Mr Corder rushed upon the scene, Daniel had put forty yards of darkness between himself and his guards.

The Plymouth man now found his work cut out for him. Gregory was still unconscious and Bartley had become hysterical and was rolling with his face on the earth howling for mercy. Mr Corder liberated him and kicked him into reason. Then Luke told his tale while the other tended the unfortunate inspector.

“He falled upon the man with his spade, like a devil from hell, an’ afore I could start my frozen limbs an’ strike him down, he’d got me in his clutches an’ handcuffed my wrist to this poor corpse here.”

But Gregory was not a corpse. In two minutes he had recovered his senses and sat up with his feet in the pit.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “Where’s Daniel Sweetland to? Who hit me? Was it lightning?”

“’Twas him,” answered Corder; “an’ there’s no time to lose. If you can walk, take my arm an’ we’ll go back this minute. I’m going to drive to Princetown at once an’ give the alarm there. ’Tis only a matter of ten mile, an’ the civil guard at the prison know the Moor an’ will lend a hand to catch the man as soon as daylight comes. He can’t be off much sooner.”

“An’ this here silver treasure?” asked Mr Bartley.

“This here silver grandmother!” answered the other bitterly. “He’s done us—done me—me as have had some credit in my time, I believe. There—don’t talk—I could spit blood for this!—but words be vain. I sha’n’t have another peaceful moment till I’ve got that anointed rascal in irons again. ’Tis a lesson that may cost me a pension.”

Corder gave his arm to Gregory and Bartley walked in front with the lantern.

“A gashly company we make, sure enough,” said the pioneer. “The wickedness of that limb! An’ I thought for certain as my death had come. Talk about London—I’d like to see a worse unhung ruffian there, or anywhere. The man don’t live that’s worse than Sweetland. I never knowed there was such a liar in the universe.”

A last surprise awaited them and made the long journey to Princetown impossible until dawn.

When they reached the dog-cart they found it supported by the shafts alone, for the horse was gone.

“He’ll get to Plymouth after all, I reckon,” said Corder, blankly; “but we sha’n’t—not this side of morning. Us have got to walk ten mile on end to reach Princetown, let alone Plymouth. That’s what us have got to do.”

“While we talked, he took the hoss. The devil’s cunning of that man!” groaned Bartley.

Meantime Daniel Sweetland was riding bare-backed over Dartmoor to his new home.

He knew the way very well and threaded many a bog and leapt a stream or two; then breasted a hill and looked down where, like a glow-worm, one little warm light glimmered in the silver and ebony of the nocturnal desert.

For the first time that day his heart grew soft.

“Her—all alone!” he thought. “I might have knowed she’d come. That’s her place now; an’ mine be alongside her!”

He formed the resolution to see Minnie at any cost.

“Us’ll eat supper alone together for once, though the devil gets the reckoning,” he said. “I lay my pretty have had no stomach for victuals this night.”

Five minutes later a horse stopped at Hangman’s Hut, and Minnie, unlocking the door, found herself in her husband’s arms.

“Ban’t much of a wedding night,” he said; “but such as ’tis us’ll make the most of it. I’ve foxed ’em very nice with a yarn about that burglary, of which I know no more than the dead really. But you’ll hear tell about that presently. An’ to-night they’ll have a pretty walk to Princetown, for the only horse except this one within five miles belongs to Johnny Beer; an’ ’tis tired out after the journey to Moreton.”

Minnie was far less calm than when she left him in the morning. Even her steady nerve failed her now, and for the only time in his life Daniel saw her weep.

“Don’t you do that,” he said. “Ban’t no hour for tears. Fetch in all the food in the house, an’ that bottle of wine I got for ’e. Can’t stop long, worse luck.”

“I know right well you’m an innocent man, Daniel; an’ I’ll never be happy again until I’ve done my share to prove it,” she said.

“’Tis just that will be so awful hard. Anyway I felt that the risk of a trial was too great to stand, if there was a chance to escape. And the chance offered. The lies I’ve told! But I needn’t waste time with that. Keep quiet about my visit to-night. Ban’t nobody’s business but ours. A purty honeymoon, by God! All the same, ’tis better than none.”

Minnie hastened to get the food; then, when she had brought it, he put out the light and flung the window open.

“Us must heed what may hap. They might come this way by chance, though there’s little likelihood of it.”

He listened, but there was no sound save the sigh of a distant stream and the stamp of the horse’s hoofs at the door.

“To leave you here in this forsaken place!” he cried. “You mustn’t stop. You shall not.”

“But I shall, for ’tis so good as any other,” she answered. “I’ve got to work for you while you are far off, Daniel. I’ve got to clear you; an’ I will, God helping. What a woman can do, I’ll do for ’e.”

“An’ more than any woman but you could do! I know right well that if truth is to come to light ’twill be your brave heart finds it. You an’ Sim. Trust him. He’ll do what a friend may. He’ll work for me with all his might.”

“An’ what will you do?” she asked.

“Make myself scarce,” he answered. “’Tis all I can do for the present. No good arguing while the rope’s round your neck. I can’t prove I’m innocent, so ’tis vain stopping to do it. I’ll get out of harm’s way, if I can. I mean to get to Plymouth afore morning an’ go down among the ships. Then I’ll take the first job any man offers me, an’ if my luck holds, I did ought to be in blue water to-morrow.”

“They’ll trace you by the horse if you ride.”

“So they would, of course. ’Tis the horse I trust to help me again as he’ve helped to-night. Like enough, when you hear next about me, they’ll tell you as I’ve been killed by the horse. But don’t you feel no fear. I shall be to Plymouth very comfortable.”

She ministered to him, and he ate and drank heartily.

“One hour I’ll bide along wi’ my own true love, then off I must go,” said Daniel. “I’ve hit poor Gregory rather hard; but I hope he’ll get over it. Anyway, it had to be done. Only you go on being yourself, Min, an’ keep up your courage, an’ fill your time working for me. The case is clear. Some man have shot Adam Thorpe; but he didn’t shoot him with my gun, because my gun was in my own hand when Thorpe fell, an’ I was a good few mile away. To be exact, I was getting pheasants for ’e in Westcombe woods at the time—you’ll find ’em in the well; an’ I heard the shots fired at Middlecott quite clear, though I was five mile off. But the thing be to show that I was five mile off.”

“And your gun, Daniel?”

“I put my gun back in the case in the next room to this long afore midnight yesterday,” he said.

“Then ’twas fetched away after midnight?”

“Yes, it was; an’ if you can find the man as took my gun, then you’ll find the man who killed the keeper.”

“’Twill be the first thought an’ prayer of my life to do it, Daniel.”

“An’ you will do it—if Sim don’t,” he prophesied.

Within an hour Daniel reluctantly prepared to leave his home.

“’Tis a damned shame I must go,” he said; “but I’ve no choice now. Only mind this, Minnie Sweetland. Don’t you think you’m a widow to-morrow when they comes an’ tells you so. If they bring my carpse to ’e, then believe it; but they won’t.”

“Take care of yourself, Daniel,” she answered, “for your life’s my life. I’ll only live an’ think an’ work an’ pray for you, till you come homealong again.”

“Trust me,” he said. “You’m my star wheresoever I do go. Up or down, so long as I be alive, I’ll have you first in thought, my own li’l wife. Nought shall ever come atween me an’ you but my coffin-lid. An’ well God knows it.”

“Go,” she said. “An’ let me hear how you be faring so soon as you can.”

“Be sure of that. If I daren’t write to you, I’ll write to Sim. But remember! it may be an awful long time, if I have to go across seas.”

“Write to me—to me direct,” she begged earnestly. “Send my letter through no other man or woman. ’Twill be my life’s blood renewed to get it. An’ I can wait; I can wait as patient as any stone. Time’s nothing so long as we come together again some day. We’ve got our dear memories, an’ they’ll never grow dim, though we grow grey.”

“Not the memory of this day an’ night, that’s brought the greatest ill an’ the greatest joy into my life to once,” he answered her. “Green for evermore ’twill be.”

Then again and again they kissed, and Daniel Sweetland rode away.

At the top of the next dark hill he turned and looked back, but he saw nothing. Minnie had not lighted her lamp again. She stood and watched him vanish. Then she went to her bed in the dark and prayed brave prayers until the dawn broke.