While the major, hardly able to credit his own eyes, was staring at the dead body of his dear lad, Jaggard, attracted also by the strange cry, came running up.  
"What is it, sir?" he asked, Jen even in that moment of anxiety. "I heard an awful cry, sir, and came arter you."
 
Jen to the but said nothing. Jaggard, ignorant of the truth, down to place a hand upon the dead man's heart. Then he saw and recognized the face.
 
"Mr. Maurice! God, sir, what does this mean?" he cried, aghast with sudden horror.
 
"It means murder, Jaggard!" replied Jen in a hollow voice which he hardly recognized as his own. "Mr. Maurice went to Deanminster before dinner, and now--" the major pointed again to the .
 
"Murder!" echoed Jaggard, his ruddy face growing pale. "And who, sir--"
 
"I don't know--I can't say!" interrupted his master, impatiently. "Go and get the men to bring down a stretcher for the body, and send the for Dr. Etwald."
 
"Ain't it too late, sir?"
 
"Do as I tell you," said Jen, so fiercely that Jaggard did not dare to disobey, but ran off, leaving the major alone with his dead.
 
The road which ran past "Ashantee" toward The Wigwam was lonely even in the daytime, and at this hour of the night--for it was close upon nine o'clock--it was quite . Not a person was in sight, although the major could see up and down the road for a considerable distance, owing to the bright moonlight. He raised Maurice--or rather all that remained of Maurice--in his arms, and placed the body on the soft grass by the wayside. Then he sat down and began to think out the reason for the committal of this cowardly crime.
 
That it was a crime he was certain, for there was no reasonable idea to suppose that Maurice had committed suicide. He had left for Deanminster hardly three hours before, full of health and spirits; and now he was dead. A dead body, a lonely road--all the evidence of an atrocious having been committed, and not one trace of the assassin. the twice-uttered cry had come from Maurice, and as Jen had raced out of the house after the first time he heard it, he must have reached his boy almost immediately after he died; before, so to speak, the body had time to grow cold. Yet the strange part of the affair was that the body was cold, and that there did not seem to be any wound whereby the murder could have been achieved.
 
"I am taking too much for granted," muttered Major Jen, passing his hand across his brow, "Maurice may not have been killed after all. It is Etwald and his horrible prophecies which have put the idea into my head. Let me have a look at the poor lad's body."
 
In the bright moonlight he carefully examined the body, but could find no trace of any wound, until he came to the right hand. Here, in the palm, he saw a rent with blood, but it was a scratch not likely to have caused death, unless poison were--. Here Major Jen uttered an oath, and rose to his feet with a new and terrible idea in his brain.
 
"The devil-stick, by heaven!" he said aloud.
 
Again he bent down and examined the face and hands. Both were and discolored; he tore open the shirt at the neck, and saw that the young man's breast was all and bloated. Undoubtedly the cause of death was blood-poisoning, and the devil-stick had been the instrument used to effect the deed. But here the problem proposed itself: Who had killed Maurice? The person who had stolen the devil-stick! Who had stolen the devil-stick? The person who--Major Jen came to an pause. He could think for the moment of no answer to that question; but it is only fair to say that, dazed by the terrible occurrence of his dear lad's death, Jen had not his wits about him.
 
While he was still considering the affair in a confused manner Jaggard reappeared with the men from "Ashantee" carrying a stretcher. While they placed the body of Maurice thereon, the groom bound for Deanminster passed them driving the dogcart, and Major Jen stopped the man to tell him that at all risk he was to bring back Dr. Etwald with him. Jaggard wondered at this, for Maurice--poor lad--was beyond all earthly aid--but Jen was thinking of a certain person who might have committed the crime, and he wished for the aid of Dr. Etwald to capture that person. In the meantime the necessities of the case called for the removal of the body to "Ashantee."
 
It was a procession which bore the body up to the house. Four men carried the bier--for it was nothing else since it bore the dead body of a young man--and behind came Major Jen bowed to the ground with sorrow. He could hardly believe that Maurice was dead--that he had perished upon a lonely country road by an unknown hand. But that was the question! Jen began to think the assassin was not unknown; that he had a clew to find the guilty one; and he waited the coming of Dr. Etwald with great to see what his opinion was regarding the course to be pursued.
 
In due time Etwald arrived, for the groom had been fortunate enough to find him at home. On hearing of the affair he expressed the deepest concern, and putting all other business on one side he came back to "Ashantee" in the dogcart. Before seeing Jen, he went up to Alymer's room, and examined the body of the unfortunate young man. Having satisfied himself so far as he was able, without making a post-mortem examination, he came down to the library where Jen awaited him.
 
"Well, Etwald," cried the major, when he saw the tall form of the doctor at the door, "have you seen him?"
 
"I have seen it," corrected Etwald, with professional calmness, "the poor fellow is dead, major--dead from blood-poisoning."
 
"I knew it; I guessed it--the devil-stick."
 
"That may be," rejoined Etwald, taking a seat, "but I can not be sure. You see neither you nor I know anything of the poison which was in the handle of that African instrument. It--"
 
"But what are you talking of?" broke in Jen, impetuously. "You say that my poor boy died from blood-poisoning. How else could he have come by that, save through being touched or struck with the devil-stick? No one in the neighborhood was likely to possess any weapon likely to the blood. If Maurice had been stabbed, or shot, or if his head had been smashed in, I could understand the crime--or rather the for the crime--better; but as it is, the person who stole the devil-stick must have killed him."
 
"And who stole the devil-stick?" asked Etwald, coolly. "If I forget not, major, you asked me the other day if I did."
 
"Yes, but I was wrong; I made a mistake."
 
"A mistake that under the present dispensation of things might prove awkward for me," said Etwald. "I was no friend to the dead man; I did not like him, nor he me. We both loved the same woman--we were rivals. What then so easy as for you to say--for a jury to bel............