"It was his gun lying on the ground. I picked it up, and saw that it had been discharged. There was blood upon the stock, and stuck to the hammer was a wisp of coarse yellow hair. Amazed, and filled with a sudden cold sensation of fear, I examined the ground about me. I saw grass and bushes trampled and broken as though there had been a struggle on the spot. I saw splashes and blots of blood here, there, and everywhere. And then something prompted me to look over the cliff. What I saw nearly caused me to fall, so horribly did my heart leap in my throat. Down below there, on the cruel rocks, head downwards on the beach, lay his body. Dead he was, you could see that from the top. Poor Karl!
"I rushed down through the gully on the left, and made my way to where he lay. His head was broken by the fall, but there were horrible wounds besides upon his throat and limbs, gaping, torn, and deep, too plainly the marks of some fierce beast's teeth. And as I knelt beside the body, weeping, stupified, agonized by the horror of the thing, a fancy crept into my poor brains that I had been a witness of that scene upon the bluff the night before; when nought but the moon was there to see, with the creek singing through the bush in the gully, and the river-tide sweeping along below.
"I fancied I saw him sitting moody and despairing by the fire. And up through the thick jungle of the gully comes stealing the great yellow body of that dreadful brute, that devilish cur that had first ruined him and now meant to kill him. I saw it spring upon him as he sat, with fangs gleaming and savage eyes of fire. I saw the flash of his gun, the swinging blow, the curse of the man, and the growl of the dog. I could fancy the ferocious joy upon the face of the half-maddened man as he grappled with his foe. I saw the hard, fierce struggle—glistening teeth opposed to flashing steel. And then I saw him conquer, but—only to seize the ponderous brute, to hurl it from the cliff far into the river, and, staggering, wounded to the death, overbalancing, to fall headlong himself.
"I was roused from this dream by the trampling of horses' feet. It was the men from Whangarei—kind, cheery, sympathetic souls. They had ridden all the way—all the fifty miles along the Maori track through the forest. Poor as they were, they had put aside their own concerns, and had come over to help us in our trouble.
"But they were too late—too late! except to help me lay my poor dead chum to rest.
"Ah! you guess now who the lady is that was our hostess at Hapuakohe the other day. Karl bequeathed to her, as a matter of course, all he had to leave. But she knows only a small part of what I have been telling you. There are portions of the tale that neither she nor her husband know aught of. You can guess what they are. Never hint at this story in their presence, or in that of their children. I know I can rely on your silence. Moreover, there is nothing to give rise to mention of it, for no sheep-worrying wild-dogs, or dingoes, have ever been heard of in the Kaipara since the day that Karl died.
"When we were over there, I took the opportunity of visiting the place where I laid him, long, long ago, as it seems to me now. A thicket of ferns hides all traces of the grave, and the wooden cross that marked it has fallen and decayed among them.
"What matter! He is at rest. And the kind trees that shadow round him scatter the golden kowhai bells and crimson pohutukawa blossoms upon his mossy coverlet. The tide flows at his feet, risping over the oyster-beds, swirling among the mangroves, hurrying to the distant sea; just as it did on that night so long ago, when it bore with it away through the moonlit forest—away in secret and unfathomable mystery—the accursed carcase of the Demon Dog."