record was gone. Not two hundred and ten, but twenty-one miles it
now read. Oh, shameful pillage! A dark stain appeared on his
bosom, but Arnaux kept on. Home, home, homeward bound. The danger
was past in an instant. Home, homeward he steered straight as
before, but the wonderful speed was diminished; not a mile a
minute now; and the wind made undue sounds in his tattered
pinions. The stain in his breast told of broken force; but on,
straight on, he flew. Home, home was in sight, and the pain in
his breast was forgotten. The tall towers of the city were in
clear view of his far-seeing eye as he skimmed by the high cliffs
of Jersey. On, on--the pinion might flag, the eye might darken,
but the home-love was stronger and stronger.

Under the tall Palisades, to be screened from the wind, he
passed, over the sparkling water, over the trees, under the
Peregrines' eyrie, under the pirates' castle where the great grim
Peregrines sat; peering like black-masked highwaymen they marked
the on-coming Pigeon. Arnaux knew them of old. Many a message was
lying undelivered in that nest, many a record-bearing plume had
fluttered away from its fastness. But Arnaux had faced them
before, and now he came as before--on, onward, swift, but not as
he had been; the deadly gun had sapped his force, had lowered his
speed. On, on; and the Peregrines, biding their time, went forth
like two bow-bolts; strong and lightning-swift they went against
one weak and wearied.

Why tell of the race that followed? Why paint the despair of a
brave little heart in sight of the home he had craved in vain? in
a minute all was over. The Peregrines screeched in their triumph.
Screeching and sailing, they swung to their eyrie, and the prey