"Philippa! Look out for that car behind you!"
The girl turned, saw the automobile coming, stepped aside into the ditch as a cloud of white dust obscured her.
Before she realized that the car had stopped, three men had jumped out into the ditch and caught hold of her.
Warner heard her cry out; started to run toward her; saw her flung struggling into the car; saw Wildresse rise and strike her with his great fist and knock her headlong across the back seat, where she lay, her disheveled head hanging down over the rear of the tonneau. Then the car started. As she hung there, blood dripping from her mouth, she reached blindly toward her breast, drew out the envelopes, and dropped them in the wake of the moving car.
They fluttered along behind it for a moment, drawn into the dusty suction, then they were whirled away right and left into the roadside ditches.
Evidently nobody in the car except Philippa knew what she had done, for the car, at top speed, dashed on toward the north.
Halkett ran up and found Warner gazing vacantly after the receding machine, pistol leveled, but not daring to shoot. Then they both saw Wildresse jerk the half senseless girl upright, saw him strike her again with the flat of his huge hand so heavily that she crumpled and dropped back into the corner of the seat.
"God!" whispered Halkett at Warner’s elbow. "Did you see that?"
Warner, as white as death, made no reply. The ear had vanished, but he still stood there staring at the distant cloud of dust settling slowly in the highway. Presently Halkett walked forward, picked up the two envelopes, pocketed them, and returned swiftly to where the American still stood, his grim features set, the red stain from his bitten lip streaking his chin.
"We’d better start after that man at once."
"Have your horse hooked up as soon as you can.... I think——" His voice trembled, but he controlled it. "I am horribly afraid for that child.... He would cut her throat if he dared."
Warner turned a ghastly visage to his companion:
"Because she knows enough about him to send him before a firing squad," said Halkett. "That’s the trouble, Warner."
They turned and walked rapidly toward the inn.
Warner spoke presently in an altered voice, but with the mechanical precision of a man afraid of emotion and any wavering of self-control.