Away! Away!--thundering hoofs; rocking wheels; a van overturned, and groans and curses; pursuers driven down or smashed at where they climbed the steps; the constable surrounded by those who ran beside the van he followed, dragged from his saddle, hurled aside, and his horse sent galloping.
And in the night, two miles afield, one that ran with streaming face and labouring chest and that muttered "I done it on 'im--me, served like a dog before 'em all--I done it on him, the tyrang!"
Percival was changing his dripping clothes. Complete exhaustion had him. The bruises on his face had hardened to ugly colours, and Japhra, chiding him for having left the van, saw with concern an uglier colour yet that burned behind the bruises and whose cause made his wet body burning to the touch.
"Bed for thee!--no changing!" he said; and was answered by Percival: "Japhra! I saw him pitch and drop!"
"I have helped bear him to his van.... I saw him struck."
There had never left Percival's mind him that went thrusting past in the press, right hand in pocket. His eyes questioned Japhra and were answered by Japhra's. Then he said, "Egbert Hunt?"
Strange how tricks and chances go! All that day's chain of tricks, all its train of chances, had brought Percival straight to the import of Japhra's words.
"This night hath ended this life, master. Stingo sells his stock and back to his brother near thy home. To-morrow, new roads for me."
Percival scarcely heard him. Japhra made an exclamation and caught him in his arms.
She came from where she had waited behind her curtain.
"Help me here--then to Boss Maddox's van where they bring a doctor. This night hath struck down this heart of ours."
The van brought Percival back to Aunt Maggie.
Japhra and Ima, waiting the doctor's arrival, watched and tended the signs of how, as Japhra had said, the night had struck Percival down. From the moment of his collapse in Japhra's arms, his vitality no longer withstood the strain to which it had been pressed. His mind gave way beneath the attack of the events of the past hours; marshalled now by fever's hand they returned to him in riot of delirium. "Don't, Ima! Don't! ... No! No! I'm all right! I'm better standing! ... Only a kiss in fun, Ima! O God, if I had only known! ... Murdered! Where's Hunt? Murder! Poor old Hunt! ... In-fighting! I must get in! If only I can stick out this round! ... Ge' back! Ge' back! What's Boss Maddox yelling about? ... In!--I must get in! I will get in! ... Ima! For me! O God, what a thing to happen! Only in fun! Only in fun, Ima! ... Follow him! Follow him! I must get in at him...."