The Happy Warrior Part 50

There arose almost simultaneously, high above the din of sticks and oaths, a scream of shocking sound and horrid meaning--"A knife! A knife!" the scream shot up--"A knife! Some b.a.s.t.a.r.d 's used a knife!"

It swept across the struggling men, stopped them, and was cried from throat to throat as though through the night there jarred some evil bird circling with evil cry: "A knife! A knife! Some one's knifed!"

And then again that first voice screamed: "Boss Maddox's knifed! The Boss is murdered!"

And another, most beastly: "Christ! it's pourin' out of 'im. Boss!

Boss! 'Oo's done it on yer?"

And a third: "Boss! Boss! G.o.d ha' mercy!--he's dead! dead!"

And one that sprung up in panic and smashed a panic blow at the man behind him: "Dead! Dead! Gi' us room, blast yer!"

And one that sprung upright, held in his hand aloft that which caught the dull morning gleam, and screamed "Here y'are! Here's what done it!

Blood on the haft!"

IV

A thud of hoofs broke into the silence in which the crowd stood held.

A jingle of accoutrements; a sharp voice that called: "What's up?

What's wrong here? Who called murder?" a breaking away right and left of the mob; and into the lane instinctively formed to where the body lay a mounted constable rode, pulled up his horse and cried again: "What's up? What's wrong here?"

He was answered. Scarcely the fearful whisper "Police! Police!" had run to the outskirts of the crowd, when one that had knelt sprung raving to his feet, tossed aloft two hands dark with blood, and shouted: "I called murder! There's murder here! Boss Maddox 's got a knife in him!" His shouting went to a scream: "One o' they's done it!"

he screamed. "One o' they! One o' Stingo's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

There had been mutterings of thunder and swiftly gathering darkness that submerged the summer morning's gleam. Tremendous upon that accusing scream there now broke out of heaven great reverberating rolls of sound as of heaven demanding answer to that cry. The sheeting rain burst with a torrent's fury--a great stab of lightning almost upon the very camp; then pitchy black and thunder's roll again.

To the Stingo crowd it gave the last effect to the mounting panic that had mounted in them on successive terrors of "A knife!" "Boss Maddox's knifed!" "Boss Maddox 's dead!" "Police! Police!" and "One o' they!

One o' they! One o' Stingo's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

Murder had been done. The Blue Boys were out. With one of their own number lay the guilt. There cried to them "Away! Away!", all the instinct that, since first law came on the land, has bade roadmen, gipsies, outlaws, take immediate flight from trouble. "Away!" it screamed; and by common impulse there was a break and a rush to their vans of the Stingo men; and in the pitchy blackness and in primeval shudder at every roll of thunder, drenched by the streaming downpour, lit as the lightning s.n.a.t.c.hed up the cloak of night, there were panic harnessing and panic cries: "One o' us! One o' us done it! D'yer see the Blue Boy on his 'orse?--more of 'em coming! 'Old still!--still, blast yer! Up wi' that shaft!--up! h.e.l.l take this buckle! Are yer fixed? One o' us! One o' us!"

A van, speedier ready than its neighbours, rolled off, its driver flogging the horse from the forward platform. A blinding torch from heaven flamed down about it. The constable, giving directions by the p.r.o.ne figure--"He's not dead; knot those scarves together; lift, and bind 'em so"--shaded his eyes from the glare; then jumped for his horse. "Stop that van! None's to leave here! Stop 'em! stop 'em!"

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.

Away! Away!--blindly into the night.

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!"

V

Percival was changing his dripping clothes. Complete exhaustion had him. The bruises on his face had hardened to ugly colours, and j.a.phra, 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: "j.a.phra! 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 j.a.phra and were answered by j.a.phra's. Then he said, "Egbert Hunt?"

"Egbert Hunt."

"What's going to happen now, j.a.phra?"

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 j.a.phra'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. j.a.phra made an exclamation and caught him in his arms.

"Ima!"

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."

CHAPTER VII

j.a.pHRA AND IMA. j.a.pHRA AND AUNT MAGGIE

I

The van brought Percival back to Aunt Maggie.

j.a.phra and Ima, waiting the doctor's arrival, watched and tended the signs of how, as j.a.phra had said, the night had struck Percival down.

From the moment of his collapse in j.a.phra'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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, what a thing to happen! Only in fun! Only in fun, Ima! ... Follow him! Follow him! I must get in at him...."

When he was momentarily in silence j.a.phra looked a question at Ima.

She answered quite simply: "I told him that I loved him."

"And he?" j.a.phra said.

She arranged the bedclothes, and with a fond touch smoothed back Percival's hair; then looked at her father and smiled bravely and shook her head.

"I have known it these many days," j.a.phra told her. "I have watched thee." He placed his hand on hers where it caressed Percival's forehead. "What of comfort have I for thee?" he said. "My daughter, none. He is not of us. Hearken to this thought, Ima. Heaven shapeth its vessels for the storms they must meet. Some larger thing calleth that grace of form and that rareness of spirit that he hath. What profit then for us to sorrow?"

Because he saw her crying, he repeated: "What profit?"