The sticklers ran forward to help Doughty to his feet, but he lay motionless, eyes closed. In his mind, as he lay there, worked the thought that he did not wish either to go on with the fight or to let Ishmael triumph as at an easy victory. He would frighten him, frighten them all, by making out he was very badly hurt. His spine, that would do.... Opening his eyes he murmured, "My back ... my back ..." and made as though trying to move. A terrible pang shot through his spine as he did so. His next cry was a scream of real pain and fear. The tears gathered in his eyes with his rage and terror. He cried, "You've done for me; you've broken my back! Oh, my back; curse you, my back!..." The others were terrified. For the second time that evening Ishmael was seized by the awful feeling of irrevocableness, of an impossible thing having happened and of it being still more impossible to undo it. It had become dark with an effect of suddenness to those who had been intent on other things than the progress of the night; and it seemed to Ishmael that the whole world was narrowed to a circle of dim moor, in the midst of it that white thing crying about its back--always its back.... Carminow, the least perturbed, insisted on raising the sufferer to his feet, and it was found, after much protest on his part, that he could walk slowly with support on either side. It only remained to get him back to the school somehow and in at the side door to his bed and the ministrations of the matron if not the doctor. The little procession began to move off, Polkinghorne and Carminow, the two biggest, carrying Doughty on their crossed hands, and progressing with a slow sideways motion, trying not to stumble over the uneven ground. Killigrew ran on ahead to warn the matron and urge her to silence, in case the injury might turn out to be but slight after all. A miserable loneliness fell upon Ishmael. He had won, and none of the sweets of victory were his. He lagged behind. There was a rustle at his side, and Hilaria's hands were round his arm. "What on earth--" he began--angry, confused, aware that tears were burning in his eyes. "Don't be cross.... I had to stay. I was up on the boulders. Oh, Ishmael, have you killed him?" The question jangled his frightened nerves, and he answered sharply, telling her he neither knew nor cared, even while he was shaking with the fear lest what she suggested might be true. "I'll say something to those youngsters for having let you stay," he added, catching sight of Polkinghorne minor and Moss, where they hesitated in the shadows. "As though they could have prevented me!" she said, with swift scorn. He looked at her more closely, struck by a something strange about her, and saw that her skirts no longer swelled triumphantly on either side, but fell limply, and so long that she had to hold them up when she took a step forward by his side.