Sexton Witherlee moved forward from his porch. "Yond war Shameless Wayne’s voice. God, but he’s getten th’ fighting-fever as hot as iver I see’d a man tak it. Th’ Lean Man ’ull carry a sore head back to Wildwater, I’m thinking—if he’s spared.—There th’ lad is! Sakes, but he’s getten his hands as full as they’ll hod, an’ no mistak!" he broke off, straining his eyes toward the half-filled strip of graveyard beneath the Parsonage which he was wont to call his "bit o’ garden." But Nicholas Ratcliffe was ever prudent in his hottest fury, and he saw that the fight was all against his folk. The long night of anguish was over for Wayne’s son of Marsh, and the rebound from it had filled his veins with something more like the light fires that played across the boglands than with slow-moving blood; his pace was the wind’s pace, and the fury of his onset put life into the sword-arms of each Wayne that heard his lusty battle-cry. Back and further back the Ratcliffes shrank, till the Lean Man’s voice was heard, bidding them retreat fighting to the moor-gate and then escape as best they could. "No quarter!" came Shameless Wayne’s trumpet-note, as he chased them to the nearest wicket. But pursuit could go no further, for the pursuers were all on foot and a moment saw the Ratcliffes mounted on the horses which they had tethered to the graveyard hedge. Shameless Wayne plucked out his pistol then, and laughed as a yell from one of the retreating redheads followed his quick pulling of the trigger. Then he turned back sharply, for the sound of running feet came up the path; re-entering by the wicket, he was met full by three Ratcliffes, left behind by their fellows in the wild rush for safety. Wayne never halted, but drove down on them, his sword uplifted; and they, three to one, fell back in panic almost on to the points of the upcoming Waynes. "Hold off! They’re mine," cried Shameless Wayne, waving his folk aside. Up and down he chased them, and up and down they ran, doubling behind gravestones or running hare-footed across open ground; for this lad, whom they had laughed at as a drunkard and a fool, seemed godlike in his fury. The Waynes held every outlet, and all watched the grim chase silently. And then Shameless Wayne’s opportunity came; the three were running altogether now, and one tripped up the other, and Wayne was scarce a sword’s length from them. "I have them—" he began, and lifted his right arm. But the open vault yawned under them before their brute terror showed where this second danger lay. They reeled at the edge and half recovered, then dropped to the paved floor beneath, where the coffin lay where Witherlee had dropped it at the first onset. Shameless Wayne, mad with the swift onset and the crash of blows, stood laughing at the edge and beckoned to two of his folk. "Roof them over, and let them rot there," he cried, kicking the ringed vault-stone with his foot.