The Happy WarriorHutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
General
The Happy Warrior
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (Arthur Stuart-Menteth)
Fiction
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 bastards!"
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 bastards!"
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 snatched 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! Hell 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
prone 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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