Whether the name hit them like blasphemy, whether the interpreter caught
fire from it or Moore gave a signal, he could not tell. But suddenly he
was being hustled. He was pulled down from the car with a gentle yet
relentless force, was conscious that he was being removed and must
submit. There were sounds now, the quick syllables of the southern
races, half articulate to the uninstructed ear but full of idiom and
passion, and through his own silent struggle he was aware that the
interpreter was soothing, directing, and inexorably guiding the assault.
They took him, a resistless posse of them, beyond the gap, and the
automobile followed slowly and passed him just outside. It halted, and
Moore addressed him hesitatingly:
"I could take you back to town."
Moore didn't want to say this, but he remembered Miss Amabel and the two
charming girls, all adoring Jeff, and his ever-present control bade him
be civilised. Jeff did not answer. He was full of a choking rage and
blind desire for them to get their hands off him. Not in his
imprisonment even had he felt such debasement under control as when
these lithe creatures hurried him along. Yet he knew then that his rage
was not against them, innocent servitors of a higher power. It was
against the mean dominance of Weedon Moore.
The car passed swiftly on and down the road to town.
Then the men left him as suddenly as trained dogs whistled from their
prey. He felt as if he had been merely detained, gently on the whole, at
the point the master had designated, and looked about for the
interpreter. It seemed to him if he could have speech with that man he
could tell him in a sentence what Weedon Moore was, and charge him not
to deliver these ignorant creatures of another race into his mucky
hands. But if the interpreter was there he could not be distinguished.
Jeff called, a word or two, not knowing what to say, and no one
answered. The crowd that had been eagerly intent on a common purpose, to
get him out of the debating place, split into groups. Individuals
detached themselves, silently and swiftly, and melted away. Jeff heard
their footsteps on the road, and now the voices began, quietly but with
an eager emphasis. He was left alone by the darkened field, for even
the moon, as if she joined the general verdict, slipped under a cloud.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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