And come they did at a hound-slink, bunched together, and babbling. It was clear they were uncertain of each other and of success. Sin, the mighty Disintegrator, was at work upon their spirits. A more half- hearted crew of blackguards never attempted murder. They needed Black Diamond. He, and he alone, might have held them and swung them, as a fine horseman holds and swings a refuser at a fence.
And what dark faces! what dreadful eyes! what voices popping up like foul bubbles from a sewage pond!
_"Them three all?"
"Enough too, ain't it?"
"I'm for gain back. Look at the face on that buster with the sword!"
"H'into em!" came a shrill treble from the rear. "Cheerily, chaps, cheerily!"_
A crack from the cottage, the crack of doom.
The leading ruffian, a lumbering great horse-faced fellow, clapped his hand to his side.
"What's that?" he snapped.
"That's death!" came a solemn voice from across the green.