And some way behind Bassett, going far faster than any of them, and unseen by any of them, came the lithe figure of King Smith.
Just as Bassett fired the King’s club came down heavily on his head. Hilda turned with a cry, as she heard the report, and struggled back again to her uncle. Mr Lechworthy had at last found a place where he could stand upright and ease his aching back. He held his black felt hat in his hand, and examined the bullet-hole in the rim with a mild, inquiring benevolent eye.
“You are not hurt, uncle?”
“Not in the least, my dear, thanks to this gentleman.”
“Get up,” said King Smith to Bassett.
Dazed, rubbing his sore head with one hand, Bassett staggered to his feet. He looked from one to the other bewildered. In this wind, that gave a voice to every bush, he had not heard the approach of King Smith. And now his revolver lay on the ground, and the King’s foot was on it, and it was the King who spoke in a way that Bassett had not heard before.
“I have finished with you. Go where you like and do what you like. And a little before midnight you will die.”
It was the definite sentence of death, and Bassett knew it. Half-stunned as he was, he could still lie and make a defence.
He began an explanation. He had taken out the revolver to draw the cartridges and stumbled. The thing was a pure accident. But of course King Smith was not in earnest. He could not sentence a white man to death like that. He would be elected to the white men’s club in a few days. The white men were his partners in business, and—