In the midst of my useless anguish some words of Jason’s recurred to me, and, seizing my coat for a pillow to his forehead, I turned him, with a shuddering horror of his limpness, upon his face. A great gush of water came with a rumble from his mouth, but he did not stir; and there I stood looking down upon him, my hand to my forehead, my mad eyes staring as Cain’s must have stared when he wrought the deed of terror.
And I was Cain—I who yesterday was a boy of loving impulses, I think; whose blackest crime might be some petty rebellion against the lesser proprieties; who had even hugged himself upon living on a loftier plane than this poor silenced victim of his brutality.
As the deadly earnest of my deed came home to my stunned mind, I had no thought of escape. I would face it out, confess and die. My father’s agony—for he loved us in his way, I believe; Jason’s condemnation; Zyp’s hatred; my own shame and torture—I put them all on one side to get full view of that black crossbeam and rope that I felt to be the only medicine for my sick and haunted soul.
As I stood, the sound of wheels on the road beyond woke me to some necessity of action. Stumbling, as in a nightmare; not feeling my feet, but only the mechanical spring of motion, I hurried to the hedge side and looked over.
A carter with a tilt wagon was urging his tired team homeward.
“Help!” I cried. “Oh, come and help me!” And my voice seemed to me to issue from under the tilt of the wagon.
He “woa’d” up his horses, raised his hat from his forehead, wrinkled with hot weariness, and came toward me, his whip over his shoulder.
“What’s toward?” said he.
“My brother!” I gasped. “We were bathing together and he’s drowned.”
The man’s boorish face lighted up like a farthing rushlight. Here was something horribly sordid enough for all the excitement he was worth. It would sweeten many a pot of swipes for the week to come.