“Ya-a-ay, Laurence!” the other children shouted. “Gettin’ spanked by a girl! Ya-ay, Laur-runce!”
They uproariously capered between Renfrew and the writhing group; but it struck him that the two mallets, which were both moving rather wildly, might do damage; and he moved toward the mêlée.
“Here!” he called. “What’s all this nonsense? Put down those mallets.”
He spoke too late. The maddened Laurence’s feelings differed little from those of a warrior manhandled by a squaw in the midst of the taunting tribe; and in his anguish his strength waxed exceedingly. His mallet described a brief arc in the air, and not Daisy’s nose, but the more evident nose of fat Robert Eliot, was the recipient. Contact was established audibly.
Robert squawked. He dropped his mallet, clasped his nose, and lay upon the good earth. Then when he looked at his ensanguined fingers, he seemed to feel that his end was hard upon him. He shrieked indeed.
Daisy also complained, an accident having befallen her, though she took it for no accident. “Ooh!” she said. “You made your elbow hit me in the stummick, Laurence Coy!” She stood as a semicircle, and clasped herself, while the noise of the other children was hushed—except the extreme noise of Robert—and the discomfort of sudden calamity fell upon them. Their silent mouths were all open, particularly that of Laurence Coy, whom Daisy did little to reassure.
“I bet I haf to have the doctor,” she prophesied ominously; and then, pointing to the fallen, she added: “An’ I bet Robert’s goin’ to die.”
“Nonsense!” her brother said, bending over Robert. “Nonsense!”
But Laurence Coy did not hear this optimistic word. Laurence had no familiarity with mortal wounds;—to his quaking eye, Robert bore a fatal appearance, and Daisy’s chill prophecy seemed horribly plausible. Laurence departed. One moment he stood there, pallid and dumfounded, but present; and the next, no one could have defined his whereabouts with certainty. All that could be known was that he had gone, and from the manner of his going, it might well be thought that he was shocked to find himself forgetting a rendezvous appointed for this very moment at some distant spot;—he had a hurried air.
Others were almost as deeply affected by Daisy’s gloomy prophecy. As soon as she put the thought in their minds, Thomas Kimball, Freddie Mears and the remarkable Elsie were all convinced that Robert was near his passing, and with natural solicitude they had but the one thought in common: to establish an alibi.