Carewe rode stiffly, like a man frozen upon his horse, and his face was like that of a frozen man; his eyes glassy and not fixed upon his course, so that it was a deathly thing to see. Once, long ago, Tom had seen a man riding for his life, and he wore this same look. The animal bounded and swerved under Vanrevel's enemy in the mad rush down the street, but he sat rigid, bolt upright in the saddle, his face set to that look of coldness.
The second rider was old Nelson, who rode with body crouched forward, his eyeballs like shining porcelain set in ebony, and his arm like a flail, cruelly lashing his own horse and his master's with a heavy whip. “De steamboat!” he shouted, hoarsely, bringing down the lash on one and then on the other. “De steamboat, de steamboat—f o' God's sake, honey, de steamboat!”
They swept into Main Street, Nelson leaning far across to the other's bridle, and turning both horses toward the river, but before they had made the corner, Tom Vanrevel was running with all the speed that was in him toward his enemy's house. The one block between him and that forbidden ground seemed to him miles long, and he felt that he was running as a man in a dream, and, at the highest pitch of agonized exertion, covering no space, but only working the air in one place, like a treadmill. All that was in his mind, heart, and soul was to reach Crailey. He had known by the revelation of Carewe's face in what case he would find his friend; but as he ran he put the knowledge from him with a great shudder, and resolved upon incredulity in spite of his certainty. All he let himself feel was the need to run, to run until he found Crailey, who was somewhere in the darkness of the trees about the long, low house on the corner. When he reached the bordering hedge, he did not stay for gate or path, but, with a loud shout, hurled himself half over, half through, the hedge, like a bolt from a catapult.
Lights shone from only one room in the house, the library; but as he ran toward the porch a candle flickered in the hall, and there came the sound of a voice weeping with terror.
At that he called more desperately upon his incredulity to aid him, for the voice was Mrs. Tan-berry's. If it had been any other than she, who sobbed so hopelessly—she who was always steady and strong! If he could, he would have stopped to pray, now, before he faced her and the truth; but his flying feet carried him on.
“Who is it?” she gasped, brokenly, from the hall. “Mamie? Have you brought him?”
“It's I,” he cried, as he plunged through the doorway. “It's Vanrevel.”
Mrs. Tanberry set the iron candlestick down upon the table with a crash.
“You've come too late!” she sobbed. “Another man has taken your death on himself.”
He reeled back against the wall. “Oh, God!” he said. “Oh, God, God, God! Crailey!”