“To the rock with him!”
“Ay, to the rock with him.”
With this, an all-overpowering rush was made, and Walker was carried off up the rock in the middle of five hundred infuriated men.
The poor wretch cried, “Mercy! mercy!”
“Justice! dog,” was the roar in reply. The raging crowd went bellowing up the rock like a wave, and gained a natural platform forty feet above the great deep pool that lay dark and calm below. At the sight of it, the poor wretch screamed to wake the dead, but the roars and yells of vengeance drowned his voice.
“Put his dust in his pocket,” cried one, crueler than the rest.
Their thirst of vengeance was too hot to wait for this diabolical proposal; in a moment four of them had him by the shoulders and heels; another moment and the man was flung from the rock, uttering a terrible death-cry in the very air; then down his body fell like lead, and struck with a tremendous plunge the deep water that splashed up a moment, then closed and bubbled over it.
From that moment the crowd roared no longer, but buzzed and murmured, and looked down upon their work half stupidly.
“Hush!”
“What is that?”