Crack!
He stopped short. Emily saw his face change in expression—from fury to wonder, from wonder to fear, from fear to a ghastly, green-white pallor of pain and hate. He tossed his arms high above his head. The revolver flew from his hand. Then, within a few feet of the still-twitching body of the other, he crashed down. The blood spurted from his mouth, drenching his face. He worked himself over and around, half rose, wiped his face with his sleeve, fell back. Emily saw that he was looking toward the shelter, his features calm—a look of love and longing, a look of farewell for some one concealed there.
And now a third figure ran from the shelter into that zone of death—a boyish figure, lithe and swift. As it came nearer she saw that it was a youth, a mere lad, smooth faced, with delicate features. He too carried a revolver, but the look in his face was love and anguish.
Crack!
The boy flung the revolver from him and ran on. One arm was swinging limp. Now he was at the side of the second man. He was just kneeling, just stretching out his hand toward the dear dead—
Crack!
He fell forward, his arm convulsively circling the head of his beloved. As he fell, his hat slipped away and a mass of brown hair uncoiled and showered down, hiding both their faces.
“Oh!” Emily drew back, sick and trembling. She glanced at Camp. He looked like a maniac. His eyes bulged, bloodshot. His nostrils stood out stiff. His long yellow teeth were grinding and snapping.
“God damn them!” he shrieked. “God damn the hell-hounds of the capitalists! Murderers! Murderers! killing honest workingmen and women!”
And as Emily crouched there, too weak to lift herself, yet longing to see those corpse-strewn, bloodstained stones—the stage of that triple tragedy of courage, self-sacrifice, love and death—Camp raved on, poured out curses upon capitalists and militia. Camp!—who that very morning had been trying to impress Emily with his superiority to his origin, his contempt of these “mere machines for the use of men of brains.”