"Oh, get the mare up, one of you!" shouted Larry, wild with the rage that had gathered force from the terror by which it had first been strangled. "I want to go after that damned coward——"
He caught his horse's bridle from a man who had climbed over the bank, leaving his own horse on the farther side.
"Why the devil did none of you stop the brute?" he stormed at the little group, now standing on the bank, looking down upon the prostrate mare, while he tried to steady his plunging horse in order to mount.
"It's no good for you, sir!" called John Kearney to him; "he's away back of the house, ye'll never get him!"
"Don't go, Larry," said Christian, who was kneeling by Nancy, caressing her and murmuring endearments. "I'm afraid she's badly hurt."
The mare was lying still. Michael Donovan, who had bred her, slipped his hand under her, and drew it out, red with blood.
"Go after him, if ye like, the bloody ruffian!" he said, furiously, "but the mare will never rise from this! Oh, my lovely little mare!"
"What do you mean?" Larry let his horse go, and flung himself on his knees beside Donovan. Christian, colourless continued to try and soothe Nancy, who lay without moving, though her frightened eye turned from one to another, and her ears twitched.
"Staked she is!" roared Donovan; "that's what I mean! Look at what's coming from her!"
He broke into a torrent of crude statements, made, if possible, more horrible by curses.