"No great matter if I did; but I shan't. When the man comes to his senses—why, that's the blessed jug all the fuss was about! 'Tis worth thousands of pounds."
"Halves wi' me," said Bickford.
"Shares, perhaps," answered Putt. "I ban't going to say 'halves'; I've growed rather sick of you since the morning."
In a moment Thomas turned on his tracks and Mark Bickford hastened after his master. Malherb never looked back, and the riders were already upon the high ground above Chagford and just about to enter that lane, where, two hours earlier, John Lee had met with Peter Norcot, when Bickford heard a galloping horse and saw that Putt was returning. At sight of Tom's countenance even his phlegmatic companion was staggered, for Putt presented a dismal and hideous spectacle. His breast was soaked with blood and four deep parallel gashes between white weals scored his face from brow to chin. His pink-rimmed eyes were bulging and one of his ears had swollen to ridiculous dimensions. But upon his back was a box that contained the Malherb amphora.
"Aw jimmery! you've got it!" cried Mark. "But, 'slife! she've torn your eyes out of your head!"
"Her tried to. I've fought a cargo of mountain cats. God knows how I've come out alive. But I didn't fire—not a shot; though sore tempted. I didn't kill her; she've done for herself. I catched her down nigh Drury Farm, and went for her without words. She seed my meaning in a flash. Curse! Never I heard such a hail of gashly curses; an' she come at me all ends up like a bulldog. Her nails was in my eyes afore I could draw breath; but I kept my seat while she tore an' scratched, an' grabbed the box; an' by good chance the strap gived way. Then she ran fifty yards after my hoss; an' then she knowed 'twas all up wi' her, an' stopped. 'Twas awful what comed after. Her heart cracked. I heard a sound like a woodpecker tapping, an' looked, an' seed her beating her head in with a gert stone. But she couldn't die that way, so she went to a rock an' flinged herself against it skull first, like a ram butting. An' then she rolled over, over an' over into the river. God's my judge I'd have saved her if it had been any other mortal she!"
"All that pile of paper money?"
"'Twas nought to her, after the vase was gone."
"All that good money!"
"Pulp by now. She'm dead this time, anyway, if she'm flesh and blood."