The throng pressed forward, and he saw the faces that he knew crowding closer. A black cloud shut out the moonlight. Above the pleading of the sheriffs tones he heard the distant baying of the hound.
He tried to speak again. "We'll be damned, but we'll get the nigger!" called some one beside him. The words struck him like a blow. He saw red, and the sudden rage upheld him. He knew that he was to fight—a blind fight for he cared not what. The old savage instinct blazed within him—the instinct to do battle to death—to throttle with, his single hand the odds that opposed. With a grip of iron he braced himself against the doorway, covering the entrance.
"I'll be damned if you do!" he thundered.
A quick shot rang out sharply. The flash blinded him, and the smoke hung in his face. Then the moon shone and he heard a cry—the cry of a well-known voice.
"By God, it's Nick Burr!" it said. He took a step forward.
"Boys, I am Nick Burr," he cried, and he went down in the arms of the mob.
They raised him up, and he stood erect between the leaders. There was blood on his lips, but a man tore off a mask and wiped it away. "By God, it's Nick Burr!" he exclaimed as he did so.
Nicholas recognised his voice and smiled. His face was gray, but his eyes were shining, and as he steadied himself with all his strength, he said with a laugh. "There's no harm done, man." But when they laid him down a moment later he was dead.
He lay in the narrow path between the doorstep and the gate where roses bloomed. Some one had started for the nearest house, but the crowd stood motionless about him. "By God, it's Nick Burr!" repeated the man who had held him.
The sheriff knelt on the ground and raised him in his arms. As he folded his coat about him he looked up and spoke.