“‘Ax us no questions and we’ll tell you no lies, youngster,’ laughed Burton.
“‘I’m going home!’ retorted Joe; and he turned to leave the party and to try to find his way to the farm alone.
“But at that moment the sound of wheels was heard rapidly approaching from the direction to which Joe had set his face, and at the same time the lanterns of the swiftly-rolling stage coach gleamed through the darkness.
“Another instant and the leaders had reached the unseen barrier, tripped and reared. At the same moment the bits were seized, the coach was surrounded, and oaths and curses, cries and screams, and dire confusion filled the scene. In the struggle with the rearing and plunging horses the coach was overturned, the lanterns extinguished, and utter darkness was added to the horror of the situation.
“Joe Wyvil stood at a little distance, transfixed with amazement at the suddenness of the catastrophe that he did not in the least understand. He never for a moment suspected that the stopping of the stage coach was the ‘lark’ alluded to by his companions, for why should they stop the stage coach? They were not highway robbers, even if highway robbers were not utterly out of date in England in this century. No; he supposed the whole affair to have been an accident, unintentionally caused by the boys stretching that rope across the road in pursuit of some other ‘lark;’ to trip up some foot passenger, perhaps, whom they meant to make the victim of some practical joke.
“Only for an instant he stood panic-stricken, and then he darted into the horrible mêlée to find out if he could be of any assistance.
“At the same moment he perceived through the murky darkness the figures of two men in silent, deadly struggle, and then he heard, through the groans and shrieks, the stern voice of some man saying:
“‘Hand over that wicked will, you villainous law shark, or I will save the hangman a job by strangling you with my own hands!’ or compliments to that effect.
“A fiercer, deadlier struggle ensued, and then the flash and report of a pistol, and the heavy fall of one of the men.
“Almost at the same instant the scene was filled with a posse comitatus of constables and laborers, drawn to the spot by the shrieks and cries that had given the alarm.