"I thought I could do it!" he said. "I—thought I could!"
It was his moment of triumph, of irresistible elation. The devil in him had fought—and conquered.
It swayed him—and passed. He was left white to the lips and suddenly, terribly, afraid.
"What have I done to him?" he asked, and the tremor was gone from his voice; it was level, dead level. "I haven't killed him really, have I?"
No one answered him. They were crowding round the fallen man, stooping over him with awe-struck whispering, straightening the crumpled, inert limbs, trying to place the heavy frame in a natural posture.
The boy pressed forward to look, but abruptly his supporter caught him by the shoulder and pulled him back.
"No, no!" he said in a sharp undertone. "You're no good here. Get out of it! Put on your clothes and—go!"
He spoke urgently. The boy stared at him, suffering the compelling hand. All the fight had gone completely out of him. He was passive with the paralysis of a great horror.
The farmer helped him into his clothes, and himself removed the blood-stain from the lad's dazed face. "Don't be a fool!" he urged. "Pull yourself together and clear out! This thing was an accident. I'll engineer it."
"Accident!" The boy straightened himself sharply with the movement of one brought roughly to his senses. "I suppose the throw broke his neck," he said. "But it was no accident. I did it on purpose. I told him I should probably kill him, but he would have it." He turned and squarely faced the other. "I don't know what I ought to do," he said, speaking more collectedly. "But I'm certainly not going to bolt."