In the fury and excitement of his story the man had forgotten his injuries, and to give emphasis to his words, and perhaps make the pale, set face that was turned towards him grow paler and more set, he had reached out his arms, and held his clutching fingers towards Tony as he sought to rise and peer with his vengeful eyes nearer and closer to his victim, till the pangs of agony cut short both his fury and his invective. He fell back, his lips pressed together till they were thin and white, and his fists clenched as he strove to battle with the jarring torture in his nerves. The sweat stood out in glistening beads on his forehead, and his brows contracted down until they almost hid the eyes in the frown of determined will.
The mute agony of the man's face sent back the disgust which was growing in Tony's heart. The tale might be a lie—it might be only delirium; but the man was in agony, in the death-agony perhaps, and Tony went to his side.
"What can I do to help you?" he asked, as gently as he could.
"Pull the damned leg down—it's shifted," the man muttered between his clenched teeth; and Tony did as he asked.
The man lay still with closed eyes for a few moments without heeding Tony's query whether he was easier. Then he raised his eyelids, and, with a short, forced laugh, turned his head on one side.
"I'm going to finish the yarn," he said in a voice that was strained, but in marked contrast to the one he had previously used.
"Never mind the yarn; lie quiet for a bit," Tony exclaimed.
"I'll finish the yarn," the man replied, with a touch of his old fierceness in his voice. "Where was I when the damned bone moved? I remember. We were riding for the jump, riding as I never rode before or since, riding like—like——I wonder if they ride in hell? If they do they can't ride wilder, for I cut that horse's flanks to ribbons—yes, cut it till the bone showed through—and it fled down that winding track so fast that I was left behind. It went out of sight, it and its rider, round the bend where the red gum lay. Ha, sonny, I wasn't first in, but I won that race. There was a shout and a shriek from man and horse, and then a crash of shattered timber, and when I rode up at a hand-gallop, I saw on my toasting-fork, stuck with a jagged prong through him, his head hanging down and his legs flying up, just as he had pitched from his horse, the man your mother loved."
The venom had come into the voice again, the hatred into the eyes; and as he uttered the last words, Tony instinctively drew back farther away from him, his whole nature recoiling in loathing from the cruel, brutal passion of the man's face.
"That's what you're to tell her; that's my message to her when you find her—my dying message to the woman who made me mad with love and mad with hate. And you'll give it to her—you, her stolen boy, and when she hears it from you, she——"