Bryce seized Varner's arm and gave it a shake.
“You saw—what?” he demanded.
“Saw him—fall. Or rather—flung!” panted Varner. “Somebody—couldn't see who, nohow—flung him right through yon doorway, up there. He fell right over the steps—crash!” Bryce looked over the tops of the yews and cypresses at the doorway in the clerestory to which Varner pointed—a low, open archway gained by the half-ruinous stair. It was forty feet at least from the ground.
“You saw him—thrown!” he exclaimed. “Thrown—down there? Impossible, man!”
“Tell you I saw it!” asserted Varner doggedly. “I was looking at one of those old tombs yonder—somebody wants some repairs doing—and the jackdaws were making such a to-do up there by the roof I glanced up at them. And I saw this man thrown through that door—fairly flung through it! God!—do you think I could mistake my own eyes?”
“Did you see who flung him?” asked Bryce.
“No; I saw a hand—just for one second, as it might be—by the edge of the doorway,” answered Varner. “I was more for watching him! He sort of tottered for a second on the step outside the door, turned over and screamed—I can hear it now!—and crashed down on the flags beneath.”
“How long since?” demanded Bryce.
“Five or six minutes,” said Varner. “I rushed to him—I've been doing what I could. But I saw it was no good, so I was running for help—”
Bryce pushed him towards the bushes by which they were standing.