HE HAD NO TIME TO STEADY HIMSELF BEFORE THE BRUTE
WAS UPON HIM.
Myron snatched her child out of the way as the horse passed by a hand's breadth, and in a moment she was kneeling by Homer's side.
He was dying, but a flicker of life bespoke the want that could only go out with life. She raised his head from the dust and kissed him on the mouth. He opened his eyes; they met hers, and an ineffable and unearthly radiance overspread his face.
That was all. He had found his way out of Jamestown. Myron's was still to seek.
He was quite dead when the others reached him. His chest was battered in, and the calk of one hind shoe had pierced through the thick brown hair and brought death.
"He has outsoared the shadow of our night,
Envy, and calumny, and hate, and pain;
And that unrest which men miscall delight
Can touch him not and torture not again.
From the contagion of the world's slow stain
He is secure; and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain."
Myron knelt by him, calling his name and imploring him to answer her. Rough hands pushed her aside. She fell, half-dazed. When she came to herself, My was crying by her, and a slow throng was moving towards Homer's wagon, where it stood before the harness-shop.
Myron rose and ran after them, but was met by a frightful figure of rage. The mother of the dead man, who had witnessed his death, rushed at her, shrieking out names of which "murderess" was the least hard, and would have struck her, but some one caught the upraised arm and bade Myron, with a curse, be gone.