He knew he was sinking and he kicked one foot savagely against the turret to feel again the sensation of life in his limb. Then he struck himself in his breast with his right fist to feel it there. But in spite of all he saw a cloud of darkness form beyond the rim of the starlit horizon and come sweeping over him, coming in black waves that would rush forward and then stop—forward, and stop—forward and stop.... And the stops kept time exactly with his heart, and he knew the last stop of the wave meant the last beat of his heart—then forward ... for the last time.... “Oh, God, not yet!... Look!”
His heart rallied at the sight and beat faster, making the black waves pulse, in the flow and ebb of it.... The thing was below him ... a man ... a ghostly, vengeful thing, whose face was fierce in hatred ... crawling, crawling, up to the rock fence—a snake with the face ... the eyes of Jud Carpenter....
And the black wave coming in ... and he did so want to live ... just a little ... just a while longer....
He pushed the wave back, as he gripped for the last time his rifle's stock, and he knew not whether it was only visions such as he had been seeing ... or Jud Carpenter really crouching low behind the rock fence, his double-barrel shotgun aimed ... drawing so fine a bead on both the unconscious defenders ... going to shoot, and only twenty paces, and now it rose up, aiming: “God, it is—it is Jud Carpenter ... back—back—black wave!” he cried, “and God have mercy on your soul, Jud Carpenter....”
And, oh, the nightmare of it!—trying to pull the trigger that would not be pulled, trying to grip a stock that had grown so large it was now a tree—a huge tree—flowing red blood instead of sap, red blood over things, ... and then at last ... thank God ... the trigger ... and the flash and report ... the flash so far off ... and the report that was like thunder among the stars ... the stars.... Among the stars ... all around him ... and Alice on one star throwing him a kiss ... and saying: “You saved his life, oh, Richard, and I love you for it!” A kiss and forgiveness ... and the two walking out with him ... out into the dim, blue, Sweet Silence of Things, hand in hand with him, beyond even the black wave, beyond even the rim of the rainbow that came down over all ... out—out with music, quaint, sweet, weird music—that filled his soul so, fitted him ... was he ...
“I'm ... a pilgrim ... I'm a stranger,
I can tarry—I can tarry but a night.”
In the early dawn, a local company of State troops, called out by the governor, had the jail safe.
It was a gruesome sight in front of the stone wall where the deadly fire from Jack Bracken's pistols had swept. Thirteen dead men lay, and the back-bone of lynching had been broken forever in Alabama.
It was the governor himself, bluff and rugged, who grasped Jack Bracken's hand as he lay dying, wrapped up, on a bale of cotton, and Margaret Adams, pale, weeping beside him: “Live for me, Jack—I love you. I have always loved you!”
“And for me, Jack,” said the old governor, touched at the scene—“for the state, to teach mobs how to respect the law. In the glory of what you've done, I pardon you for all the past.”