"Let him alone," cried Wheaton, now close at hand; but Raridan still held to the strap at the throat of the plunging horse.
The rider sat up straight on his horse and his revolver barked into the night twice in sharp succession, the sounds crashing against the house, and the flashes lighting up the struggling horse and rider, and Raridan, clutching at the bridle. Raridan's hold loosened at the first shot, and as the second echoed into the night, the horse leaped free, running madly down the road, past Bishop Delafield, who was coming rapidly toward the house. Wheaton and Saxton met in the driveway where Raridan had fallen. The flying horse could be heard pounding down the hard road.
"Warry, Warry!" called Saxton, on his knees by his friend. "Hold the lantern," he said to Wheaton. "He's hurt." Raridan said nothing, but lay very still, moaning.
"Who's hurt?" asked the bishop coming up. Saxton had recovered his own lantern as he ran from the house. It was still burning and Wheaton turned up the wick. The three men bent over Raridan, who lay as he had fallen.
"We must get him inside," said Saxton. "The horse knocked him down."
The bishop bent over and put his arms under Raridan; and gathering him up as if the prone man had been a child, he carried him slowly toward the house. Wheaton started ahead with the lantern, but Saxton snatched it from him and ran through the doors into the hall, and back to the dining-room.
"Come in here," he called, and the old bishop followed, bearing Raridan carefully in his great arms. The others helped him to place his burden on the long table at which, in Poindexter's day, many light-hearted companies had gathered. They peered down upon him in the lantern light.
"We must get a doctor quick," said Saxton, half turning to go.
"He's badly hurt," said the old man. There was a dark stain on his coat where Raridan had lain against him. He tore open Raridan's shirt and thrust his hand underneath; and when he drew it out, shaking his gray head, it had touched something wet. Wheaton came with a pail of water, pumped by the windmill into a trough at the rear of the house. He had broken the thin ice with his hands.