The perspiration was running in streams down his face. His breath came and went in gasps, but he never slackened his pace for a moment; and still as he ran the conviction grew and deepened in his mind that a deliberate attempt had been made to murder him.
He came within sight of the house at length, and began to shout at the top of his voice—
"Help! help! Murder! Be quick——"
The coachman and the stable boy, who happened to be discussing politics in the yard at the moment, took to their heels and both ran in the same direction. They came upon their master, hatless and exhausted, and were just in time to catch him in their arms before he sank to the ground.
"Oh, I've been murdered!" he gasped. "Think of it, murdered in my own plantation! Carry me home, and then go for the doctor and the police. That young Penlogan shall swing for this."
"But you can't be murdered, master," the coachman said soothingly, "for you're alive and able to talk."
"But I'm nearly done for," he groaned. "I feel my life ebbing away fast. Get me home as quickly as you can. I hope I'll live till the policeman comes."
The two men locked hands, and made a kind of chair for their master, and then marched away towards the house.
Sir John talked incessantly all the distance.
"If I die before I get home," he said, "don't forget what I am telling you. Justice must be done in a case like this. Won't there be a sensation in the county when people learn that I was deliberately murdered in my own plantation!"