"Look out, there! Look out!"
A man's voice like a pistol shot crashed behind them. Caroline heard quick steps and a woman's scream, and looked up at a huge, blood-red bulk that swooped around the corner and dashed forward. But Miss Honey's hand was clutching her apron string, and Miss Honey's weight as she fell, tangled in the skates, dragged her down. Caroline, toppling, caught in one dizzy backward glance a vision of a face staring down on her, white as chalk under a black mustache and staring goggles, and another face, Delia's, white too, with eyes more strained and terrible than the goggles themselves. One second that look swept her and Miss Honey, and then, shifting, fell upon the General strapped securely into his carriage. Even as Caroline caught her breath, he flew by her like an arrow, his blue eyes round with surprise under a whirl of white parasol, the wicker body of the perambulator swaying and lurching. With that breath still in her nostrils, she was pushed violently against Miss Honey, who was dragged over her from the other side by a large hairy hand. A sharp blow from her boot heel struck Caroline's cheek, and she screamed with the pain; but her cry was lost in the louder one that echoed around her as the dust from the red monster blew in her eyes and shut out Delia's figure, flat on the ground, one arm over her face as the car rushed over.
"My God! She's down!" That was the man.
"Take his number!" a shrill voice pierced the growing confusion.
Caroline, crying with pain, was forced to her feet and stumbled along, one apron string twisted fast in Miss Honey's hand.
"Here, get out o' this—don't let the children see anything! Let's get home."
"No, wait a minute. Let's see if she's alive. Have they got the ambulance?"
"Look out, there, Miss Dorothy, you just stop by me, or you'll be run over, too!"
"See! She's moving her head! Maybe she's not——"
Sobbing with excitement, Caroline wrenched herself free from the tangle of nurses and carriages, and pushed her way through the crowd. Against the curb, puffing and grinding, stood the great red engine; on the front seat a tall policeman sat; one woman in the back leaned over another, limp against the high cushions, and fanned her with the stiff vizor of her leather cap.