He tried to turn and see who it was, and he found that he could not so much as twitch a finger.
He heard three new arrivals come up the road, a man on horseback and two runners, the two evidently holding by the rider’s stirrup leathers. The rider, as soon as he drew up, said:
“We come soon’s we heerd you-all was gone ter foller Ed. Arn’s bringin’ the waggin. Hit’ll be here terreckly; we passed hit er piece back. But Arn didn’ git the straights from Cy when he come atter the waggin what hit was kilt Ed. Po’ ole Ed!”
Old Rensie Bucker, the negro who once had been a sailor, speaking with the patois of foreign birth, replied to him:
“Hit ees Jonas, de chile-minded neegar who was shanghaed from his mammy’s shack down on de point ten year back. He had de mind of er chile an’ de strength ob five men, wid his beeg wide shoulders an’ short neck; wid de hump on his back an’ his arms hangin’ mos’ ter his ankles. He was gentle in dem days; but de East Indee folks tuck heem off an’ dey brought heem back er beast. He’s frum de schooner, by his clothes, an’ dey must have sot heem on de swamp road at night ter watch an’ keel.
“Dere he lies, dead. De stump ’gin which he struck when he pull Meester Ed Hardin frum his hoss had er sliver which stuck mos’ through heem. Den when he fit wid Meester Ed de hurt must have killed heem, because there is no other wound.”
The man beside Ed Hardin spoke, and Ed recognized him.
“Alex,” he said huskily.
There was a cry of amazement. Alex called for a light. Someone else, evidently startled by the voice coming from what all had thought to be a dead man, started to run, kicked over a lantern, and was cursed roundly by the others, who were crowding up.
When the wagon arrived, he was so far recovered that, with the assistance of the others, he was able to clamber painfully in and sink to the blankets on the bottom, every joint in his body aching.