The bank against which he crouched cut the clearing diagonally, and as the men pressed in nearer round the horses, Callandar’s charger broke out of the circle followed by the two others. A cry from the direction in which they galloped, and the sound of frantic nearing hoofs, told that they had been headed back once more. The bank was high enough to hide Wattie from them as they returned, but he could feel the earth shake with their approach, which rang in his ears like the roar of some dread, implacable fate. He could see nothing now, as he lay half-blind with fear, but he was aware that his dog had leaped upon the bank behind him, and he heard the well-known voice, hoarse and brutal with defiant agony, just above his head. All the qualities that have gone to make the dog the outcast of the East seemed to show in the cur’s attitude as he raised himself, an insignificant, common beast, in the path of the great, noble, stampeding creatures. It was the curse of his curship that in this moment of his life, when he hurled all that was his in the world—his low-bred body—against the danger that swooped on his master, he should take on no nobility of aspect, nothing to picture forth the heart that smote against his panting ribs. Another moment and the charger had leaped at the bank, just above the spot where Skirling Wattie’s grizzled head lay against the sod.
The cur sprang up against the overwhelming bulk, the smiting hoofs, the whirl of heel-ropes, and struck in mid-air by the horse’s knee, was sent rolling down the slope. As he fell there was a thud of dislodged earth, and the charger, startled by the sudden apparition of the prostrate figure below him, slipped on the bank, stumbled, sprang, and checked by the flying rope, crashed forward, burying the beggar under his weight.
James and Ferrier ran forward as the animal struggled to its feet, unhurt; it tore past the men, who had broken their line as they watched the fall. The three horses made off between the trees, and Logie approached the beggar. He lay crushed and mangled, as quiet as the dead troopers on the ground.
There was no mistaking Wattie’s rigid stillness, and as James and Ferrier, with the red-bearded man, approached him, they knew that he would never rise to blow his pipes nor to fill the air with his voice again. The yellow dog was stretched, panting, a couple of paces from the grotesque body, which had now, for the first time, taken on dignity. As Logie bent to examine him, and would have lifted him, the cur dragged himself up; one of his hind-legs was broken, but he crawled snarling to the beggar’s side, and turned his maimed body to face the men who should dare to lay a hand on Wattie. The drops poured from his hanging tongue and his eye was alight with the dull flame of pain. He would have torn Logie to bits if he could, as he trailed himself up to shelter the dead man from his touch. He made a great effort to get upon his legs and his jaws closed within an inch of James’s arm.
One of the men drew the pistol from his belt.
“Ay, shoot the brute,” said another.
James held up his hand.
“The man is dead,” said he, looking over his shoulder at his comrades.
“And you would be the same if yon dog could reach you,” rejoined Ferrier. “Let me shoot him. He will only die lying here.”
“Let him be. His leg is broken, that is all.”