Then and then only, did the truth of his great misfortune burst
upon his bewildered soul; and with a cry which tore the ears of
all hearers and was never forgotten by any one there, he flung
himself down beside the dead negro, and, turning him hastily over,
gazed in his face.
Was that a sob? Yes; thus much the heart gave; but next moment the
piteous fact of loss was swallowed up in the recognition of its
manner, and, bounding to his feet with the cry, "Killed! Killed at
his post!" he confronted the one witness of his anguish of whose
presence he was aware, and fiercely demanded: "Where are the
wretches who have done this? No single arm could have knocked down
Bela. He has been set upon--beaten with clubs, and--" Here his
thought was caught up by another, and that one so fearsome and
unsettling that bewilderment again followed rage, and with the
look of a haunted spirit, he demanded in a voice made low by awe
and dread of its own sound, "AND WHERE WAS I, WHEN ALL THIS
HAPPENED?"
"You? You were seated there," murmured the little woman, pointing
at the great chair. "You were not--quite--quite yourself," she
softly explained, wondering at her own composure. Then quickly, as
she saw his thoughts revert to the dead friend at his feet, "Bela
was not hurt here. He was down town when it happened; but he
managed to struggle home and gain this place, which he tried to
hold against the men who followed him. He thought you were dead,
you sat there so rigid and so white, and, before he quite gave up,
he asked us all to promise not to let any one enter this room till
your son Oliver came.
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