Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/115

Rh first of them. The island was very still in the growing warmth of late forenoon.

  The battering of blows on the door came down to them while they struggled up the sand, more boatloads racing after them; but when they reached the field, they saw the little mob still outside, swarming like hornets round the doorstep. Something had checked them: there was a surge of conflict, but no advance. As the townsmen ran up the slope, two figures rolled down past them,—the dark Indian face of Sebattis, who was trying to bite a white man's ear,—both growling and punching in a drunken dog-fight entirely beside the point of the main quarrel. Some of the less eager among the sheriff's men stopped to separate them, but Archer and the others swept on. Already a few of the gang scattered from the door in flight, running unsteadily round the house and up through the vegetable garden. One man fell blindly through the beanpoles, with loud

