Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/243

Rh with exertion, eyes big with terror, he called, commanding me:

“Pull ’em off ’im—pull ’em off!”

Suddenly my heart beating in my throat nearly suffocated me. I saw the hand of the keeper lying among the stones. I set to tearing away the stones, and we worked for some time without a word. Then I seized the arm of the keeper and tried to drag him out. But I could not.

“Pull it off ’im!” whined the lad, working in a frenzy.

When we got him out I saw at once he was dead, and I sat down trembling with exertion. There was a great smashed wound on the side of the head. Sam put his face against his father’s and snuffed round him like a dog, to feel the life in him. The child looked at me:

“He won’t get up,” he said, and his little voice was hoarse with fear and anxiety.

I shook my head. Then the boy began to whimper. He tried to close the lips which were drawn with pain and death, leaving the teeth bare; then his fingers hovered round the eyes, which were wide open, glazed, and I could see he was trembling to touch them into life.

“He’s not asleep,” he said, “because his eyes is open—look!”

I could not bear the child’s questioning terror. I took him up to carry him away, but he struggled and fought to be free.

“Ma’e ’im get up—ma’e ’im get up,” he cried in a frenzy, and I had to let the boy go.

He ran to the dead man, calling “Feyther!