It was praying for
help in its agony and weakness, and they took their whips again. The
creature bellowed aloud. If there is a God, it was calling to its Maker
for help. Then a stream of clear blood burst from both nostrils; it fell
on to the ground, and the wagon slipped back. The man walked up to it.
"'You are going to lie down, devil, are you? We'll see you don't take it
too easy.'
"The thing was just dying. He opened his clasp-knife and stooped down over
it. I do not know what I did then. But afterward I know I had him on the
stones, and I was kneeling on him. The boys dragged me off. I wish they
had not. I left him standing in the sand in the road, shaking himself, and
I walked back to the town. I took nothing from that accursed wagon, so I
had only two shillings. But it did not matter. The next day I got work at
a wholesale store. My work was to pack and unpack goods, and to carry
boxes, and I had to work from six in the morning to six in the evening; so
I had plenty of time.
"I hired a little room, and subscribed to a library, so I had everything I
needed; and in the week of Christmas holidays I went to see the sea. I
walked all night, Lyndall, to escape the heat, and a little after sunrise I
got to the top of a high hill. Before me was a long, low, blue, monotonous
mountain.
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