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When Peter gradually became able to breathe and could think at all, there was something terrible to him in Tump's silent attack and in this extravagant black mirth over mere suffering. Cissie was gone, had fled, no doubt, at the beginning of the fight. The prostrate man's tortured abdomen finally allowed him to twist around toward Peter.
"Maybe I's mistooken," he said solemnly. "Tump did start over heah wid a gun, but Mister Dawson Bobbs done tuk him up fuh ca'yin' concealed squidjulums; so Tump's done los' dat freedom uv motion in de pu'suit uv happiness gua'anteed us niggers an' white folks by the Constitution uv de Newnighted States uv America."
At the foundation of Tump's being lay a faithfulness and devotion to Cissie that reached the heights of a dog's. And yet, he might have deserted her, he would probably have beaten her, and he most certainly would have betrayed her many, many times. It was inexplicable. Now that Tump was dead, the mantle of his fidelity somehow seemed to fall on Peter.
Tump's attack had been sudden and silent, much like a bulldog's. The possibility of a simple friendship between a woman and a man never entered Tump's head; it never entered any Niggertown head. Here all attraction was reduced to the simplest terms of sex. Niggertown held no delicate intimacies or reserves. Two youths could not go with the same girl.
A stab of pain cut off Peter's breath. He stood with his diaphragm muscles tense and paralyzed, making convulsive efforts to breathe. At that moment he glimpsed the convexity of Tump's stomach. He drop-kicked at it with foot-ball desperation. Came a loud explosive groan. Tump seemed to rise a foot or two in air, turned over, and thudded down on his shoulders in the dust.
"Been lookin' fuh you fuh some time, Peter," he stated grimly. Peter considered the formidable figure with a queer sensation. He tried to take Tump's appearance casually; he tried to maintain an air of ordinariness. "Didn't know you were back." "Yeah, I's back." "Have you been looking for me?" "Yeah." "Didn't you know where I was staying?" "Co'se I did; up 'mong de white folks.
"What's the matter, Tump?" he asked playfully. "Ain't nothin' matter wid me, nigger." Peter made a guess at Tump's surliness. "Look here, are you puffed up because Cissie Dildine struck you for a ten?" Tump's expression changed. "Is she struck me fuh a ten?" "Yes; on that school subscription." "Is dat whut you two niggers wuz a-talkin' 'bout over thaiuh in yo' house?" "Exactly."
Peter left his obese mother and hurried to the corner, Dawson Bobbs, the constable, had handcuffs on Tump's wrists, and stood with his prisoner amid a crowd of arguing negroes. Bobbs was a big, fleshy, red-faced man, with chilly blue eyes and a little straight slit of a mouth in his wide face. He was laughing and chewing a sliver of toothpick.
Siner shouted from across the street two or three times before he caught Tump's attention. The ex-soldier looked around, sobered abruptly. "Whut-chu want, nigger?" His inquiry was not over-cordial. Peter nodded him across the street. The heavily built black in khaki hesitated a moment, then started across the street with the dragging feet of a reluctant negro. Peter looked at him as he came up.
Tump's voice was so charged with contempt that Peter looked with a certain uneasiness at his find.
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