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About dusk Aunt Patricia came in the mediæval cab with Denny driving. There was no luggage. Esther hoped a great deal from that. But it proved there was too much to come by cab, and Denny brought it afterward, shabby trunks of a sophisticated look, spattered with labels. Madame Beattie alighted from the cab, a large woman in worn black velvet, with a stale perfume about her.
Instead of attempting to dodge him, as the burgomaster made sure he would, Gerard flew right at him, with a savage, exulting cry, and struck at him with all his heart, and soul and strength. The oak staff came down on Ghysbrecht's face with a frightful crash, and laid him under his mule's tail beating the devil's tattoo with his heels, his face streaming, and his collar spattered with blood.
I had struck and spoken at the same time, with a rush of wrath that surprised me; and the result surprised me more, for while I was not conscious of having exerted much force he toppled backward clear across the aisle, crashed down in a heap under the opposite seat. His bottle shattered against the ceiling. The whiskey spattered in a sickening shower over the alarmed passengers. "Look out!
A bullet slapped against the rock upon which he was partially leaning, and fell at his feet. Another spattered mud in his face, and flew away, singing viciously. At the reports the fear-harrassed mob shuddered and surged forward through its entire length. The companions of those who fired seemed to reproach them with angry gestures, pointing to the effect upon the panicky mass.
And now in place of roaring battle was sudden hush, yet a quietude this, troubled by thin cryings, waitings and the like distressful sounds; and the smoke lifting showed something of the havoc about us, viz: our riven bulwarks, the tangled confusion of shattered spars, ropes and fallen gear, the still and awful shapes that cumbered the spattered decks, more especially about the smoking guns where leaned their wearied crews, a blood-stained, powder-grimed company, cheering fitfully as they watched the English ship creeping away from us.
He announced that he would give the money to a college only if the town would give a similar sum, and what with John Barclay's hundred-thousand-dollar donation, and Bob Hendricks' ten thousand, and what with the subscription paper carried around by Colonel Culpepper, who proudly headed it with five thousand dollars, and after the figure wrote in red ink "in real estate," much to the town's merriment, and what with public meetings and exhortations in the churches, and what with voting one hundred thousand dollars in bonds by Garrison County for the privilege of sending students to the college without tuition, the amount was raised; and as the procession wheeled out of Main Street to attend the ceremonies incident to laying the corner-stone that beautiful October day, it is doubtful which was the prouder man Martin Culpepper, the master of ceremonies, in his plumed hat, flashing sword, and red sash, or General Philemon Ward, who for the first time in a dozen years heard the crowd cheer his name when the governor in his speech pointed at the general's picture his campaign picture that had been hooted with derision and spattered with filth on so many different occasions in the town.
Rifles cracked rapidly, and then blazed into volleys. Bullets sighed as they struck on human flesh or the wood of wagons, and now and then they spattered on the water. Cries of pain or shouts of defiance rose, and the furious conflict between white man and red rapidly thickened and deepened, becoming a confused and terrible medley.
That was but withered leaves, spattered with the blood of those who lost. He had turned from it, and now his steps sought another conquest and another reward. He must strive for a goal unseen, but more real and more worthy than the little crowns of little victories. His somber thoughts left him refreshed, as if from a bath of deep, clear waters.
He seized the pistol and tore it from your grasp, and then, while he held you for you were still weak and he always was a giant he struck you with it, bringing it down again and again upon your unprotected head, until your brains were battered out, and were spattered upon the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling of the room.
He sat on the fife-rail and began to think of the king and the minister again; but his reflections this time were very brief, and if his fancy burned again with glowing anticipation, the flame was suddenly quenched by a stream of water directed at the foot of the mast, which spattered his lower extremities very badly.
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