“Jump, I tell you!” he shouted again, looking over his shoulder; “another second and he’s away.”

Lloyd dropped the reins and turned to jump.  But the lap-robe had slipped down to the bottom of the cart when she had risen, and was in a tangle about her feet.  The cart was rocking like a ship in a storm.  Twice she tried to free herself, holding to the dashboard with one hand.  Then the cart suddenly lurched forward and she fell to her knees.  Rox was off; it was all over.

Not quite.  In one brief second of time—­a hideous vision come and gone between two breaths—­Lloyd saw the fearful thing done there in the road, almost within reach of her hand.  She saw the man and horse at grapples, the yellow reach of road that lay between her and the canal, the canal itself, and the narrow bridge.  Then she saw the short-handled geologist’s hammer gripped in Bennett’s fist heave high in the air.  Down it came, swift, resistless, terrible—­one blow.  The cart tipped forward as Rox, his knees bowing from under him, slowly collapsed.  Then he rolled upon the shaft that snapped under him, and the cart vibrated from end to end as a long, shuddering tremble ran through him with his last deep breath.

V.

When Lloyd at length managed to free herself and jump to the ground Bennett came quickly toward her and drew her away to the side of the road.

“Are you hurt?” he demanded.  “Tell me, are you hurt?”

“No, no; not in the least.”

“Why in the world did you want to drive such a horse?  Don’t ever take such chances again.  I won’t have it.”

For a few moments Lloyd was too excited to trust herself to talk, and could only stand helplessly to one side, watching Bennett as he stripped off the harness from the dead horse, stowed it away under the seat of the cart, and rolled the cart itself to the edge of the road.  Then at length she said, trying to smile and to steady her voice: 

“It—­it seems to me, Mr. Bennett, you do about—­about as you like with my sta-bub-ble.”

“Sit down!” he commanded, “you are trembling all over.  Sit down on that rock there.”

“—­and with me,” she added, sinking down upon the boulder he had indicated with a movement of his head, his hands busy with the harness.

“I’m sorry I had to do that,” he explained; “but there was no help for it—­nothing else to do.  He would have had you in the canal in another second, if he did not kill you on the way there.”

“Poor old Rox,” murmured Lloyd; “I was very fond of Rox.”

Bennett put himself in her way as she stepped forward.  He had the lap-robe over his arm and the whip in his hand.

“No, don’t look at him.  He’s not a pretty sight.  Come, shall I take you home?  Don’t worry about the cart; I will see that it is sent back.”

“And that Rox is buried—­somewhere?  I don’t want him left out there for the crows.”  In spite of Bennett’s injunction she looked over her shoulder for a moment as they started off down the road.  “I only hope you were sure there was nothing else to do, Mr. Bennett,” she said.