Unprepared, the machinist attempted to swing aboard, missed his footing
in the uncertain light, and fell sprawling on the gravel. Plank saw him
from the veranda and instantly vaulted the rail to the lawn below.

"You damn fool!" yelled Mortimer, looking around, "what in hell do you
think you'll do?" And he clapped on full speed as Plank made a leap for
the car and missed.

Mortimer laughed, and turned his head to look back, and the next instant
something seemed to wrench the steering-wheel from its roots. There was
a blinding glare of light, a scream, and the great machine bounded
into the air full length, turned completely over, and lay across a
flower-bed, partly on one side.

Something was afire, too. Men were rushing from the verandas, women
screamed, and stood up wringing their hands; a mounted policeman came
galloping through the darkness; people shouted: "Throw sand on it! Get
shovels, for God's sake! Lift that tonneau! There's a woman under it."

But they were mistaken, for Leila lay at the foot of the slope, one
little bloody hand clutching the dead grass; and Plank knelt beside her,
giving his orders quietly to those who came running down the hill
from the roadway above, which was now fiercely illuminated by burning
gasoline. At last they got sand enough to quench the fire and men
sufficient to lift the weight from the dead man's neck, and drag what
was left of him onto the grass.

"Don't look," whispered Siward, drawing Sylvia back.

He and she both had put their shoulders to the tonneau along with the
others; and now they stood there together in the shifting lantern-light,
sickened, shivering under the summer stars, staring at the gathering
crowd around that shapeless lump on the grass.

Plank passed them, walking beside an improvised stretcher, calm, almost
smiling, as Sylvia sprang forward with a little sob of inquiry.

"There's the doctor, over there; that man is a doctor; he knows,"
repeated Plank with studied deliberation, looking down at Leila's
deathly face. "He says it's all right; he says he'll get a candle, and
that he can tell by the flame's effect on the pupils of the eyes what
exactly is the matter. No," to Siward beside him, pressing forward
through the crowd which eddied from the dead man to the stretcher; "no,
there is not a bone broken. She is stunned, that's all; she fell in the
shrubbery. We'll have an ambulance here pretty quick. Stephen," using
his first name unconsciously, "w