personal transportation my body was
carried down the street to the public square and to the pavement in
front of the courthouse, but I found myself standing there over a woman
who had raised Gregory Goodloe's head on her arm and was drawing deep,
hard sobs as she held a handkerchief to stanch a flow of blood that
showed crimson in the flash from Nickols' electric cigar lighter.

"'When men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of
evil against you falsely for my sake--'" I quoted to myself softly as I
stood and looked down on the prostrate figure of the big lithe Harpeth
Jaguar while Billy struggled with a man a little way off in the darkness
and Nickols shut off the light and went to his aid. I didn't know
exactly where the words that rose so suddenly from my heart to my lips
had come from, and I only vaguely understood them, but I seemed to be
saying them without my own volition.

"Yes, my God, yes, that's what they've done to him," sobbed Martha as
she looked up, peering at me through the darkness. "Pa is drunk, Miss
Charlotte; and the rest egged him on. This is the only friend I've got
and they've killed him."

"Not by a good deal, Martha," came in a hearty grand opera voice just as
I dropped on my knee, and in time to stop me from taking that bleeding
gold head on my own breast and--"Jacob's bullet just clipped me but its
impact was as good as his fist would have been, which I wish he had
used." And as he spoke the wounded parson sprang lithely to his feet and
left us two women kneeling before him. In an instant a thought of Mary
and the Magdalen flashed through my brain as he bent to raise me to my
feet, while Martha crouched away from us in the dark.

"Charlotte?" he questioned softly, as if not willing to believe the
witness of his hands and eyes, muffled by the starry darkness.

"Young Charlotte stones you and Jacob shoots you, and I--" I both
sobbed and laughed as I clung to his hand just as I heard Billy and
Nickols throw the cursing, panting man to the ground not ten feet away.

"Now then, Parson, we've got Jacob down and out. Nickols has got his
foot on his neck and I've got his pistol. What do you want done with
him?" Billy interrupted me pantingly to demand.

"Let him up," answered Mr. Goodloe, as he gently extricated himself from
my clinging hand and went over to the scene of the conflict. "Had
enough, Jacob?" he asked just as gently as he had unhanded himself from
me.

"I'll ha