Looking back, I am a little sorry for Mr MacGinnis. He was not a good man. His mode of speech was not pleasant, and his manners were worse than his speech. But, though he undoubtedly deserved all that was coming to him, it was nevertheless bad luck for him to be standing just there at just that moment. The reactions after my panic, added to the pain of my shoulder, the scratches on my face, and the general misery of being wet and cold, had given me a reckless fury and a determination to do somebody, whoever happened to come along, grievous bodily hurt, such as seldom invades the bosoms of the normally peaceful. To put it crisply, I was fighting mad, and I looked on Buck as something sent by Heaven.
He had got as far, in his reply, as ‘Naw, I can’t–‘ when I sprang.
I have read of the spring of the jaguar, and I have seen some very creditable flying-tackles made on the football field. My leap combined the outstanding qualities of both. I connected with Mr MacGinnis in the region of the waist, and the howl he gave as we crashed to the ground was music to my ears.
But how true is the old Roman saying, -‘Surgit amari aliquid’-. Our pleasures are never perfect. There is always something. In the programme which I had hastily mapped out, the upsetting of Mr MacGinnis was but a small item, a mere preliminary. There were a number of things which I had wished to do to him, once upset. But it was not to be. Even as I reached for his throat I perceived that the light of the window was undergoing an eclipse. A compact form had wriggled out on to the sill, as I had done, and I heard the grating of his shoes on the wall as he lowered himself for the drop.
There is a moment when the pleasantest functions must come to an end. I was loath to part from Mr MacGinnis just when I was beginning, as it were, to do myself justice; but it was unavoidable. In another moment his ally would descend upon us, like some Homeric god swooping from a cloud, and I was not prepared to continue the battle against odds.
I disengaged myself–Mr MacGinnis strangely quiescent during the process–and was on my feet in the safety of the darkness just as the reinforcement touched earth. This time I did not wait. My hunger for fight had been appeased to some extent by my brush with Buck, and I was satisfied to have achieved safety with honour.
Making a wide detour I crossed the drive and worked my way through the bushes to within a few yards of where the automobile stood, filling the night with the soft purring of its engines. I was interested to see what would be the enemy’s next move. It was improbable that they would attempt to draw the grounds in search of me. I imagined that they would recognize failure and retire whence they had come.
I was right. I had not been watching long, before a little group advanced into the light of the automobile’s lamps. There were four of them. Three were walking, the fourth, cursing with the vigour and breadth that marks the expert, lying on their arms, of which they had made something resembling a stretcher.
The driver of the car, who had been sitting woodenly in his seat, turned at the sound.
‘Ja get him?’ he inquired.
‘Get nothing!’ replied one of the three moodily. ‘De Nugget ain’t dere, an’ we was chasin’ Sam to fix him, an’ he laid for us, an’ what he did to Buck was plenty.’
They placed their valuable burden in the tonneau, where he lay repeating himself, and two of them climbed in after him. The third seated himself beside the driver.
‘Buck’s leg’s broke,’ he announced.
‘Hell!’ said the chauffeur.
No young actor, receiving his first round of applause, could have felt a keener thrill of gratification than I did at those words. Life may have nobler triumphs than the breaking of a kidnapper’s leg, but I did not think so then. It was with an effort that I stopped myself from cheering.