"What," shouted Lockwood, "you think--think that I--that I
_could_--oh-h, it's monstrous--_you_----" He could find no words to
voice his loathing. Swiftly he turned away from her, the last spark of
an evil love dying down forever in his breast.
It was a transformation, a thing as sudden as a miracle, as conclusive
as a miracle, and with all a miracle's sense of uplift and power. In a
second of time the scales seemed to fall from the man's eyes, fetters
from his limbs; he saw, and he was free.
At the door Lockwood met the doctor:
"Well?"
"He's all right; only a superficial wound. He'll recover. But you--how
about you? All right? Well, that is a good hearing. You've had a lucky
escape, my boy."
"I _have_ had a lucky escape," shouted Lockwood. "You don't know just
how lucky it was."
A BARGAIN WITH PEG-LEG
"Hey, youse!" shouted the car-boy. He brought his trundling, jolting,
loose-jointed car to a halt by the face of the drift. "Hey, youse!" he
shouted again.
Bunt shut off the Burly air-drill and nodded.
"Chaw," he remarked to me.
We clambered into the car, and, as the boy released the brake, rolled
out into the main tunnel of the Big Dipple, and banged and bumped down
the long incline that led to the mouth.
"Chaw" was dinner. It was one o'clock in the morning, and the men on the
night shift were taking their midnight spell off. Bunt was back at his
old occupation of miner, and I--the one loafer of all that little world
of workers--had brought him a bottle of beer to go with the "chaw"; for
Bunt and I were ancient friends.
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