Their horses stood with heads hanging
wearily down, their sides rising and falling; and Hampton, rolling
stiffly from the saddle, hastily loosened his girth.
"They 'll drop under us if we don't give them an hour or two," he said,
quietly. "They 're both dead beat."
Murphy muttered something, incoherent and garnished with oaths, and the
moment he succeeded in releasing the buckle, sank down limp at the very
feet of his horse, rolling up into a queer ball. The other stared, and
took a step nearer.
"What's the matter? Are you sick, Murphy?"
"No--tired--don't want ter see--thet thing agin."
"What thing?"
"Thet green, devilish,--crawlin' face--if ye must know!" And he
twisted his long, ape-like arms across his eyes, lying curled up as a
dog might.
For a moment Hampton stood gazing down upon him, listening to his
incoherent mutterings, his own face grave and sympathetic. Then he
moved back and sat down. Suddenly the full conception of what this
meant came to his mind--_the man had gone mad_. The strained cords of
that diseased brain had snapped in the presence of imagined terrors,
and now all was chaos.
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