Percival's blood cooled, his brain cleared.

Men shouted questions as he passed, and obeyed his command to follow.
The ugly story is soon told.

Philippa, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Pedro, the head-farmer, had gone out from her father's cabin at dusk to fetch water from the little reservoir that had been constructed alongside Leap Frog River a short distance above the cabins.

The pool was a scant two hundred yards from her home.

It was a five minutes' walk there and back.