Sour was aiming for the deep woods in the rear of the church, but as he started for them he confronted Skeeter with his automatic pistol. Sour had no means of knowing whether Skeeter had reloaded his gun, so he ducked and started at full speed around the church with the mob in hot pursuit.
He dived into the church through the front door again, leaped out of a side window and started for the woods. But the mob split into two parts in the church, some of them going out of the rear door and some out of the front, and they met half-way around the Shoofly church with Sour Sudds in the middle.
Struggling, panting, fighting, finally screaming for help, Sour plunged and kicked and bit and scratched, working his way around to the front of the church again.
And there stood Lalla Cordona, her shapely hands clutched across her heaving bosom, watching the fray.
“He’p, Laller, fer Gawd’s sake! Dey’ll kill me!” Sour shrieked, with arms outstretched toward her.
He went down in the whirlpool of spinning arms and legs while the mob snarled like wild hogs and tore at his prostrate body.
The sight sickened the girl and she turned away with face agonized, horror-stricken. Then the wretched negro’s prayerful plea for help galvanized her into action.
By the side of the church there was a piece of scantling about the size and length of a baseball bat. Lalla picked it up and waded into that mob like an Amazon.
Biff! the scantling struck a head and the owner of the head ceased operations and sank heavily to the ground. Biff! Biff! Biff! Like Father Time with his scythe, Lalla mowed the men down, or made such a deep impression on their minds that they were glad to retire.
At last she worked her way down to where poor Sour Sudds lay. But he did not lie there very long. Recalling his duplicity and deceit with reference to the marriage ceremony, and appalled at the dexterity with which Lalla handled her club, he rose from that spot, broke the world record for a hundred yard dash, and disappeared in the woods, still running.
Lalla turned, walked across the grass to where the marriage license lay upon the ground and picked it up.
She glanced at it, laughed, then carried it up close to the camera and held it so Rouke and Pellet could see it, and the all-seeing eye of the clicking machine might record it on the film.