But there had been time enough for the onward-plunging thief to step into the narrow lip of the water-pipe ditch.

The momentum of his own rush hurled the upper part of his body forward.

But his left leg, caught between the ditch-sides, did not keep pace with the rest of him.

There was a hideous snapping sound, a screech of mortal anguish; and the man crashed to earth, in a dead faint of pain and shock,--his broken left leg still thrust at an impossible angle in the ditch.
Lad checked himself midway in his own fierce charge.

Teeth bare, throat agrowl, he hesitated.