Here, there, the cry was repeated. A shifting, moving sound began. In the visible group, the Things were getting to their handlike feet, standing unsteadily on their loose-skinned, scaly legs, gawping about them, whining and clicking with disgusting sounds.
Sudden, numbing fear seized Beatrice. Now for the first time she realized the imminent peril; now she regretted her insistence on seeing the Horde at close range.
She turned, pale and shaken; and her trembling hand sought the engineer's.
He still, for a moment, kept his eye to the crack, fascinated by the very horror of the sight. Then all at once another figure shambled into view.
“A female one!” he realized, shuddering. Too monstrously hideous, this sight, to be endured. With a gasp, the man turned back.
About Beatrice he drew his arm. Together, almost as soundlessly as wraiths, they stole away, out through the office, out to the hallway, into the dim light of the arcade once more.
Here, for a few moments, they knew that they were safe. Retreat through the Marble Court and up the stairs was fairly clear. There was but one entrance open into the arcade, the one through Pine Tree Gate; and this was blocked so narrowly by the giant bole that Stern knew there could be no general mob-rush through it--no attack which he could not for a while hold back, so long as his ammunition and the girl's should last.
Thus they breathed more freely now. Most of the tumult outside had been cut off from their hearing, by the retirement into the arcade. They paused, to plan their course.
At Stern the girl looked eagerly.
“Oh, oh, Allan--how horrible!” she whispered. “It was all my fault for having been so headstrong, for having insisted on a look at them! Forgive me!”
“S-h!” he cautioned again. “No matter about that. The main thing, now, is whether we attack or wait?”
“Attack? Now?”
“I don't think much of going up-stairs without that pail of water. We'll have a frightful time with thirst, to say nothing of not being able to make the Pulverite. Water we must have! If it weren't for your being here, I'd mighty soon wade into that bunch and see who wins! But--well, I haven't any right to endanger--”
Beatrice seized his hand and pulled him toward the doorway.
“Come on!” cried she. “If you and I aren't a match forthem, we don't deserve to live, that's all. You know how I can shoot now! Come along!”
Her eyes gleamed with the light of battle, battle for liberty, for life; her cheeks glowed with the tides of generous blood that coursed beneath the skin. Never had Stern beheld her half so beautiful, so regal in that clinging, barbaric Bengal robe of black and yellow, caught at the throat with the clasp of raw gold.
A sudden impulse seized him, dominant, resistless. For a brief moment he detained her; he held her back; about her supple body his arm tightened.
She raised her face in wonder. He bent, a little, and on the brow he kissed her rapturously.
“Thank God for such a comrade and a--friend!” said he.
Somefew minutes later, together they approached Pine Tree Gate, leading directly out into the Horde.
The girl, rosier than ever, held her Krag loosely in the hollow of her bare, warm right arm. One of Stern's revolvers lay in its holster. The other balanced itself in his right hand. His left held the precious water-pail, so vital now to all their plans and hopes.
Girt in his garb of fur, belted and sandaled, well over six feet tall and broad of shoulder, the man was magnificent. His red beard and mustache, close-cropped, gave him a savage air that now well fitted him. For Stern was mad--mad clear through.
That Beatrice should suffer in any way, even from temporary thirst, raised up a savage resentment in his breast. The thought that perhaps it mightnotbe possible to gain access to the spring at all, that these foul Things might try to blockade them and siege them to death, wrought powerfully on him.
For himself he cared nothing. The girl it was who now preoccupied his every thought. And as they made their way through the litter of the explosion, toward the exit, slowly and cautiously, he spied out every foot of the place for possible danger.
If fight he must, he knew now it would be a brutal, utterly merciless fight--slaughter, extermination without any limit, to the end.
But there was scant time for thought. Already they could see daylight glimmering in through the gate, past me massive column of the conifer. Daylight--and with it came a thin and acrid smoke--and sounds of the uproused Horde in Madison Forest.
“Slow! Slow, now!” whispered Stern. “Don't let 'em know a thing until we've got 'em covered! If we surprise 'em just right, who knows but the whole infernal mob may duck and run? Don't shoot till you have to; but when youdo--!”
“I know!” breathed she.
Then, all at once, there they were at the gate, at the big tree, standing out there in the open, on the thick carpet of pine-spills.
And before them lay the mossy, shaded forest aisles--with what a horror camped all through that peaceful, wondrous place!
“Oh!” gasped Beatrice. The engineer stopped as though frozen. His hand tightened on the revolver-butt till the knuckles whitened. And thus, face to face with the Horde, they stood for a long minute.
Neither of them realized exactly the details of that first impression. The narrow slit of view which they had already got through the crack in the wall had only very imperfectly prepared them for any understanding of what these Things really were,en masse.
But both Beatrice and the engineer understood, even at the first moment of their exit there, that they had entered an adventure whereof the end could not be foreseen; that here before them lay possibilities infinitely more serious than any they had contemplated.
For one thing, they had underestimated the numbers of the Horde. They had thought, perhaps, there might be five hundred in all.
The torches had certainly numbered no more than that. But now they realized that the torch-bearers had been but a very small fraction of the whole; for, as their eyes swept out through the forest, whence the fog had almost wholly risen, they beheld a moving, swarming mass of the creatures on every hand. A mass that seemed to extend on, on to indefinite vistas. A mass that moved, clicked, shifted, grunted, stank, snarled, quarreled. A mass of frightful hideousness, of inconceivable menace.
The girl's first impulse was to turn, to retreat back into the building once more; but her native courage checked it. For Stern, she saw, had no such purpose.
Surprised though he was, he stood there like a rock, head up, revolver ready, every muscle tense and ready for whatsoever might befall. And through the girl flashed a thrill of admiration for this virile, indomitable man, coping with every difficulty, facing every peril--for her sake.
Yet the words he uttered now were not of classic heroism. They were simple, colloquial, inelegant. For Stern, his eyes blazing, said only:
“We're in bad, girl! They're on--we've got to bluff--bluff like the devil!”
Have you ever seen a herd of cattle on the prairie, a herd of thousands, shift and face and, as by instinct, lower their horned heads against some enemy--a wolf-pack, maybe?
You know then, how this Horde of dwarfish, blue, warty, misformed little horrors woke to the presence of the unknown enemy.
Already half alarmed by the warning given by the one, which, near the crack in the wall, had sniffed the intruders and had howled, the pack now broke into commotion. Stern and Beatrice saw a confused upheaving, a shifting and a tumult. They heard a yapping outcry. The long, thin spears began to bristle.
And all at once, as a dull, ugly hornet-hum rose through the wood, they knew the moment for quick action was upon them.
“Here goes!” cried Stern, raging. “Let's see howthiswill strike the hell-hounds!”
His face white with passion and with loathing hate, he raised the automatic. He aimed at none of the pack, for angry as he was he realized that the time was not yet come for killing, if other means to reach the spring could possibly avail.
Instead he pointed the ugly blue muzzle up toward the branches of a maple, under which a dense swarm of the Horde had encamped and now was staring, apelike, at him.
Then his finger sought the trigger. And five crackling spurts of flame, five shots spat out into the calm and misty air of morning. A few severed leaves swayed down, idly, with a swinging motion. A broken twig fell, hung suspended a moment, then detached itself again and crapped to earth.
“Good Lord! Look a'that, will you?” cried Stern.
A startled cry broke from the girl's lips.
Both of them had expected some effect from the sudden fusillade, but nothing like that which actually resulted.
For, as the quick shots echoed to stillness again, and even before the first of the falling leaves had spiraled to the ground, an absolute, unbroken silence fell upon that vile rabble of beast-men--the silence of a numbing, paralyzing, sheer brute terror.
Some stood motionless, crouching on their bandy legs, holding to whatsoever tree or bush was nearest, staring with wild eyes.
Others dropped to their knees.
But by far the greater part, thousands on thousands of the little monstrosities, fell prone and grovelling. Their hideous masklike faces hidden, there they lay on the moss and all among the undergrowth, the trampled, desecrated, befouled undergrowth of Madison Forest.
Then all at once, over and beyond them, Stern saw the blue-curling smudge of the remains of the great fire by the spring.
He knew that, for a few brief, all-precious moments, the way might possibly be clear to come and go--to get water--to save Beatrice and himself from the thirst--tortures--to procure the one necessary thing for the making of his Pulverite.
His heart gave a great, up-bounding leap.
“Look, Beatrice!” cried he, his voice ringing out over the terror-stricken things. “Look--we're gods! While this lasts--gods!Come, now's our only chance!Come on!--”
Together, as in a dream--a nightmare, dazed, incredible, grotesque--they advanced out into the dim-shaded forest aisles.
“Don't look!” Stern exclaimed, shuddering at sight of the unspeakable hideousness of the Things, at glimpses of gnawed bones, grisly bits of flesh, dried gouts of blood upon the woodland carpet. “Don't think--just come along!
“Five minutes, and we're safe, there and back again. S-h-h-h! Don't hurry! Count, now--count your steps--one, two, three--four, five, six--steady, steady!--”
Now they were ten yards from the tower, now twenty. Bravely they walked, now straight ahead among the trees, now circling some individual, some horrid group. Stern held the water-pail firmly. He gripped the revolver in a grasp of iron. The magazine-rifle lay in both the girl's hands, ready for instant use.
Suddenly Stern fired again, three shots.
“Some of 'em are moving, over there!” he said in a crisp, ugly tone. “I guess a little lead close to their ears will fix 'em for a while!”
His voice went to a hoarse whisper.
“Gods!” he repeated. “Don't forget it, for a moment; don't lose that thought, for it may pull us through! These creatures here,ifthey're descended from the blacks, must have some story, some tradition of the white man. Of his mastery, his power! We'll use it now, by Heaven, as it never yet was used!”
Then he began to count again; and so, tense, watching with eager-burning eyes and taut muscles, the man and woman made their way of frightful peril.
A snuffling howl rose.
“You will, will you?” Stern cried, adding another kick to the one he had just dealt to one of the creatures, who had ventured to look up at their approach. “Lie down, ape!” And with the clangorous metal pail he smote the ugly, brutish skull.
Beatrice gasped with fear; but the bluff made good. The creature grovelled, and again the pair strode forward, masterfully. Masterfully they had to go, or not at all. Masterfully, or die. For now their all-in-all lay just in that grim, steel-hard sense of mastery.
Before the girl's eyes a sort of haze seemed forming. Her heart beat thick and heavy. Stern's counting sounded very far away and strange; she hardly recognized his voice. To her came wild, disjointed, confused impressions--now a bony and distorted back, now a simian head; again a group that crouched and cowered in its filthy squalor, hideously.
Then all at once, there right before her she saw the little woodland path that, slightly descending, led past a big oak she well knew, down to the margin of the pool.
“Steady, girl, steady!” came the engineer's warning, tense as piano-wire. “Almost there, now. What'sthat?”
For a brief instant he hesitated. The girl felt his arm grow even more taut, she heard his breath catch. Then she, too, looked--and saw.
It was enough, that sight, to have smitten with sick horror the bravest man who ever lived. For there, beside the smouldering embers of the great feast-fire, littered with bones and indescribable refuse, a creature was squatting on its hams--one of the Horde, indeed, yet vastly different, tremendously more venomous, more dangerous of aspect.
Stern knew at once that here, not prostrate nor yet crouching, was the chief of the blue Horde.
He knew it by the superior size and strength of the Thing, by the almost manlike cunning of the low, gorilla face, the gleam of intelligence in the reddened eye, the crude wreath of maple-leaves upon the head, the necklace of finger-bones strung around the neck.
But most of all, he knew it by a thing that shocked him more than the sight of stark, outright cannibalism would have done. A simple thing, yet how ominous! A thing that argued reason in this reversion from the human; a thing that sent the shuddering chills along the engineer's spine.
For the chief, the obeah-man of this vile drove, rising now from beside the fire with a gibbering chatter and a look of bestial malice, held between his fangs a twisted brown leaf.
Stern knew at a glance the leaf was the rudely cured product of some degenerated tobacco-plant. He saw a glow of red at the tip of the close-rolled tobacco. Vapor issued from the chief's slit-mouth.
“Good Lord--he's--smoking!” stammered the engineer. “Andthatmeans--means an almost human brain. And--quick, Beatrice, the water! I didn't expect this! Thought they were all alike. Back to the tower, quick! Here, fill the pail--I'll keep him covered!”
Up he brought the automatic, till the bead lay fair upon the naked, muscular breast of the obeah.
Beatrice handed Stern the rifle, then snatching the pail, dipped it, filled it to the brim. Stern heard the water lap and gurgle. He knew it was but a few seconds, yet it seemed an hour to him, at the very least.
Keener than ever before in his whole life, his mental pictures now limned themselves with lightning rapidity upon his brain.
Stamped on his consciousness was this lithe, lean, formidable body, showing beyond dispute its human ancestry; the right hand that held asteel-pointedspear; the horrible ornament (a withered little smoked hand) that dangled from the left wrist by a cord of platted fiber.
Vividly Stern beheld a deep gash or scar that ran from the chief's right eye--a dull, fishlike eye, evidently destroyed by that wound--down across the leathery cheek, across the prognathous jaw; a reddish-purple wale, which on that clay-blue skin produced an effect indescribably repulsive.
Then the chief grunted, and moved forward, toward them. Stern saw that the gait was almost human, not shuffling and uncertain like that of the others, but firm and vigorous. He estimated the height at more than five feet, eight inches; the weight at possibly one hundred and forty pounds. Even at that juncture, his scientific mind, always accustomed to judging, instinctively registered these data, with the others.
“Here, you, get back there!” shouted Stern, as the girl rose again from filling the pail.
The cry was instinctive, for even as he uttered it, he knew it could not be understood. A thousand years of rapid degeneration had long wiped all traces of English speech from the brute-men, who now, at most, chattered some bestial gibberish. Yet the warning echoed loudly through Madison Forest; and the obeah hesitated.
The tone, perhaps, conveyed some meaning to that brain behind the sloping forehead. Perhaps some dim, racial memory of human speech still lingered in that mind, in that strange organism which, by some freak of atavism, had “thrown back” out of the mire of returning animality almost to the human form and stature once again.
However that may have been, the creature-chief halted in his advance. Undecided he stood a moment, leaning upon his spear, sucking at the rude mockery of a cigar. Stern remembered having seen Consul, the trained chimpanzee, smoke in precisely the same manner, and a nameless loathing filled him at his mockery of the dead, buried past.
“Let me carry the pail!” said he. “We've got to hurry--hurry--or it may be too late!”
“No, no--I'll keep the water!” she answered, panting. “You need both hands clear! Come!”
Thus they turned, and, with a shuddering glance behind, started back for the tower again.
But the obeah, with a whining plaint, spat away his tobacco-leaf. They heard a shuffle of feet. And, looking round again, both saw that he had crossed the little brook.
There he stood now, his right hand out, palm upward, his lips curled in the ghastly imitation of a smile, blue gums and yellow lushes showing, a sight to freeze the blood with horror. Yet through it all, the meaning was most clearly evident.
Beatrice, laden as she was with the heavy water-bucket, more precious now to them than all the wealth of the dead world, would still have retreated, but with a word of stern command he bade her wait. He stopped short in his tracks.
“Not a step!” commanded he. “Hold on!Ifhe makes friends with us--with gods--that's a million times better every way! Hold on--wait, no--this ishismove.”
He faced the obeah. His left hand gripped the repeating rifle, his right the automatic, held in readiness for instant action. The muzzle sight never for a second left its aim at the chief's heart.
And for a second silence fell there in the forest. Save for the rustling murmur of the Horde, and a faint, woodland trickle of the stream, you might have thought the place untouched by life.
Yet death lurked there, and destiny--the destiny of the whole world, the future, the human race, forever and ever without end; and the cords of Fate were being loosed for a new knitting.
And Stern, with Beatrice there at his side, stood harsh and strong and very grim; stood like an incarnation of man's life, waiting.
And slowly, step by step, over the yielding, noiseless moss, the grinning, one-eyed, ghastly obeah-man came nearer, nearer still.
Nowthe Thing was close, very close to them, while a hush lay upon the watching Horde and on the forest. So close, that Stern could hear the soughing breath between those hideous lips and see the twitching of the wrinkled lid over the black, glittering eye that blinked as you have often seen a chimpanzee's.
All at once the obeah stopped. Stopped and leered, his head craned forward, that ghastly rictus on his mouth.
Stern's hot anger welled up again. Thus to be detained, inspected and seemingly made mock of by a creature no more than three-quarters human, stung the engineer to rage.
“What doyouwant?” cried he, in a thick and unsteady voice. “Anything I can do for you? If not, I'll be going.”
The creature shook its head. Yet something of Stern's meaning may have won to its smoldering intelligence. For now it raised a hand. It pointed to the pail of water, then to its own mouth; again it indicated the pail, then stretched a long, repulsive finger at the mouth of Stern.
The meaning seemed clear. Stern, even as he stood there in anger--and in wonder, too, at the fearlessness of this superthing--grasped the significance of the action.
“Why, he must mean,” said he, to Beatrice, “he must be trying to ask whether we intend to drink any of the water, what? Maybe it's poisoned, now, or something! Maybe he's trying to warn us!”
“Warn us? Why should he?”
“How can I tell? It isn't entirely impossible that he still retains some knowledge of his human ancestors. Perhaps that tradition may have been handed down, some way, and still exists in the form of a crude beast-religion.”
“Yes, but then--?”
“Perhaps he wants to get in touch with us, again; learn from us; try to struggle up out of the mire of degeneration, who knows? If so--and it's possible--of course he'd try to warn us of a poisoned spring!”
Acting on this hypothesis, of which he was now half-convinced, Stern nodded. By gesture-play he answered: Yes. Yes, this woman and he intended to drink of the water. The obeah-man, grinning, showed signs of lively interest. His eyes brightened, and a look of craft, of wizened cunning crept over his uncanny features.
Then he raised his head and gave a long, shrill, throaty call, ululating and unspeakably weird.
Something stirred in the forest. Stern heard a rustle and a creeping murmur; and quick fear chilled his heart.
To him it seemed as though a voice were calling, perhaps the inner, secret voice of his own subjective self--a voice that cried:
“You, who must drink water--nowheknows you are not gods, but mortal creatures. Tricked by his question and your answer, your peril now is on you!Flee!”
The voice died. Stern found himself, with a strange, taut eagerness tingling all through him, facing the obeah and--andnot daring to turn his back.
Retreat they must, he knew. Retreat, at once! Already in the forest he understood that heads were being lifted, beastlike ears were listening, brute eyes peering and ape-hands clutching the little, flint-pointed spears. Already the girl and he should have been half-way back to the tower; yet still, inhibited by that slow, grinning, staring advance of the chief, there the engineer stood.
But all at once the spell was broken.
For with a cry, a hoarse and frightful yell of passion, the obeah leaped--leaped like a huge and frightfully agile ape--leaped the whole distance intervening.
Stern saw the Thing's red-gleaming eyes fixed on Beatrice. In those eyes he clearly saw the hell-flame of lust. And as the woman screamed in terror, Stern pulled trigger with a savage curse.
The shot went wild. For at the instant--though he felt no pain--his arm dropped down and sideways.
Astounded, he looked. Something was wrong! What? His trigger-finger refused to serve. It had lost all power, all control.
For God's sake, what could it be?
Then--all this taking but a second--Stern saw; he knew the truth. Staring, pale and horrified, he understood.
There, through the fleshy part of his forearm, thrust clean from side to side by a lightning-swift stroke, he saw the obeah's spear!
It dangled strangely in the firm muscles. The steel barb and full eighteen inches of the shaft were red and dripping.
Yet still the engineer felt no slightest twinge of pain.
From his numbed, paralyzed hand the automatic dropped, fell noiselessly into the moss.
And with a formless roar of killing-rage, Stern swung on the obeah, with the rifle.
Stern felt his heart about to burst with hate. He did not even think of the second revolver in the holster at his side. With only his left hand now to use, the weapon could only have given clumsy service.
Instead, the man reverted instantly to the jungle stage, himself--to the law of claw and fang, of clutching talon, of stone and club.
The beloved woman's cry, ringing in his ears, drove him mad. Up he whirled the Krag again, up, up, by the muzzle; and down upon that villainous skull he dashed it with a force that would have brained an ox.
The obeah, screeching, reeled back. But he was not dead. Not dead, only stunned a moment. And Stern, horrified, found himself holding only a gun-barrel. The stock, shattered, had whirled away and vanished among the tall and waving ferns.
Beatrice snatched up the fallen revolver. She stumbled; and the pail was empty. Spurting, splashing away, the precious water flew. No time, now, for any more.
For all about them, behind them and on every hand, the Things were closing in.
They had seen blood--had heard the obeah's cry; they knew! Not gods, now, but mortal creatures!Not gods!
“Run!Run!” gasped Beatrice.
The spear still hanging from his arm, Stern wheeled and followed. High and hard he swung the rifle-barrel, like a war-club.
No counting of steps, now; no play at divinity. Panting, horror-stricken, frenzied with rage, bleeding, they ran. It was a hunt--the hunt of the last two humans by the nightmare Horde.
In front, a bluish and confused mass seemed to dance and quiver through the forest; and a pattering rain of spears and little arrows began to fall about the fugitives.
Then the girl's revolver sputtered in a quick volley; and again, for a space, silence fell. The way again was clear. But in the path, silent and still, or writhing horribly, lay a few of the Things. And the pine-needles and soft moss were very red, in spots.
Stern had his pistol out too, by now. For behind and on his flanks, like ferrets hanging to a hunted creature, the swarm was closing in.
The engineer, his face very white and drawn, veins standing out on his sweat-beaded forehead, heard Beatrice cry out to him, but he could not understand her words.
Yet as they ran, he saw her level the pistol and snap the hammer twice, thrice, with no result. The little dead click sounded like a death-warrant to him.
“Empty?” cried he. “Here, take this one! You can shoot better now than I can!” And into her hand he thrust the second revolver.
Something stung him on the left shoulder. He glanced round. A dart was hanging there.
With an oath, the engineer wheeled about. His eyes burned and his lips drew back, taut, from his fine white teeth.
There, already recovered from the blow which would have killed a man ten times over, he saw the obeah snarling after him. Right down along the path the monster was howling, beating his breast with both huge fists. And, now feeling fear no more than pain, Stern crouched to meet his onslaught.
Itall happened in a moment of time, a moment, long--in seeming--as an hour. The girl's revolver crackled, there behind him. Stern saw a little round bluish hole take shape in the obeah's ear, and red drops start.
Then with a ghastly screaming, the Thing was upon him.
Out struck the engineer, with the rifle-barrel. All the force of his splendid muscles lay behind that blow. The Thing tried to dodge. But Stern had been too quick.
Even as it sprang, with talons clutching for the man's throat, the steel barrel drove home on the jaw.
An unearthly, piercing yell split the forest air. Then Stern saw the obeah, his jaw hanging oddly awry, all loose and shattered, fall headlong in the path.
But before he could strike again, could batter in the base of the tough skull, a moan from Beatrice sent him to her aid.
“Oh, God!” he cried, and sank beside her on his knees.
On her forehead, as she lay gasping among the bushes, he saw an ugly welt.
“A stone? They've hit her with a stone!Killed her, perhaps?”
Kneeling there, up he snatched the revolver, and in a deadly fire he poured out the last spitting shots, pointblank in the faces of the crowding rabble.
Up he leaped. The rifle barrel flashed and glittered as he whirled it. Like a reaper, laying a clean swath behind him, the engineer mowed down a dozen of the beast-men.
Shrieks, grunts, snarls, mingled with his execrations.
Then fair into a jabbering ape-face he flung the bloodstained barrel. The face fell, faded, vanished, as hideous illusions fade in a dream.
And Stern, with a strength he never dreamed was his, caught up the fainting girl in his left arm, as easily as though she had been a child.
Still dragging the spear which pierced his right--his right that yet protected her a little--he ran.
Stones, darts, spears, clattered in about him. He heard the swish and tang of them; heard the leaves flutter as the missiles whirled through.
Struck? Was he struck again?
He knew not, nor cared. Only he thought of shielding Beatrice. Nothing but that, just that!
“The gate--oh, let me reach the gate! God! The gate--”
And all of a sudden, though how he could not tell, there he seemed to see the gate before him. Could it be? Or was that, too, a dream? A cruel, vicious mockery of his disordered mind?
Yes--the gate! It must be! He recognized the giant pine, in a moment of lucidity. Then everything began to dance again, to quiver in the mocking sunlight.
“The gate!” he gasped once more, and staggered on. Behind him, a little trail of blood-drops from his wounded arm fell on the trampled leaves.
Something struck his bent head. Through it a blinding pain darted. Thousands of beautiful and tiny lights of every color began to quiver, to leap and whirl.
“They've--set the building on fire!” thought he; yet all the while he knew it was impossible, he understood it was only an illusion.
He heard the rustle of the wind through the forest. It blent and mingled with a horrid tumult of grunts, of clicking cries, of gnashing teeth and little bestial cries.
“The--gate!” sobbed Stern, between hard-set teeth, and stumbled forward, ever forward, through the Horde.
To him, protectingly, he clasped the beautiful body in the tiger-skin.
Living? Was she living yet? A great, aching wonder filled him. Could he reach the stair with her, and bear her up it? Hurl back these devils? Save her, after all?
The pain had grown exquisite, in his head. Something seemed hammering there, with regular strokes--a red-hot sledge upon an anvil of white-hot steel.
To him it looked as though a hundred, a thousand of the little blue fiends were leaping, shrieking, circling there in front of him. Ten thousand! And he must break through.
Break through!
Where had he heard those words? Ah--Yes--
To him instantly recurred a distant echo of a song, a Harvard football-song. He remembered. Now he was back again. Yale, 0; Harvard, 17--New Haven, 1898. And see the thousands of cheering spectators! The hats flying through the air--flags waving--red, most of them! Crimson--like blood!
Came the crash and boom of the old Harvard Band, with big Joe Foley banging the drum till it was fit to burst, with Marsh blowing his lungs out on the cornet, and all the other fellows raising Cain.
Uproar! Cheering! And again the music. Everybody was singing now, everybody roaring out that brave old fighting chorus:
“.....Now--all to-geth-er,Smash them--and--break--through!”
And see! Look there! The goal!
The scene shifted, all at once, in a quite unaccountable and puzzling manner.
Somehow, victory wasn't quite won, after all. Not quite yet. What was the matter, then? What was wrong? Wherewashe?
Ah, the Goal!
Yes, there through the rack and mass of the Blues, he saw it, again, quite clearly. He was sure ofthat, anyhow.
The goal-posts seemed a trifle near together, and they were certainly made of crumbling stone, instead of straight wooden beams. Odd, that!
He wondered, too, why the management allowed trees to grow on the field, trees and bushes--why a huge pine should be standing right there by the left-hand post. That was certainly a matter to be investigated and complained of, later. But now was no time for kicks.
“Probably some Blue trick,” thought Stern. “No matter, it won't do 'em any good, this time!”
Ah! An opening! Stern's head went lower still. He braced himself for a leap.
“Come on, come on!” he yelled defiance.
Again he heard the cheering, once wind like a chorus of mad devils.
An opening? No, he was mistaken. Instead, the Blues were massing there by the Goal.
Bitterly he swore. Under his arm he tightened the ball. He ran!
What?
They were trying to tackle?
“Damn you!” he cried, in boiling anger. “I'll--I'll show you a trick or two--yet!”
He stopped, circled, dodged the clutching hands, feinted with a tactic long unthought of, and broke into a straight, resistless dash for the posts.
As he ran, he yelled:
“Smashthem--and--breakthrough!. .....”
All his waning strength upgathered for that run. Yet how strangely tired he felt--how heavy the ball was growing!
What was the matter with his head? With his right arm? They both ached hideously. He must have got hurt, some way, in one of the “downs.” Some dirty work, somewhere. Rotten sport!
He ran. Never in all his many games had he seen such peculiar gridiron, all tangled and overgrown. Never, such host of tackles. Hundreds of them! Where were the Crimsons? What? No support, no interference? Hell!
Yet the Goal was surely just there, now right ahead. He ran.
“Foul!” he shouted savagely, as a Blue struck at him, then another and another, and many more. The taste of blood came to his tongue. He spat. “Foul!”
Right and left he dashed them, with a giant's strength. They scattered in panic, with strange and unintelligible cries.
“The goal!”
He reached it. And, as he crossed the line, he fell.
“Down, down!” sobbed he.
Anhour later, Stern and Beatrice sat weak and shaken in their stronghold on the fifth floor, resting, trying to gather up some strength again, to pull together for resistance to the siege that had set in.
With the return of reason to the engineer--his free bleeding had somewhat checked the onset of fever--and of consciousness to the girl, they began to piece out, bit by bit, the stages of their retreat.
Now that Stern had barricaded the stairs, two stories below, and that for a little while they felt reasonably safe, they were able to take their bearings, to recall the flight, to plan a bit for the future, a future dark with menace, seemingly hopeless in its outlook.
“If it--hadn't been for you,” Beatrice was saying, “if you hadn't picked me up and carried me, when that stone struck, I--I--”
“How's the ache now?” Stern hastily interrupted, in a rather weak yet brisk voice, which he was trying hard to render matter-of-fact. “Of course the lack of water, except that half-pint or so, to bathe your bruise with, is a rank barbarity. But if we haven't got any, we haven't--that's all. All--till we have another go at 'em!”
“Oh, Allan!” she exclaimed, tremulously. “Don't think ofme!Of me, when your back's gashed with a spear-cut, your head's battered, arm pierced, and we've neither water nor bandages--nothing of any kind to treat your wounds with!”
“Come now, don't you bother about me!” he objected trying hard to smile, though racked with pain. “I'll be O. K., fit as a fiddle, in no time. Perfect health and all that sort of thing, you know. It'll heal right away.
“Head's clear again already, in spite of that whack with the war-club, or whatever it was they landed with. But for a while I certainly was seeing things. I had 'em--had 'em bad! Thought--well, strange things.
“My back? Only a scratch, that's all. It's begun to coagulate already, the blood has, hasn't it?” And he strove to peer over his own shoulder at the slash. But the pain made him desist. He could hardly keep back a groan. His face twitched involuntarily.
The girl sank on her knees beside him. Her arm encircled him; her hand smoothed his forehead; and with a strange look she studied his unnaturally pale face.
“It's your arm I'm thinking about, more than anything,” said she. “We'vegotto have something to treat that with. Tell me, does it hurt you very much, Allan?”
He tried to laugh, as he glanced down at the wounded arm, which, ligatured about the spear-thrust with a thong, and supported by a rawhide sling, looked strangely blue and swollen.
“Hurt me? Nonsense! I'll be fine and dandy in no time. The only trouble is, I'm not much good as a fighter this way. Southpaw, you see. Can't shoot worth a--a cent, you know, with my left. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind.”
“Shoot? Trustmefor that now!” she exclaimed. “We've still got two revolvers and the shotgun left, and lots of ammunition. I'll do the shooting--if there's got to be any done!”
“You're all right, Beatrice!” exclaimed the wounded man fervently. “What would I do without you? And to think how near you came to--but never mind. That's over now; forget it!”
“Yes, but what next?”
“Don't know. Get well, maybe. Things might be worse. I might have a broken arm, or something; laid up for weeks--slow starvation and all that. What's a mere puncture? Nothing! Now that the spear's out, it'll begin healing right away.
“Bet a million, though, that What's-His-Name down there, Big Chief the Monk, won't get out ofhisscrape in a hurry. His face is certainly scrambled, or I miss my guess. You got him through the ear with one shot, by the way. Know that? Fact! Drilled it clean! Just a little to the right and you'd havehadhim for keeps. But never mind, we'll save him for the encore--if there is any.”
“You think they'll try again?”
“Can't say. They've lost a lot of fighters, killed and wounded, already. And they've had a pretty liberal taste of our style. That ought to hold them for a while! We'll see, at any rate. And if luck stays good, we'll maybe have a thing or two to show them if they keep on hanging round where they aren't wanted!”
Came now a little silence. Beside Stern the girl sat, half supporting his wounded body with her firm, white arm. Thirst was beginning to torment them both, particularly Stern, whose injuries had already given him a marked temperature. But water there was absolutely none. And so, still planless, glad only to recuperate a little, content that for the present the Horde had been held back, they waited. Waiting, they both thought. The girl's thoughts were all of him; but he, man-fashion, was trying to piece out what had happened, to frame some coherent idea of it all, to analyze the urgent necessities that lay upon them both.
Here and there, a disjointed bit recurred to him, even from out of the delirium that had followed the blow on the head. From the time he had recovered his senses in the building, things were clearer.
He knew that the Horde, temporarily frightened by his mad rush, had given him time to stumble up again and once more lift the girl, before they had ventured to creep into the arcade in search of their prey.
He remembered that the spear had been gone then. Raving, he must have broken and plucked it out. The blood, he recalled, was spurting freely as he had carried Beatrice through the wreckage and up to the first landing, where she had regained partial consciousness.
Then he shuddered at recollection of that stealthy, apelike creeping of the Horde scouts in among the ruins, furtive and silent; their sniffing after the blood-track; their frightful agility in clambering with feet and hands alike, swinging themselves up like chimpanzees, swarming aloft on the death-hunt.
He had evaded them, from story to story. Beatrice, able now to walk, had helped him roll down balustrades and building-stones, fling rocks, wrench stairs loose and block the way.
And so, wounding their pursuers, yet tracked always by more and ever more, they had come to the landing, where by aid of the rifle barrel as a lever they had been able to bring a whole wall crashing down, to choke the passage. That had brought silence. For a time, at least, pursuit had been abandoned. In the sliding, dusty avalanche of the wall, hurled down the stairway, Stern knew by the grunts and shrieks which had arisen that some of the Horde had surely perished--how many, he could not tell. A score or two at the very least, he ardently hoped.
Fear, at any rate, had been temporarily injected into the rest. For the attack had not yet been renewed. Outside in the forest, no sign of the Horde, no sound. A disconcerting, ominous calm had settled like a pall. Even the birds, recovered from their terrors, had begun to hop about and take up their twittering little household tasks.
As in a kind of clairvoyance, the engineer seemed to know there would be respite until night. For a little while, at least, there could be rest and peace. But when darkness should have settled down--
“If they'd only show themselves!” thought he, his leaden eyes closing in an overmastering lassitude, a vast swooning weakness of blood-loss and exhaustion. Not even his parched thirst, a veritable torture now, could keep his thoughts from wandering. “If they'd tackle again, I could score with--with lead--what'sthatI'm thinking? I'm not delirious, am I?”
For a moment he brought himself back with a start, back to a full realization of the place. But again the drowsiness gained on him.
“We've got guns now; guns and ammunition,” thought he. “We--could pick them off--from the windows. Pick them--off--pick--them--off--”
He slept. Thus, often, wounded soldiers sleep, with troubled dreams, on the verge of renewed battle which may mean their death, their long and wakeless slumber.
He slept. And the girl, laying his gashed head gently back upon the pile of furs, bent over him with infinite compassion. For a long minute, hardly breathing, she watched him there. More quickly came her breath. A strange new light shone in her eyes.
“Only for me, those wounds!” she whispered slowly. “Only for me!”
Taking his head in both her hands, she kissed him as he lay unconscious. Kissed him twice, and then a third time.
Then she arose.
Quickly, as though with some definite plan, she chose from among their store of utensils a large copper kettle, one which he had brought her the week before from the little Broadway shop.
She took a long rawhide rope, braided by Stern during their long evenings together. This she knotted firmly to the bale of the kettle.
The revolvers, fully reloaded, she examined with care. One of them she laid beside the sleeper. The other she slid into her full, warm bosom, where the clinging tiger-skin held it ready for her hand.
Then she walked noiselessly to the door leading into the hallway.
Here for a moment she stood, looking back at the wounded man. Tears dimmed her eyes, yet they were very glad.
“For your sake, now, everything!” she said. “Everything--all! Oh, Allan, if you only knew! And now--good-by!”
Then she was gone.
And in the silent room, their home, which out of wreck and chaos they had made, the fevered man lay very still, his pulses throbbing in his throat.
Outside, very far, very faint in the forests, a muffled drum began to beat again.
And the slow shadows, lengthening across the floor, told that evening was drawing nigh.
Theengineer awoke with a start--awoke to find daylight gone, to find that dusk had settled, had shrouded the whole place in gloom.
Confused, he started up. He was about to call out, when prudence muted his voice. For the moment he could not recollect just what had happened or where he was; but a vast impending consciousness of evil and of danger weighed upon him. It warned him to keep still, to make no outcry. A burning thirst quickened his memory.
Then his comprehension returned. Still weak and shaken, yet greatly benefited by his sleep, he took a few steps toward the door. Where was the girl? Was he alone? What could all this mean?
“Beatrice! Oh, Beatrice!” he called thickly, in guarded tones. “Where are you? Answer me!”
“Here--coming!” he heard her voice. And then he saw her, dimly, in the doorway.
“What is it? Where have you been? How long have I been asleep?”
She did not answer his questions, but came quickly to him, took his hand, and with her own smoothed his brow.
“Better, now?” asked she.
“Lots! I'll be all right in a little while. It's nothing. But what haveyoubeen doing all this time?”
“Come, and I'll show you.” She led him toward the other room.
He followed, in growing wonder.
“No attack, yet?”
“None. But the drums have been beating for a long time now. Hearthat?”
They listened. To them drifted a dull, monotonous sound, harbinger of war.
Stern laughed bitterly, chokingly, by reason of his thirst.
“Much good their orchestra will do them,” said he, “when it comes to facing soft-nosed .38's! But tell me, what was it you were going to show me?”
Quickly she went over to their crude table, took up a dish and came back to him.
“Drink this!” bade she.
He took it, wondering.
“What?Coffee?But--”
“Drink! I've had mine, already. Drink!”
Half-stupefied, he obeyed. He drained the whole dish at a draft, then caught his breath in a long sigh.
“But this means water!” cried he, with renewed vigor. “And--?”
“Look here,” she directed, pointing. There on the circular hearth stood the copper kettle, three-quarters full.
“Water! You've gotwater?” He started forward in amazement. “While I've been sleeping? Where--?”
She laughed with real enjoyment.
“It's nothing,” she disclaimed. “After what you've done for me, this is the merest trifle, Allan. You know that big cavity made by the boiler-explosion? Yes? Well, when we looked down into it, before we ventured out to the spring, I noticed a good deal of water at the bottom, stagnant water, that had run out of the boiler and settled on the hard clay floor and in among the cracked cement. I just merely brought up some, and strained and boiled it, that's all. So you see--”
“But, my Lord!” burst out the man, “d'you mean to say you--you went downthere--alone?”
Once more the girl laughed.
“Not alone,” she answered. “One of the automatics was kind enough to bear me company. Of course the main stairway was impassable. But I found another way, off through the east end of the building and down some stairs we haven't used at all, yet. They may be useful, by the way, in case of--well--a retreat. Once I'd reached the arcade, the rest was easy. I had that leather rope tied to the kettle handle, you see. So all I had to do was--”
“But the Horde! The Horde?”
“None of them down there, now--that is, alive. None when I was there. All at the war-council, I imagine. I just happened to strike it right, you see. It wasn't anything. We simplyhadto have water, so I went and got some, that's all.”
“That's all?” echoed Stern, in a trembling voice. “That's--all!”
Then, lest she see his face even by the dim light through the window, he turned aside a minute. For the tears in his eyes, he felt, were a weakness which he would not care to reveal.
But presently he faced the girl again.
“Beatrice,” said he, “words fall so flat, so hopelessly dead; they're so inadequate, so anticlimactic at a time like this, that I'm just going to skip them all. It's no use thanking you, or analyzing this thing, or saying any of the commonplace, stupid things. Let it pass. You've got water, that's enough. You've made good, where I failed. Well--”
His voice broke again, and he grew silent. But she, peering at him with wonder, laid a hand upon his shoulder.
“Come,” said she, “you must eat something, too. I've got a little supper ready. After that, the Pulverite?”
He started as though shot.
“That's so! Icanmake it now!” cried he, new life and energy suffusing him. “Even with my one hand, if you help me, I can make it! Supper? No, no! Towork!”
But she insisted, womanlike; and he at last consented to a bite. When this was over, they began preparations for the manufacture of the terrible explosive, Stern's own secret and invention, which, had not the cataclysm intervened, would have made him ten times over a millionaire. More precious now to him, that knowledge, than all the golden treasures of the dead, forsaken world!
“We've got to risk a light,” said he. “If it's turned low, and shaded, maybe they won't learn our whereabouts. But however that may be, we can't work in the dark. It would be too horribly perilous. One false move, one wrong combination, even the addition of one ingredient at the improper moment, and--well--you understand.”
She nodded.
“Yes,” said she. “And we don't want to quit--justyet!”
So they lighted the smaller of their copper lamps, and set to work in earnest.
On the table, cleared of dishes and of food, Stern placed in order eight glass bottles, containing the eight basic chemicals for his reaction.
Beside him, at his left hand, he set a large metal dish with three quarts of water, still warm. In front of him stood his copper tea-kettle--the strangest retort, surely in which the terrific compound ever had been distilled.
“Now our chairs, and the lamp,” said he, “and we're ready to begin. But first,” and, looking earnestly at her, “first, tell me frankly, wouldn't you just a little rather have me carry out this experiment alone? You could wait elsewhere, you know. With these uncertain materials and all the crude conditions we've got to work under, there's no telling what--might happen.
“I've never yet found a man who would willingly stand by and see me build Pulverite, much less a woman. It's frightful, this stuff is! Don't be ashamed to tell me; are you afraid?”
For a long moment the girl looked at him.
“Afraid--withyou?” said she.
Anhour passed. And now, under the circle of light cast by the hooded lamp upon the table, there in that bare, wrecked office-home of theirs, the Pulverite was coming to its birth.
Already at the bottom of the metal dish lay a thin yellow cloud, something that looked like London fog on a December morning. There, covered with the water, it gently swirled and curdled, with strange metallic glints and oily sheens, as Beatrice with a gold spoon stirred it at the engineer's command.
From moment to moment he dropped in a minute quantity of glycerin, out of a glass test-tube, graduated to the hundredth of an ounce. Keenly, under the lamp-shine, he watched the final reaction; his face, very pale and set, reflected a little of the mental stress that bound him.
Along the table-edge before him, limp in its sling, his wounded arm lay useless. Yet with his left hand he controlled the sleeping giant in the dish. And as he dropped the glycerin, he counted.
“Ten, eleven, twelve--fifteen, sixteen--twenty! Now! Now pour the water off, quick!Quick!”
Splendidly the girl obeyed. The water ran, foaming strangely, out into a glass jar set to receive it. Her hands trembled not, nor did she hesitate. Only, a line formed between her brows; and her breath, half-held, came quickly through her lips.
“Stop!”
His voice rang like a shot.
“Now, decant it through this funnel, into the vials!”
Again, using both hands for steadiness, she did his bidding.
And one by one as she filled the little flasks of chained death, the engineer stoppered them with his left hand.
When the last was done, Stern drew a tremendous sigh, and dashed the sweat from his forehead with a gesture of victory.
Into the residue in the dish he poured a little nitric acid.
“That'sgot no kick left in it, now, anyhow,” said he relieved. “The HNO3tames it, quick enough. But the bottles--take care--don't tip one over, as you love your life!”
He stood up, slowly, and for a moment remained there, his face in the shadow of the lamp-shade, holding to the table-edge for support, with his left hand.
At him the girl looked.
“And now,” she began, “now--?”
The question had no time for completion. For even as she spoke, a swift little something flicked through the window, behind them.
It struck the opposite wall with a sharpcrack!then fell slithering to the floor.
Outside, against the building, they heard another and another little shock; and all at once a second missile darted through the air.
This hit the lamp. Stern grabbed the shade and steadied it. Beatrice stooped and snatched up the thing from where it lay beside the table.
Only one glance Stern gave at it, as she held it up. A long reed stem he saw wrapped at its base with cotton fibers--a fish-bone point, firm-lashed--and on that point a dull red stain, a blotch of something dry and shiny.
“Blow-gun darts!” cried he. “Poisoned! They've seen the light--got our range! They're up there in the tree-tops--shooting at us!”
With one puff, the light was gone. By the wrist he seized Beatrice. He dragged her toward the front wall, off to one side, out of range.
“The flasks of Pulverite! Suppose a dart should hit one?” exclaimed the girl.
“That's so! Wait here--I'll get them!”
But she was there beside him as, in the thick dark, he cautiously felt for the deadly things and found them with a hand thatdared nottremble. And though here, there, the little venom-stings whis-s-shed over them and past them, to shatter on the rear wall, she helped him bear the vials, all nine of them, to a place of safety in the left-hand front corner where by no possibility could they be struck.
Together then, quietly as wraiths, they stole into the next room; and there, from a window not as yet attacked, they spied out at the dark tree-tops that lay in dense masses almost brushing the walls.
“See? See there?” whispered Stern in the girl's ear. He pointed where, not ten yards away and below, a blacker shadow seemed to move along a hemlock branch. Forgotten now, his wounds. Forgotten his loss of blood, his fever and his weakness. The sight of that creeping stealthy attack nerved him with new vigor. And, even as the girl looked, Stern drew his revolver.
Speaking no further word, he laid the ugly barrel firm across the sill.
Carefully he sighted, as best he could in that gloom lit only by the stars. Coldly as though at a target-shot, he brought the muzzle-sight to bear on that deep, crawling shadow.
Then suddenly a spurt of fire split the night. The crackling report echoed away. And with a bubbling scream, the shadow loosened from the limb, as a ripe fruit loosens.
Vaguely they saw it fall, whirl, strike a branch, slide off, and disappear.
All at once a pattering rain of darts flickered around them. Stern felt one strike his fur jacket and bounce off. Another grazed the girl's head. But to their work they stood, and flinched not.
Now her revolver was speaking, in antiphony with his; and from the branches, two, three, five, eight, ten of the ape-things fell.
“Give it to 'em!” shouted the engineer, as though he had a regiment behind him. “Giveit to 'em!” And again he pulled the trigger.
The revolver was empty.
With a cry he threw it down, and, running to where the shotgun stood, snatched it up. He scooped into his pocket a handful of shells from the box where they were stored; and as he darted back to the window, he cocked both hammers.
“Poom!Poom!”
The deep baying of the revolver roared out in twin jets of flame.
Stern broke the gun and jacked in two more shells.
Again he fired.
“Good Heaven! How many of 'emarethere in the trees?” shouted he.
“Try the Pulverite!” cried Beatrice. “Maybe you might hit a branch!”
Stern flung down the gun. To the corner where the vials were standing he ran.
Up he caught one--he dared not take two lest they should by some accident strike together.
“Here--here, now, takethis!” he bellowed.
And from the window, aiming at a pine that stood seventy-five feet away--a pine whose branches seemed to hang thick with the Horde's blowgun-men--he slung it with all the strength of his uninjured arm.
Into the gloom it vanished, the little meteorite of latent death, of potential horror and destruction.
“If it hits 'em, they'll think wearegods, after all, what?” cried the engineer, peering eagerly. But for a moment, nothing happened.
“Missed it!” he groaned. “If I only had my right arm to use now, I might--”
Far below, down there a hundred feet beneath them and out a long way from the tower base, night yawned wide in a burst of hellish glare.
A vast conical hole of flame was gouged in the dark. For a fraction of a second every tree, limb, twig stood out in vivid detail, as that blue-white glory shot aloft.
All up through the forest the girl and Stern got a momentary glimpse of little, clinging Things, crouching misshapen, hideous.
Then, as a riven and distorted whirl burst upward in a huge geyser of annihilation, came a detonation that ripped, stunned, shattered; that sent both the defenders staggering backward from the window.
Darkness closed again, like a gaping mouth that shuts. And all about the building, through the trees, and down again in a titanic, slashing rain fell the wreckage of things that had been stone, and earth, and root, and tree, and living creatures--that had been--that now were but one indistinguishable mass of ruin and of death.
After that, here and there, small dark objects came dropping, thudding, crashing down. You might have thought some cosmic gardener had shaken his orchard, his orchard where the plums and pears were rotten-ripe.
“One!” cried the engineer, in a strange, wild, exultant voice.
Almostlike the echo of his shout, a faint snarling cry rose from the corridor, outside. They heard a clicking, sliding, ominous sound; and, with instant comprehension, knew the truth.
“They've got up, some of them--somehow!” Stern cried. “They'll be at our throats, here, in a moment! Load!Load!You shoot--I'llgive 'em Pulverite!”
No time, now, for caution. While the girl hastily threw in more cartridges, Stern gathered up all the remaining vials of the explosive.
These, garnered along his wounded arm which clasped them to his body, made a little bristling row of death. His left hand remained free, to fling the little glass bombs.
“Come! Come, meet 'em--they mustn't trap us, here!”
And together they crept noiselessly into the other room and thence to the corridor-door.
Out they peered.
“Look! Torches!” whispered he.
There at the far end of the hallway, a red glare already flickered on the wall around the turn by the elevator-shaft. Already the confused sounds of the attackers were drawing near.
“They've managed to dig away the barricade, somehow,” said Stern. “And now they're out for business--clubs, poisoned darts and all--and fangs, and claws! How many of 'em? God knows! A swarm, that's all!”
His mouth felt hot and dry, with fever, and the mad excitement of the impending battle. His skin seemed tense and drawn, especially upon the forehead. As he stood there, waiting, he heard the girl's quick breathing. Though he could hardly see her in the gloom, he felt her presence and he loved it.
“Beatrice,” said he, and for a moment his hand sought hers, “Beatrice, little girl o' mine, if this is the big finish, if we both go down together and there's no to-morrow, I want to tell you now--”
A yapping outcry interrupted him. The girl seized his arm. Brighter the torchlight grew.
“Allan!” she whispered. “Come back, back, away from here. We've got to get up those stairs, there, at the other end of the hall.Thisis no kind of place to meet them--we're exposed, here. There's no protection!”
“You're right.” he answered. “Come!”
Like ghosts they slid away, noiselessly, through the enshrouding gloom.
Even as they gained the shelter of the winding stairway, the scouts of the Horde, flaring their torches into each room they passed, came into view around the corner at the distant end.
Shuffling, hideous beyond all words by the fire-gleam, bent, wizened, blue, the Things swarmed toward them in a vague and shifting mass, a ruck of horror.
The defenders, peering from behind the broken balustrade, could hear the guttural jabber of their beast-talk, the clicking play of their fangs; could see the craning necks, the talons that held spears, bludgeons, blow-guns, even jagged rocks.
Over all, the smoky gleams wavered in a ghastly interplay of light and darkness. Uncanny shadows leaped along the walls. From every corner and recess and black, empty door, ghoulish shapes seemed creeping.
Tense, now, the moment hung.
Suddenly the engineer bent forward, staring.
“The chief!” he whispered. And as he spoke, Beatrice aimed.
There, shambling among the drove of things, they saw him clearly for a moment: Uglier, more incredibly brutal than ever he looked, now, by that uncanny light.
Stern saw--and rejoiced in the sight--that the obeah's jaw hung surely broken, all awry. The quick-blinking, narrow-ridded eyes shuttled here, there, as the creature sought to spy out his enemies. The nostrils dilated, to catch the spoor of man. Man, no longer god, but mortal.
One hand held a crackling pine-knot. The other gripped the heft of a stone ax, one blow of which would dash to pulp the stoutest skull.
This much Stern noted, as in a flash; when at his side the girl's revolver spat.
The report roared heavily in that constricted space. For a moment the obeah stopped short. A look of brute pain, of wonder, then of quintupled rage passed over his face. A twitching grin of passion distorted the huge, wounded gash of the mouth. He screamed. Up came the stone ax.
“Again!” shouted Stern. “Give it to him again!”
She fired on the instant. But already, with a chattering howl, the obeah was running forward. And after him, screaming, snarling, foaming till their lips were all a slaver, the pack swept toward them.
Stern dragged the girl away, back to the landing.
“Up!Up!” he yelled.
Then, turning, he hurled the second bomb.
A blinding glare dazzled him. A shock, as of a suddenly unleashed volcano, all but flung him headlong.
Dazed, choked by the gush of fumes that burst in a billowing cloud out along the hall and up the stairs, he staggered forward. Tightly to his body he clutched the remaining vials. Where was Beatrice? He knew not. Everything boomed and echoed in his stunned ears. Below there, he heard thunderous crashes as wrecked walls and floors went reeling down. And ever, all about him, eddied the strangling smoke.
Then, how long after he knew not, he found himself gasping for air beside a window.
“Beatrice!” he shouted with his first breath. Everything seemed strangely still. No sound of pursuit, no howling now. Dead calm. Not even the drum-beat in the forest, far below.