The Hosts of the Lord Part 40

The gap had moved; had changed place and form, though for a time the air was still with one of those breathless, suffocating pauses, when the dust above seems to sink on the dust below, and fill one's very lungs. And now the gap was back again, as it had been before. But it had left something clinging for a second to the wall like a limpet: the next astride it safely.

"Reach me over my rifle, Smith," said the doctor, briefly; "there's a brute trying to sniggle along the wall; must have come up that tree in your garden. Wish I'd taken Dering's advice and cut it down. Thanks! I don't want to take my eye off him, for fear he means to drop into a section. I'll shoot, if that seems his game; if not, I'll wait till he comes closer."

He leant over the parapet, waiting. Just below him, the inner wall of the gate against which the stair clung, and which was prolonged into the turret where Muriel and the child were sheltering, joined the circular outside wall of the gaol. The man, thought Dr. Dillon, trusting to their being occupied in front, must be trying to steal a march on them, slip down the stair, and take them in the rear. There was plenty of time to prevent that, however.

Muriel Smith, roused by the sound of Vincent's name from the sort of lethargy into which she had fallen,--since she was not wanted either by her husband or the doctor,--rose to her knees and peered over the parapet cautiously.

"From the tree in the garden," she said, dreamily. "Yes! I remember.

You said it couldn't be done, and I said no one would ever want to do it, and he said he could--" she paused, and gave a little cry--"It is Vincent himself!" she gasped; "don't shoot, doctor! It's Vincent! I know it! I feel it! I knew he would come, if he could! Vincent!

Vincent!"

"What's up?" asked Eugene, still firing steadily at all that was to be seen.

"Only your wife says the man is Captain Dering; and--and, by Jove! I believe she is right."

"Of course I'm right," she sobbed, half hysterically--"I knew he would come--I knew he wouldn't leave me to die alone!"

Eugene Smith laid down his rifle, and crawled over in cover deliberately, with an odd look on his face.

"Yes! that's Dering; plucky fellow. He's swung himself up. I always knew he was a nailing gymnast."

There was no grudge in his voice, only a curious challenge as he looked at his wife, then laid his big hand on her shoulder. "Keep more down, please--your head's showing. He'll get here, all right, never fear; we'll lower a rope to him when he comes alongside."

"But I would rather look--I'd rather see _anything_ happen--" she moaned; "it seems so unkind not to watch--not to be there--with him--" She was shivering all over, the patient self-control, the steady acquiescence even in her own danger which had been hers till then, gone utterly.

George Dillon felt a great pity, a vast impatience.

"So you were right, Smith," he broke in hastily, to cover her sudden break down. "They aren't killed; now we shall have a chance of knowing what's at the bottom of all this foolery!"

But when, five minutes later, Vincent Dering reached the roof in safety, the doctor felt vaguely that the explanations only added to the general incomprehensibility; and that something was being kept back.

What, he asked impatiently, had started the show?

Of course there were plots. Pidar Narayan knew of them, but, as such things generally did, they had seemed abortive. What, then, had upset the apple-cart?

Vincent gave a gesture of despair. "What does it matter?" he cried. "We can think of that--if we _can_ think--when it's over! And if we can't--what does it matter?"

"You can bet your bottom dollar on one thing," said Eugene, who, in this pause for a council of war, was methodically loading various weapons for future use. "It is either the s.e.x, or sin. This world would be a paradise of peace if people didn't want virtue or vice,--I don't say which is which, mind you." He spoke suddenly, harshly; and once more George Dillon came to the rescue.

"As Dering says, it doesn't matter. But the fact that the pioneers are staunch, and may be expected before long, alters our tactics a bit, Smith. We must husband our ammunition, and stick on as long as possible--don't you think so, Dering?"

Vincent, kindly always, had stooped to take little Gladys, who had crept over to him, in his arms; and now the child, her arms round his neck, was cuddling close to him. "I'm so glad oo's come, Derin'

darlin'," she whispered. "And so's mum--aren't 'oo, dearest?"

Vincent unclasped the soft, little, clinging hands almost resentfully, and pulled himself together.

"Yes!" he said briefly, "we've got to hold out. So it will be better to reserve ourselves, and try to keep the gaol itself quiet. It will take the brutes some time to force those gates unless they get help from within, and then there is the alley, and the doors. Still, we shall want every minute; for, unless the storm lessens, Carlyon will scarcely get the raft here before dawn. It was awful on the river."

It was, indeed.

Even Am-ma had lost himself utterly, while Lance, after paddling, and drifting, and shouting after a dozen false hopes, was still as far from finding the raft as ever.

What could have become of it? Had it started sooner than he had expected, and pa.s.sed down before he had found Vincent? Or had it never started at all? Had the men, after he left, turned round on _her?_

This fear had come to him early in his search, and he had felt inclined then and there to paddle back to the Fort, and satisfy himself it was not so. But the thought of her face, if he allowed care for her to cause delay, had kept him to his task steadily, till he could no longer doubt that something had gone wrong.

But what? And what was he to do?

Then, in a flash, had come back her words after she had bidden him think hard. "You must go down to the spit, cut across it by the mission house, get round, if you can, to the police camp."

That had been her verdict, involving her being left to take her chance.

And now either the raft, the relief for the gaol, had started, or it had not. If the former, he might, of course, by a stern chase overtake it; but Erda was there and Vincent would meet her; they could do without him. But if it had _not_ started, what then? Then matters were exactly as they had been, when she had bidden him leave her.

So, with a feeling that, if this were so, he cared little what happened, he steered, so far as he could judge, for the sand-banks of the spit to the right.

Am-ma, on the contrary, steered instinctively to the left, towards the high bank, the deepest stream. It would at least float his logs to their destination, and that was something. Kings had come and gone, and battles had been won and lost, but the logs had always had to go down the river, whatever happened.

And among the men, also, an apathy seemed to have settled, as they drifted on and on in the dark. Erda, crouching in a dry spot beside the ammunition, alert to the uttermost for the least hint of Lance, realized this from the very tone of their voices as they talked under their breath to each other. She felt instinctively that the inaction, the darkness, the lack of a leader, were lessening the value of those twenty men each minute.

If Lance would only turn up! What could have become of him? The time seemed interminable; she felt sure that they must already have drifted past the gaol; she began to wonder if Am-ma was not playing false. For the darkness, the uncertainty, had its grip on her also. It was like some horrid nightmare, to drift on and on, hearing the m.u.f.fled drumming of the storm, feeling the strange vibration in the air, the sharp sand tingling on your face, and to know nothing--nothing at all, save that you were there.

"Am-ma!" she cried sharply, at last, certain of but one thing, that she must act,--"I believe we have pa.s.sed the gaol; steer to the right, do you hear?"

A laugh, not exactly insolent, but tolerant, came from the group of men. "Tis easy to give orders, Missy-_baba_," said a voice; "but not so easy to obey them, when the Lord is against your side, and sends darkness!"

Erda's heart gave a great throb, not of fear, but comprehension. That was the beginning; a minute or two more and these men would be out of hand.

"Am-ma!" she called again, "do what I tell you. Remember the child!

Remember we have the _Dee-puk-rag_."

Another laugh came from the men. "If you have the _Dee-puk-rag_, send it now. We need light, for sure, and--"

The voice ended in a gasp--

For it was there! A long ray of light, showing them that they were, indeed, just opposite the gaol.

"Am-ma!" came Erda's voice again, and there was a hush and yet a triumph in it, "to the right--steer to the right."

The raft edged slowly towards the ray, but the soldiers still crouched inactive; awed, yet not certain.

Then suddenly that quick crack of George Dillon's first shot echoed over the river, then the yell, then the answering shots.

And following on their heels rapidly came a stir among those crouching figures, and one of them stood up excitedly--"It has begun!--see you, Prag! Lehna, give the boatman a hand! Lo! do as the Miss-_baba_ bade thee, quickly, son of a pig! Steer for the light--they have begun!"

Erda gave a sigh of relief. _That_ danger was over.