The Hosts of the Lord Part 42

Dr. Dillon gave one glance at the woman and the child. "Tell him to be universally d.a.m.ned," he answered; and Eugene Smith, husband and father, nodded acquiescence.

Roshan Khan was standing in full view as Vincent Dering stepped up to the parapet. His face was raised; there was almost an appeal in it. But every atom of that, every atom almost of humanity, vanished as he recognized his captain. His hand went instinctively to his revolver.

Then a thought seemed to come to him. He drew himself up proudly, and waited for the answer.

It came, keen as a knife.

"_Risaldar!_ draw off your men and return to barracks, or I'll shoot you as a mutineer."

There was half a second's silence; then a wild laugh: "Close up, men, rush that gate--forward!"

The words and the crack of Vincent's revolver--the bullet of which, aimed too high, pa.s.sed through Roshan's turban-were almost lost in the answering yell. But the _risaldar_ stood his ground for a second, then coolly sought shelter.

That was over! They were quits now for the fair fight. And fate had been kind. He had unwittingly offered this man--his greatest enemy--a safe conduct; and it had been refused, luckily. Well! let Vincent Dering take the whole consequences. The blood of one woman was already on his head; so would be the blood spilt here. He, Roshan, would need have no further scruples.

So, as if it had gained strength from the brief respite, the turmoil recommenced; and now Roshan Khan's voice could be heard urging the men on. And there were answering shouts from different parts of the gaol.

George Dillon frowned. "They mean business now. And I fancy I hear pounding at the left section door. If so we shall have the solitary cell men--my worst lot, of course--out in the courtyard before long.

Dering--can you hear anything?--there's such a confounded noise--"

Vincent, who was standing at the top of the stairs which led to the ten-feet drop, ran down a few steps and listened. Then he looked up quickly and nodded.

"They are there. The door's shaking. How many of them are there?"

"Two dozen or thereabouts; and the convalescents, of course. That's nothing--if they haven't got their leg irons off! We ought to settle most of them before they can help with the door. Still, I wish Carlyon would turn up."

A sudden hurry and urgency had come to the struggle, and Dr. Dillon pa.s.sed restlessly to the other side of the roof. The sky was lightening faintly. More because the dust had sought dust again, the earth earth, than from any increase of light; and so the broad ray of the search-light, widening as it went, lost itself in the distant darkness, and there was nothing to be seen riverwards. But close at hand two men--one in a warder's uniform--were running towards the gaol, shouting.

The doctor was back to the inner parapet in a second. "Look out!

they've got the keys now--not of this door, but some of the sections--and the alley. The game's up unless Carlyon--Mrs. Smith, please--you had better go into the turret--we shall be shooting free--"

Eugene, who had been standing beside her, laid his hand on her shoulder. "Yes, dear!" he said gently; "go inside--it will be better for Gladys--and for me--"

Muriel turned white, but stood quite firm, quite calm. "Come, little girlie," she said, holding out her hand to the child. "You've had your tea--it's bedtime--I can't have you sitting up all--" she broke down a little, partly because she was pa.s.sing Vincent, and he, busy loading various rifles and revolvers, kept his eyes studiously from her. But Gladys did not choose to pa.s.s her friend in this fashion. She paused, a dainty little figure in a blue dressing-gown, like her mother, and with the same fluffy golden curls about her coaxing, delicate little child's face.

"Dood-night, Derin' darlin'," she said. "I'm so glad 'oo's here, an'

so's--"

Something that was not all desire to check that formula made the man pause, too, to lift her gently, and kiss her.

"Good-night, Gladys. You mustn't be frightened at anything, you know.

You've got to be a brave girl--haven't you?" The coaxing face was close to the haggard, haunted-looking one.

"If 'oo's goin' to be brave, Derin' darlin', I'll be brave too. Is 'oo, dearest?"

The haggardness vanished.

"I think so, little one. Good-night." He put the child down hastily, at a crash. The moment for courage had come.

"Shoot as straight as you can!" shouted the doctor. "The section door's gone. Let 'em have it!"

The door had gone, indeed; and in a second the courtyard beneath them was half full of naked, desperate men; the worst characters in the gaol.

"Pick off the ones nearest the gate--don't let 'em touch the bolts--it's good for another ten minutes if we can keep them from it,"

came the doctor's voice in jerks, as he leant over the parapet just above the centre of the door below, and carried out his own orders with deadly effect; though his heart sank when he saw that some of the prisoners were unironed--or rather unironed on one leg, and that they were armed with the other iron; a deadly enough weapon at close quarters. Besides, it meant more treachery. It meant a previous filing of the ankle-fetters; and if others in the remaining sections were as free--

He shot quicker, steadier, while Eugene Smith and Vincent, one above the other on the top of the stair, did the same, taking the intruders on the flank. It was growing lighter every instant, the air was clearer, the breeze of dawn was sweeping the smoke of the rifles riverwards, the great white wheel of the gaol was growing broader in its outlines, the shadows were shrinking. But the storm seemed still there, in the ceaseless reverberations.

"They're up to something in the far corner!" called Eugene. "What is it, Dillon? You can see better."

The doctor ceased firing for a second, and ran farther down the parapet.

"The keys! the keys!" he shouted back. "They are trying to pa.s.s in the keys! Shoot the devils--those in the corner! Don't let 'em--or the gaol is gone!"

So, for the next minute, it was deadly work down in that corner by the crevice through which some unseen hand was thrusting something. Three times a man, clutching at the prize, fell in a heap ere he touched it.

Then a fourth pitched forward against the doors with the keys in his hand, and a fifth, groping for them, rolled over on his side with them hidden under his dead body. And from outside the gate came rendings, and crashings, and yells; from above, that call, "Shoot straight, or the gaol's gone!"

Muriel crept out from shelter, possessed once more by that frantic desire to see to the very end, and stood looking down on those two on the stairs. She gave a faint cry when Vincent flung his rifle away, and ran down to that ten-foot drop for revolver practice. At the sound, her husband gave one quick look up, and followed suit.

But their own success was against them. The growing pile of the wounded formed a barricade, behind which a man, squirming with covetous hands among the dead and dying, found what he sought.

"He's got them! Stop him! stop him!"

There was a fusillade, the man dropped; but the keys were in another hand--another--another--pa.s.sing outwards from the crush--outwards towards that low door at the end of the narrow alley.

Without a word, Vincent, revolver in hand, let himself drop on the heads below.

"Oh, don't, Vincent, don't!" came a woman's voice; and at the sound, another man gave that swift look up once more, and followed suit.

"Let them be!" said Dr. Dillon, sharply. "Let them do what they can; it is about the only chance." And still, as he spoke, he kept singling out a foe and firing.

The chance, even with his help, was a poor one in that crowd, where there was always another dark hand to s.n.a.t.c.h at the prize, and pa.s.s it nearer to the door--that door which was the key to so much!

Yet, the crush through which they fought lessening, those two Englishmen found themselves with the straight alley before them for a race. A race against three men, without arms, but without irons; and with a fair start. While close behind was the crush--the crowd!

It was nothing but a race, now, since the revolvers had done their worst, had fired their last shot; a race with the hope--if Vincent could come up with those three--of using a Goorkha _kukri_, which he had thrust into the yellow silk sash he wore instead of a waistcoat beneath his red jacket--thrust it therewith an ugly frown as a last argument for his foes, when he had seen it lying among the pile of miscellaneous weapons Dr. Dillon had foraged from the Smiths' house. It had a dainty ivory handle--Vincent had given it to Mrs. Smith himself, and its last use had been to cut the pages of a fashion paper--

It had a sterner job now.

But Vincent was behind; a yard or two--no more. He had fired one more shot before beginning the race, and Eugene's legs were longer. Yet the yard meant all things, and he knew it; so as he ran, his hand sought the knife.

"Look out, Smith! look out!" he called. "I'll chuck you my _kukri_; get on and job them; I'll keep the others back--a bit."

As he spoke, a glittering curve sped from his hand to the other man's feet.

Then he pulled up and faced the crowd behind with his clubbed revolver.

The lane was very narrow. Three men could barely breast it shoulder to shoulder. Surely one could bar it by swift blows and slow retreat! For a time, at any rate--time for the opening and shutting of a door! He could but try.