White Fire Part 31

The pursuit sped on down the hillside. The yells and shouts died away towards the sea.

He raised his head at last, and his bloodshot eyes looked heavily after them.

"G.o.d forgive me!" he gasped. "I have been in h.e.l.l."

He jumped up with the idea of stopping the work he had started. But that was impossible. As well try to stop the mountain snow in its death gallop. The red fury had gone down the hill like an avalanche.

Until its force was spent it must run its course.

Now that the fire had died out of him he found his legs trembling so that he could hardly walk. He sank down again on his boulder and drew his hand dazedly across his brow, streaking it horribly with fresh smears of blood.

He looked round him, at the blue sea, the white surge, the quiet ships.

He heard the shouts below. He saw a boat put off from the sh.o.r.e and labour heavily towards one of the ships.

"G.o.d forgive me!" he groaned once more. "I have been killing men."

But the only man he was actually conscious of killing was the one at whom he had hurled his club in his last spasm. And when he got up heavily, and went down to him where he lay in the glare of the sun, he found the man was not dead, and he was glad. He carried him carefully to the partial shelter of a rock, and propped him up, and gave him water from a runlet close by. He drank deeply himself, and washed his hands and face and plunged his head under water. He noticed now for the first time that his white jacket was spattered all over with blood.

He tore it off and flung it from him.

The reaction which followed his temporary possession left him limp and exhausted, and burdened with a heavy mental load which as yet he made no attempt at lightening.

Then he went slowly down the hill, and saw one of the schooners loosing her sails in a hurried and shifty fashion. From that he gathered that some of the invaders had escaped, and he was too unaccustomed a warrior to regret it.

The rest, who had followed the pursuit to the sh.o.r.e, were held back by no such considerations however. To them the yellow men were enemies to be smitten hip and thigh, to be destroyed root and branch. When they reached the beach and saw the broken boat-load lumbering towards the schooner, the _Torch_ men and a number of natives flung themselves into one of the other boats and set off after them with the most final intentions.

The schooner caught the breeze and began to make way. The _Torch_ men played on her with their Winchesters, a chance shot dropped the helmsman, her head fell off, and she was theirs. Some of the yellow men jumped overboard. For the rest--well, the Torches knew Captain Cathie's views, and the islanders were of a like mind.

Blair pa.s.sed several dead men as he went down the hill, but saw no wounded ones. As he neared the remains of the village he came upon the bodies of the first victims of the invasion, brown men and women and children.

He had seen nothing of Evans and Stuart since the fight began. Evans he had placed in command of the Torches; Stuart had been in charge of the opposite side of the pa.s.s.

The brown men were leaping about the beach inflated with their victory.

The _Torch_ men had anch.o.r.ed the one schooner and were now securing the other.

A sudden shout along the beach showed him a yellow man fleeing for his life with half a dozen islanders after him. He had been hidden in the bushes till they stumbled upon him. The sight of his twitching face and agonised eyes remained with Blair for many a day. There had been many such eyes and faces up there on the hillside, but he had had no eyes to see them. Now he was himself, and would stop the dreadful work.

He ran towards the man to succour him. But succour was the last thing the other looked for in him. His long knife was in his hand. Escape was hopeless, but here was a chance for a blow in return. He flew at Blair like a wild cat, and drove the knife at his neck. Blair swerved instinctively, and it went through his shoulder. The wild cat was on him with gnashing teeth and flaming eyes, snarling, grappling, biting him.

They rolled over and over in the sand. Then sinewy brown fingers gripped the other and tore him away, with a mouthful of Blair's shirt between his teeth, and in a moment he lay still.

Blair lay still also. The last things he remembered were the horror of that animalised snarling grip, and a dreadful agony in the shoulder as he rolled over in the sand with the knife still sticking in him.

When he came to, he found himself the centre of a group of the island men who were looking down on him with troubled faces. They gave a shout when he opened his eyes, and presently he was sitting up showing them how to bind up the wound with strips of his torn shirt. The knife had been pulled out while he lay unconscious--for the sake of the knife.

The _Torch_ men came leisurely ash.o.r.e after securing the schooner and found him so. He had lost blood freely both from head and shoulder, and felt sick and dizzy. They made a stretcher out of a couple of oars and a native mat, and at his request carried him at once up the hill to the pa.s.s.

He was anxious about the others; he had no recollection of seeing them since the fight began. It seemed to him that since he picked up that club and leaped down into the pa.s.s he had seen nothing but vicious yellow faces and evil eyes, and broken heads, and bodies that suddenly crumbled and fell.

His mind was relieved by the sight of Evans as soon as they topped the pa.s.s. And at distant sight of the stretcher Evans came running up with an anxious face.

"Serious?" he asked.

"Don't think so. A jag through the arm and a scratch on the face, but I felt sick and couldn't climb the hill. Where's Stuart?"

"Back here. Got a bullet through the leg. No bones broken, but he won't walk for a week or two."

"Many others wounded?"

"Two Torches, half a dozen natives, and a dozen of the yellow men.

Frightful blackguards they are too. Makes me wish they'd been killed outright just to look at them."

Blair nodded. He could not plead wholly guiltless in that respect.

A dozen yellow men on their hands would be an anxiety and a burden. A light affliction, however, compared with what might have been if the invaders had caught them napping. And so they must make the best of it, and be thankful for things as they were.

"Now see here, boys," he said, sitting up on the stretcher. "We've had our fight and by G.o.d's mercy we've won. I'm afraid we all lost our heads a bit while it was on"--at which, and their recollection of him in the fight, the sailors grinned--"and I think we cannot blame ourselves for that. But these men who are left on our hands are tabu.

The islanders will kill them if they get the chance, and we must prevent it. What is done in the hot blood of battle is done. But killing in cold blood is murder. You have all fought valiantly. Don't spoil it by any such doings. And, by the way, Evans, there's another of them lying under a rock to the left of the path over there. You might see to him. I flung my club after a bunch of them and this fellow went down, but he was only stunned."

"I'll go and bring him up at once, before the brown fellows come."

"No news of Cathie, I suppose. When did his big gun stop?"

"Over an hour ago. We've no news. I hope it's all right. I'd have sent down but I'd no one to send."

"Which of you boys will go for news?" asked Blair. "I doubt if we can all get down to-night."

"That you can't," said Evans. "It'll be a case of go easy for some days for all you hipped ones."

All the men volunteered at once. Every one of them was keen to know what had been going on on the other side of the island.

"You seem fairly fresh, Irvine. Tell Captain Cathie how we've gone on here, and that casualties are not serious. If he can spare us some more help we can do with it to get the wounded down. Ask him to send word to the ladies also. They will be anxious about us all. And if he can send us something to eat we'll be glad of it. I'm feeling empty after it all."

"I'll go after your half-deader," said Evans. "One of you come with me in case he can't walk."

But he was back empty-handed in a quarter of an hour.

"Gone?" asked Blair, with a pinched face.

"He's dead, but you didn't kill him. Some one came after you and split his head with an axe."

"Ah!" said Blair gloomily, "these others will fare the same unless we see to it. We'll go to them, Evans, in case any of our brown friends come prowling round."

But the brown men were much too busy, and we may drop more of a veil over their proceedings than the night did. Big fires were glowing along the beach before it was dark, and no brown man came up the hill that night.

They went along to the temporary hospital Evans had made among the rocks. The beds consisted of the softest patches of ground he could find, and the only furnishings were the patients. He had hastily bandaged their wounds, however, and all, except the yellow men, were fairly cheerful.

Stuart, indeed, became almost hilarious at sight of Blair as an invalid also.

"I was thinking ill of myself for getting hit," he said; "but since you're in the same boat I feel better."