Wings of the Wind Part 44

Beginning to fill the magazine, she finally announced:

"They're seven, Jack. You hit that first one, a while ago."

"No," I replied, "or we'd see him on the ground now. He merely ducked, like the others."

"But there were eight the night I escaped!"

"Then Smilax got one during the chase--which shows that he and Echochee haven't been killed." But during this our eyes never left the ditch and our rifles were ready to blaze away at the first sign of movement.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because if he had to make a last stand there wouldn't be as many as seven men here now." And I firmly believed it, knowing how savagely our two servants would account for themselves. I think she agreed with me.

An ominous silence lay about us. I felt sure that the scoundrels were crawling up along the ditch, and told her this. She nodded. Minutes pa.s.sed.

At one point, about two hundred yards out, there was a spot where the saw-palmettoes and bay bushes thinned to almost nothing. Sooner or later the enemy would have to cross this, and I watched it without blinking because it would offer our best--if not, indeed, last--chance to hold them. So when finally a stooping figure showed itself I opened a vigorous fire. He drew back, or fell back, and the silence again enveloped us, to be shattered an instant later by a fusillade of shots that made the air thick with crackling whines. The location of our fort was known.

"Down, down!" I yelled.

"I am," she answered, obeying as the best of soldiers. "I'll load for you!"

We were being showered with lead by now, and between the wasplike things speeding overhead and their "sput-sput" as they hit the logs, I dared expose no more than my eyes and forehead while emptying rifle after rifle. In the fleeting movement of handing one down and taking the other I saw Doloria sitting near my feet, with several opened boxes of cartridges on the ground beside her. We had plenty of ammunition, so I did not wait for human targets but fired rapidly into every probable place of concealment--just hoping.

This must have begun to touch them up, for one now made a dash across the open s.p.a.ce and dived into good cover, from which he started an instant reply to me. There had been only time for a quick shot at him, as the opening was scarcely ten feet wide. Another tried and made it, but the third stumbled. Whether he accidentally fell or was wounded, I had no way of knowing, yet he was able, at least, to continue the fight because there seemed to be no let up in their volume of fire. Then, to my chagrin, a fourth got across, and, following him, the last three tried together--successfully.

In the best of conditions these men would have been very hard to hit, yet I offer no excuses. My aim, of course, had greatly suffered.

Disregard for the nicest accuracy in marksmanship may be expected when an enemy is pouring a hundred shots a minute at a certain point, and you happen to be that point.

Again their rifles became silent. There seemed, indeed, no reason to keep them speaking, as the road to the Oasis was clear. When the trees back of us should be reached more shots would ring out, closer, always getting closer; eventually would come the hand-to-hand fight, and then--forgetfulness. Yet I swore with a burning rage in my heart that whoever of those fiends were left to gloat over their victory would remember until their dying day the price I had collected for it.

"Where are they?" Doloria asked, in a voice that trembled slightly. The strain of waiting below was greater than that of seeing what went on outside.

Grimly I told her how matters stood with us, and we, also, became silent.

The next move appeared in the direction of our kitchen, when several shadowy forms began to dart from tree to tree. The same plan was being adopted as that which they had used at the ditch: one man, his advance covered by a hot fire from the others, would stoop and run forward to a previously selected place, then a second, third, and so on, each beginning to shoot from the new position, as he got to it. These tactics might successfully be repeated until the last barrier of trees, not more than twenty yards from us, was gained. But now a fellow showed himself a moment too long and I thought I dropped him, because a howl of rage went up from his mates.

I was keeping the two rifles very busy by this time, and Doloria could scarcely load one before the other was being pa.s.sed to her. Each side had resorted to the expediency of rising, firing and ducking down again.

They were too near for me to risk an inch of head for more than the necessary fraction of a second, and sometimes, in my haste, I aimed at nothing at all. A vigorous fire, whether effective or not, would hold off their rush. But when I peeped over the next time a rifle, protruding from around a tree, showed me that one, at least, had reached the nearest point of cover. I banged at it and ducked, as several shots whizzed over me. It was rather discouraging work, this of being forced to keep down! Another brief silence on their part was suggestive of a new move, and I felt sure that they were preparing for a charge.

Calling this to Doloria, I began to bob up at different places along the wall, trying in a frenzy to check them, and for the moment was successful. Then I heard her give a cry, as a bullet split the stock of the rifle she was loading.

"Some one's in a tree shooting down at us! Look out!" she called, rolling over to get beneath the nearer wall.

Upon hearing this I gave up trying to dodge, and stood to the parapet determined to drop as many as possible before being dropped myself; for if their number were materially reduced she might be able, as a last resort, to come off victor with the automatic. And spurred by this intention I faced them so resolutely that they were compelled to hug their cover. But a second shot from the tree, slanting downward, struck the surface of the sand filling we had used between our walls; it hit a few inches directly in front of my face, knocking up a shower of grit that, for the moment, completely blinded me.

I must have wheeled around with my arm across my eyes, because the men believed that I'd been done for, and with a triumphant howl started forward. Doloria, too, thought the end had come, and gave one despairing cry that I shall remember if I live a thousand years. Through my blurred vision I got a glimpse of her face, a blending of courage and horror and purpose, as she raised the automatic to her temple.

And then by some divine insight I sprang and s.n.a.t.c.hed it away. The howls of triumph had ceased; no leering enemy appeared above our parapet. The smart in my eyes was pa.s.sing enough for me to see four of them running southward across the prairie with the speed of deer, and suddenly I knew that, without realizing it, I had just been hearing other rifle shots.

Whirling about, I saw emerging from a near-by point in the ditch several figures, shouting and waving their hats.

"Tommy," I yelled, "Gates, Echochee, Smilax!" I did not name them all, but turned quickly as Doloria flew into my arms. "We're saved, sweetheart! The dice have rolled for us!"

She was crying a little, clinging to my neck, talking fast, but saying only one thing. And although Tommy afterwards declared that for a time there was such a silence in the fort that he believed we had been killed, I consider this but one of his verbal extravagances; for it seemed only a second after he waved before we were on the parapet waving back to him.

Yet, in the midst of my wildest cheer I stopped. It stuck in my throat, it dried up as the fountain of my gladness seemed suddenly to have gone dry, and I looked at her. There must have been a great pain in my eyes--not physical, for that was transient and had pa.s.sed--because she touched them, whispering:

"What is it?"

"See what I'm cheering for," I answered huskily. "Our escape only means death to our dreams--it's good-bye to the Oasis!"

"Why?" she asked, her face turning slightly pale.

"Because the minute those people get here you won't be my Doloria of the Golden Dawn any more, but Princess Doloria of Azuria!"

She caught hold of my sleeve and gasped, a little hysterically:

"But, Jack, suppose I don't _want_ to be Princess Doloria!"

Our friends had covered half the distance, and I hurriedly said:

"You can't help yourself! You don't know the power that man, Dragot, has! Will you run off with me to-night?" For I could not dismiss the obsession that Monsieur would prevail. "He came especially armed with government orders to find you and take you back. And I'm only afraid your heart's too straight to refuse him, even if you could, when he puts it up to your conscience! Oh, Doloria--please don't cry!"

"I won't," she answered tremulously, "if you stop talking that way!"

I was sorry, and quickly told her that everything would come out all right--that my love was stronger than all the powers of all the governments under the sun. Then I helped her down on the prairie side, for the others were nearly up to us, approaching with bared heads. There was a fantastic note in our situation that deeply affected me. What could have been more bizarre than an Azurian princess holding court upon the edge of a Florida prairie? This, emphasized by our escape from death, added color to the fabric of unreality whose warp was romance, and whose woof was the mystifying surge of human impulses. So my vacillating spirits rebounded to the pinnacle of happiness and, raising my hand, I announced in a loud voice:

"Gentlemen, Her Serene Highness, Doloria, Princess of Azuria!"

Except for Echochee, they stopped and in frank amazement gazed at her.

Flushed by the excitements that had made this day memorable, she was indeed the most adorable sovereign before whom knights had e'er sworn fealty. But the old Indian woman, with an undisguised croon of delight, went straight to her side, folded her in aged, brown arms of iron, and faced the waiting men with a look of defiance. She did not comprehend all that was pa.s.sing, but distinctly wanted it understood that no one should touch her child.

After that they were all about her, even Bilkins and the two sailors asking to shake hands and hear from her own lips the story of what had happened. She recognized Gates as "the splendid captain who found the bomb," and he blushed like a little boy. Monsieur, of course, could not bring himself to treat her with anything less than royal deference, so he kneeled and kissed her hand. I saw her look at the back of it when he arose, and then search his face--he had left a tear which she seemed unwilling to brush off. Tommy, not content with one hand, took both; and these he shook until she burst out laughing. As a matter of fact, we were all laughing a few degrees immoderately. Then, without warning, the strain became too much. Her eyes suddenly filled, her lips began to tremble. Turning impulsively, she put an arm across Echochee's shoulders and together they walked toward the spring, leaving us silent.

Old Gates rubbed his chin and looked up at the sky, saying huskily:

"My word, it's going to rain!" And, although there was no cloud in sight, Tommy said he thought so, too.

Thus the spell was broken and, with a more dismal duty to be performed, we sent for Smilax to bring the camp spade--leaving Monsieur to find Doloria and talk with her, for I had excused him from the contract Tommy made aboard the _Whim_, wanting to remove uncertainties as soon as possible.

Gates entered a careful record in his notebook of identification marks on the three men we found dead. Our joint statement would be sufficient for the law in such a case as this, especially as Monsieur knew there was a price on Efaw Kotee's head, and doubtless on the heads of all who served him.

When Smilax approached the last man he pointed down with grim satisfaction, saying:

"Him bust black boy's head!"

It was Jess, who would have bullied the old chief into giving up my princess! Well, our account was closed. But of Efaw Kotee there was no clue. I felt sure he was not among those who escaped, simply because he could not have run so fast; and Smilax was certain he did not follow with the chase.

Our gruesome task finished, we turned back. For the moment I wanted to be alone, with my thoughts, my happiness, my uncertainty of Monsieur's power of persuasion, my heaviness of spirit caused by the work behind us. But Tommy ran up and slipped his arm through mine, saying with exaggerated carelessness: