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Page 75
"My God!" came from Smith weakly.
But I recovered myself. Bare feet pattered close upon our heels,
and panting breaths told how even Fu-Manchu's bloodhounds were hard
put to it by the killing pace we had made.
"Smith," I whispered, "look in front. Someone!"
As through a red mist I had seen a dark shape detach itself
from the shadows of the cottage, and merge into them again.
It could only be another dacoit; but Smith, not heeding,
or not hearing, my faintly whispered words, crashed open
the gate and hurled himself blindly at the door.
It burst open before him with a resounding boom, and he pitched forward
into the interior darkness. Flat upon the floor he lay, for as,
with a last effort, I gained the threshold and dragged myself within,
I almost fell over his recumbent body.
Madly I snatched at the door. His foot held it open.
I kicked the foot away, and banged the door to. As I turned,
the leading dacoit, his eyes starting from their sockets,
his face the face of a demon leaped wildly through the gateway.
That Smith had burst the latch I felt assured, but by some divine
accident my weak hands found the bolt. With the last ounce
of strength spared to me I thrust it home in the rusty socket--
as a full six inches of shining steel split the middle panel
and protruded above my head.
I dropped, sprawling, beside my friend.
A terrific blow shattered every pane of glass in the solitary window,
and one of the grinning animal faces looked in.
"Sorry, old man," whispered Smith, and his voice was barely audible.
Weakly he grasped my hand. "My fault. I shouldn't have let you come."
From the corner of the room where the black shadows lay flicked
a long tongue of flame. Muffled, staccato, came the report.
And the yellow face at the window was blotted out.
One wild cry, ending in a rattling gasp, told of a dacoit gone
to his account.
A gray figure glided past me and was silhouetted against the broken window.
Again the pistol sent its message into the night, and again came
the reply to tell how well and truly that message had been delivered.
In the stillness, intense by sharp contrast, the sound
of bare soles pattering upon the path outside stole to me.
Two runners, I thought there were, so that four dacoits must
have been upon our trail. The room was full of pungent smoke.
I staggered to my feet as the gray figure with the revolver
turned towards me. Something familiar there was in that long,
gray garment, and now I perceived why I had thought so.
It was my gray rain-coat.
"Karamaneh," I whispered.
And Smith, with difficulty, supporting himself upright, and holding
fast to the ledge beside the door, muttered something hoarsely,
which sounded like "God bless her!"
The girl, trembling now, placed her hands upon my shoulders with that quaint,
pathetic gesture peculiarly her own.
"I followed you," she said. "Did you not know I should follow you?
But I had to hide because of another who was following also.
I had but just reached this place when I saw you running towards me."
She broke off and turned to Smith.
"This is your pistol," she said naively. "I found it in your bag.
Will you please take it!"
He took it without a word. Perhaps he could not trust himself to speak.
"Now go. Hurry!" she said. "You are not safe yet."
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