The Tremendous Event Part 24

"Hus.h.!.+" said Simon, placing his hand over her mouth. "There must be no confidences between you and me."

She insisted:

"Still you know that Miss Bakefield is running the same danger as myself. By remaining with me, you sacrifice her."

"Hus.h.!.+" he repeated, angrily. "I am doing my duty in not leaving you; and Miss Bakefield herself would never forgive me if I did otherwise!"

The girl irritated him. He suspected that she regarded herself as having triumphed over Isabel and that she had been trying to confirm her victory by proving to Simon that he ought to have left her.

"No, no," he said to himself, "it's not for her sake that I'm staying with her. I'm staying because it's my duty. A man does not leave a woman under such conditions. But is she capable of understanding that?"

They had to leave their refuge in the middle of the night, for it was stealthily invaded by the river, and to lie down higher up the beach.

No further incident disturbed their sleep. But in the morning, when the darkness was not yet wholly dispersed, they were awakened by quick, hollow barks. A dog came leaping towards them at such a speed that Simon had no time to do more than pull out his revolver.

"Don't fire!" cried Dolores, knife in hand.

It was too late. The brute turned a somersault, made a few convulsive moments and lay motionless. Dolores stooped over it and said, positively:

"I recognize him, he's the tramps' dog. They are on our track. The dog had run ahead of them."

"But our track's impossible to follow. There's hardly any light."

"Forsetta and Mazzani have their torches, just as you have. Besides, the firing would have told them."

"Then let's be off as quickly as possible," Simon proposed.

"They will catch us up . . . at least, unless you abandon your search of Rolleston."

Simon seized his rifle:

"That's true. So the only thing is to wait for them here and kill them one by one."

"That's so," she said. "Unfortunately. . . ."

"Well?"

"Yesterday, after firing at the tramps, you did not reload your rifle."

"No, but my cartridge-belt is on the sand, at the place where I slept."

"So is mine; and both are covered by the rising water. Therefore there are only the six cartridges of your Browning left."

CHAPTER IV

THE BATTLE

All things considered, their best chance of safety would have been to plunge into the river and escape by the left bank. But this plan, which would have cut them off from Rolleston and which Simon did not wish to adopt except in the last extremity, must have been foreseen by Forsetta, for, as soon as light was clear enough, they saw two tramps going up the Somme on the opposite bank. Under these conditions, how were they to land?

Shortly afterwards, they saw that their retreat was discovered and that the enemy was profiting by their hesitation. On the same bank as themselves, some five hundred yards down-stream, appeared the barrel of a rifle. Up-stream an identical menace confronted them.

"Forsetta and Mazzani," declared Dolores. "We are cut off right and left."

"But there's n.o.body in front of us."

"Yes, the rest of the tramps."

"I don't see them."

"They are there, believe me, in hiding and well sheltered."

"Let's rush at them and get by!"

"To do that, we should have to cover a bare patch under the cross-fire of Mazzani and Forsetta. They are good shots. They won't miss us."

"Then what?"

"Well, let's defend ourselves here."

It was good advice. The cargo of marble blocks, piled higgledy-piggledy like a child's building-bricks, formed a thorough citadel. Dolores and Simon climbed it and at the top selected a fort, protected on all sides, from which they could see the slightest movements of their enemies.

"They're coming," Dolores declared, after an attentive scrutiny.

The river had deposited along the banks trunks of trees and enormous roots, drifting it was impossible to say whence, which Forsetta and Mazzani were using to cover their approach. Moreover, at each rush forward they protected themselves with broad planks which they carried with them. And Dolores called Simon's attention to the fact that more things were moving across the bare plain; more s.h.i.+elds improvised of all sorts of stray materials: coils of rope, broken parts of boats, fragments of pontoons and pieces of boilerplate. All these things were creeping imperceptibly, with the sure, heavy pace of tortoises making for the same goal, along the radius that led to the centre. And the centre was the fortress. The tramps were investing it under the orders of Mazzani and Forsetta. From time to time a limb or a head appeared in sight.

"Ah!" said Simon, in a voice filled with rage. "If only I had a few bullets, wouldn't I stop this inroad of wood-lice!"

Dolores had made a display of the two useless rifles, in the hope that the threatening aspect would intimidate the enemy. But the confidence of the attackers increased with the inactivity of the besieged. It was even possible that the two Indians had scented the ruse, for they scarcely attempted to conceal themselves.

To show his skill, one of them--Forsetta, Dolores declared--shot down a sea-gull skimming along the river. Mazzani accepted the challenge.

An aeroplane, humming in their direction and flying lower than most, seemed suddenly to drop from the clouds and silently glided across the river, over the blocks of marble. When it came level, Mazzani threw up his rifle, slowly took aim and fired. The pilot was. .h.i.t, bore downwards, heeled over on either side alternately, until he seemed about to capsize, and pa.s.sed on, disappearing in a zig-zag flight like that of a wounded bird.

And suddenly, Simon having shown his head, two bullets fired by the two Indians ricochetted from the nearest stone surface, detaching a few splinters.

"Oh, please don't be so imprudent!" Dolores implored.

A drop of blood trickled down his forehead. She staunched it gently with her handkerchief and murmured:

"You see, Simon, those men will get the better of us. And you still refuse to leave me? You risk your life, though nothing can affect the issue?"

He pushed her away from him:

"My life is not at stake. . . . Nor yours either. . . . This handful of wretches will never get at us."

He was mistaken. Some of the vagabonds were within eighty yards of them. They could hear them talking together; and the men's hard faces, covered with grey stubble, shot up from behind their bucklers like the head of a Jack-in-the-box.