THE RECKONING
The big room was a maze of shadows. Stable-lanterns, flickering in
the drafts, hung from hooks in walls and pillars. Toutou stayed his
flight by the door to the courtyard, one ear inclined to the bedlam
of shots and outcries that threaded the roar of the storm. As we
burst in he raised a pistol and sprayed us with bullets as rapidly as
he could pull the trigger. But he had the knife-fighter's inability
to shoot straight. Bullets "phutted" all around us, yet none of us
was hit.
Several men and women stared at us. Hilmi Bey peered from behind a
pillar next the courtyard door. He had plainly taken shelter at the
crack of Hélène's pistol. Montey Hilyer and Serge Vassilievich stood
some distance to the right of us, paralyzed with surprise. Maude
Hilyer and Sandra Vassilievna had risen from seats in the apse-like
recess at the other end. Apparently they had supposed Toutou was
engaged only with Hélène.
He screamed at them, insensate in his fury. His knife still dripped
blood. He flung his empty pistol at us.
"Fools!" he shrieked. "We are betrayed!"
The door to the courtyard was jerked open, and he spun on his heel
and dodged behind a pillar. Tokalji reeled in.
"Strange Tzigane folk have burst the street-door," he bellowed.
"We--"
He gaped at sight of us.
"Quick!" Hugh shouted. "Scatter--before they shoot!"
Watkins and I jumped right and left. Hugh sought the shelter of a
pillar.
"Shoot!" yelled Toutou. "Shoot! Fools! Swine! Dogs!"
And he babbled on obscenely, darting catlike from pillar to pillar
toward Watty. Hilyer and Serge simultaneously came to life and made
for us, guns spurting, throwing pieces of furniture to confuse us.
Things happened so fast that it was impossible to keep track of
everything, but I found myself involved in a pistol duel with Serge.
Hugh and Watkins were blazing away at Hilmi, Hilyer and Tokalji, and
Toutou was weaving through the smoke, seeking an opportunity to close
with one of us. I paid no attention to the women until a bullet
spatted on a pillar by my ear. I knew it could not have come from
the front, and startled, I turned to the left in time to see Sandra
aiming deliberately at me. I dodged, and thereby opened myself to
her brother's attack.
He was an excellent marksman, and I realized there could be only one
result for me if I continued exposed in flank. So I tore a lantern
from its hook and flung it on the floor. The burning oil vomited
forth a cloud of thick black smoke, and under cover of this, I
changed my position, gaining the protection of another pillar. Here
I was safe from Sandra; but her brother knew where I was and our duel
continued. It was no steady stream of bullets, but a pot-shot
whenever one of us thought he saw an opportunity. All around us
others were doing the same thing, and the vaulted roof rang to the
reports, while the acrid fumes of the powder and the smoke from
broken lamps stung the eyes. And outside the thunder was pealing and
the lightning splitting the heavens and Nikka's men and Tokalji's
Gypsies were trying their feeble best to rival nature's forces.
Suddenly, I sensed that our opponents were bracing for a combined
effort. There was a rapid-fire exchange of exclamations in the
thieves' French and Tzigane dialect they used for confidential
communication. I heard an empty cartridge-clip jingle on the floor.
But in the shifting light and smoke it was impossible now to tell
real men from the shadows. I stuck my head around a pillar, crouched
and slipped aside. Then, while I was unprotected, the rush came.
"Go!" called Hilyer's voice.
The shadows were pricked with pistol-flashes. Serge Vassilievich
leaped for the pillar behind which I had stood, his gun blazing,
knife in hand. He did not see me, on my knees, four feet to the
right, and I put my first bullet in his thigh. He stopped as if a
giant's hand had been shoved against his breast, tottered and fell
backward. As he fell, one of the burning oil-pools ignited a bundle
of blankets, and the rising flames sketched us both clearly against
the darkness that shrouded the far end of the room.
There was a scream. I recognized Sandra's voice, but I could not see
her. Instead, I saw Hilmi Bey sneaking on Watkins, who was holding
back Toutou. I drove the Levantine away with my first shot. Then
the hammer clicked, and I knew the magazine was empty. I dropped to
my knee again, thinking I was concealed by a patch of shadow, and
fumbled for a fresh clip. But the treacherous light flared upward,
the shadow disappeared and I was left defenseless. I saw a raging
figure, hair flying, pistol raised, running at me. I saw the pistol
flash, felt a numbing blow on my left shoulder and tumbled in a heap.
For a second my eyes misted, the room danced before me. Then I heard
a chatter of Russian and Watkins, mildly disapproving.
"None of that 'ere, miss. If you please, now! I don't want to 'urt
you, but--"
I looked up. Sandra, her face contorted with demoniac rage, her
empty pistol shaking in her hand, was backing away before Watty's
menacing crowbar.
A woman screamed again, horribly, so that it rasped your
heart-strings. It was Maude Hilyer. She stood, with hands clutching
her cheeks, her gaze fixed on the center of the room where Montey
staggered against a pillar, the blood from a punctured lung gurgling
in his throat, bravely trying for the last time to raise the smoking
muzzle of his automatic.
Hugh, relieved of the Englishman's attack, was taking pot-shots at
Toutou and Hilmi. I saw Tokalji slip through the door into the rain,
and as Vernon King ran up the stairs from the atrium Hilmi followed
the Tzigane and Toutou jumped through a window, squawling like the
big cat he was. Behind me Watkins was scientifically roping Sandra,
hand and foot, regardless of the curses she spat in three languages.
Vassilievich had fainted from the pain of his wound. Maude Hilyer
sat on the dirty floor, under the single wobbling lantern that
remained intact, and cradled the head of her dying husband. We had
swept the House of the Married.
Or had we? As I tried unsuccessfully with one hand to reload my
pistol, I felt a pressure on my back. I turned and very nearly
impaled myself on a long knife-blade. A tense, willowy figure,
bare-footed and tumble-haired, stood over me.
"You are Jakka," said Kara in the Tzigane dialect--I could understand
simple phrases after my experience with Nikka's tribespeople. "Where
is Nikka?"
Dumbfounded, I pointed to the courtyard. She glided toward the door,
but Hugh intervened.
"Not so fast," he said. "Whose friend are you?"
She did not understand him, and raised her knife.
"I'll shoot you, if you are a girl," warned Hugh. "Any one who
resists--"
"She's all right, Hugh," I called. "She's trying to find Nikka--must
have been asleep upstairs. Let her go."
But she did not wait for him to stand aside. With a single leap, she
put one of the pillars between him and herself, and vaulted from the
window Toutou had escaped by.
"Nothing slow about that girl," said Hugh. "Everybody whole?"
A pistol cracked in the doorway, and the bullet sang by his ear.
"They're still after us," he commented, dropping beside me. "Have to
load my gun."
"Then load mine, too," I said. "My left shoulder's hit--whole arm is
no use."
He laid down his automatic.
"We'll carry you inside with Betty. I see Watty has made a prisoner,
and Vassilievich had better be watched. You can--"
"I will not," I returned. "We'll need every man before we finish
to-night. Hear that!"
The courtyard had become an inferno--yells, screams, howls, shots,
the beat of the rain and the din of the storm.
"Tie my arm to my side, and I'll be O.K.," I urged.
Betty crawled between us.
"Did I hear you call me?" she asked.
"My word!" grunted Hugh. "Get back, Bet. This is--"
"Touch and go," she supplemented his sentence. "I have Hélène's gun.
You boys had better help Nikka. I can guard this place."
A whistle shrilled in the courtyard.
"Hugh!" It was Nikka's voice. "Jack!"
There was a racket of shots.
"Yes, he must be badly outnumbered," muttered Hugh. "No time to
lose. Here, Jack, where's your handkerchief? Right O! Thanks, Bet.
Not too tight. Can you stand that?"
"Yes, load my gun, somebody."
Betty took it. King, ensconced behind an adjacent pillar, fired at
the door.
"They seem to be waiting for us out there," he observed.
"Yes," said Hugh. "Betty, you lie here in the shadows. Don't let
anybody approach you, no matter what they say. Keep an eye on Mrs.
Hilyer and the Russian girl--and her brother. See him over there?
He's done in, for the time-being, but if he comes to maybe you'd
better tie him up."
"Don't you worry about me," answered Betty valiantly. "I can take
care of myself. Do hurry!"
"'Ere, your ludship," came a throaty whisper from Watkins. "This
way, gentlemen."
He was at the far end of the room, and while we watched, he put his
hat on the end of his crowbar--from which he refused to be
parted--and stuck it above the sill of a window.
"I've done this twice now, your ludship," he added, "and nothing's
'appened. They ain't watching 'ere."
A little investigation proved that he was right, and we crawled out
into the rain and huddled against the house-wall, attempting to
disentangle the situation. The rain was descending in slanting,
blinding sheets. Pistols cracked and men gasped or shouted, but we
could not tell whether they were friends or foes. As we waited, two
men dashed by, one in pursuit of the other. It was impossible for us
to intervene. Then, with a preliminary crash of thunder, the
lightning zigzagged across the sky, and for the winking of an eye the
courtyard was bright as day.
I had an impression of bodies scattered here and there, and little
clusters of men that struggled and ran. Over in the corner of the
courtyard wall by the bachelors' house men swirled in a tumultuous
mass. The darkness closed down once more, thick and wet and cold.
"Coming, Nikka!" shouted Hugh. And to us: "The big fight is the key
to everything. We must break it up. They've got Nikka pinned in."
Tokalji's gang faced around as we attacked their rear; but we went
clean through them and almost drove on to the knives of Nikka's party.
"After them!" panted Hugh. "We've got 'em breaking!"
Nikka called to his men in their own tongue, and they lined up with
us in a thin file across the courtyard from wall to wall. Behind
Nikka I had a brief vision of a figure as elusive as the rain. I
thought of an assassin who had flanked us and lifted my
automatic--but something, the proud poise of the head, perhaps,
warned me it was Kara.
There was a crackle of pistol-fire in front of us, and a knot of
figures swayed into view, distorted, indistinct. The deluge seemed
to act as a freak lens to play tricks with normal vision; and
possibly that was why comparatively few were shot. Twice I had men
fair over the barrel of my pistol, and both times I missed--and I am
rather better than a good shot. But I had no opportunity for
philosophizing at that time.
Toutou and Hilmi Bey went for Nikka. He was bleeding from a cut in
the arm, and all his men were engaged. Hugh, with King and Watty,
was developing an encircling movement on the opposite end of the
line. I started to go to Nikka's aid, but a man sprang at me from
nowhere, and I was obliged to dodge him until I had a chance to
shoot, I did not miss that time. When I looked again, Nikka and
Toutou were circling each other, and Hilmi was at grips with Kara.
At first I thought the Levantine was scheming to throw the girl, but
as I drew near I perceived that he had clinched with her in mortal
terror of her knife. She held his own powerless by her grasp of his
wrist. A mocking light gleamed in her eyes, and she shook back her
loose hair and jeered at him in the Tzigane dialect. With one pudgy
hand he strove to ward off her blade, but he could not control her
lithe muscles. She tore her wrist free, the steel drove home through
his sodden frock-coat and he collapsed with a squeal.
Kara pulled out her knife as casually as though it had been a
familiar occurrence, and turned to watch Nikka's fight with Toutou.
Nikka from the corner of his eye saw the two of us, plainly waiting a
chance to help him, and he leaped clear of the circle of his enemy's
knife long enough to snap:
"Let be! I finish this alone!"
I couldn't have helped him, in any case, for as redoubtable a person
as Tokalji, himself, attacked me that moment. Kara did not even
notice my danger. She also ignored the man she called father. Her
whole attention was concentrated upon Nikka. I fired once at the
Gypsy chief, and missed. That was the last cartridge in the
magazine, and I attempted to lose him in the rain. But he refused to
be lost, and I was making up my mind to taking his knife in my
wounded arm and battering his head with my pistol-butt, when Watkins
loomed in the mist and brought down his trusty crowbar on Tokalji's
knife-wrist. The Gypsy yelped like a dog, and the knife clattered on
the ground. Watty produced some rope from a pocket and deftly
twisted the man's arms behind him. Tokalji yelped again.
"Easy," I said. "The fellow's wrist is broken."
"I'm tying 'im above the helbows, Mister Jack, sir," answered Watty.
"But if it did 'urt 'im a bit I wouldn't worry, sir. I 'ave an
hidea, sir, 'e was one of the scoundrels that bashed me 'ead."
My one thought was of Nikka, and I sought him over the rain-battered
area of the court. The fighting had drifted away toward the
sea-wall. There seemed to be nobody near me. I listened hard, and
in a lull of the storm my ears detected the click of blades. I
stumbled toward it, and nearly fell on top of Kara, crouching as I
had left her, eyes glued on the two men who circled tirelessly,
steel-tipped arms crooked before them.
Toutou had a huge advantage in reach, but Nikka had the benefit of
lithe agility, a wrist of iron--the result of years of bowing; a
hawk's eyes; and all the tricks with the blade that the people of his
race have amassed in centuries of bloody strife. Four times, while I
watched, Toutou endeavored to force down Nikka's knife by the sheer
strength of his gorilla-arm, and each time Nikka disengaged and
refused to give the opportunity his adversary needed. Twice Nikka
tried a certain trick, a combination of lightning thrusts and clever
footwork. But the Frenchman parried it each time, and retaliated so
quickly as to drive Nikka out of reach.
Neither of them said anything. Toutou spat and whined in his throat,
cat-fashion. Nikka panted from the exertion. Both of them dripped
with sweat, notwithstanding the rain. There was something of an epic
quality about their struggle, and I discovered myself taking the same
almost impersonal interest in it that Kara demonstrated. By all the
principles of normal right-behavior, I should have ignored Nikka's
command to let him fight it out alone, and rushed in at the first
opening to kill a monster, who did not deserve and had no
appreciation of knightly treatment. But I could not. I was chained
by an emotion I could not fathom.
And yet I was absorbed in Nikka's success. My heart leaped in my
throat when I saw that he was trying for the third time the trick
which had twice failed. His knife went up in the same way, he
shifted posture as he had in his other tries, and Toutou mechanically
side-stepped as experience had told him was safe and aimed a stab
which should have cut Nikka's throat. But Nikka was not there. He
had varied the trick. Stooping, his knife had fallen, then sliced
upward--and Toutou staggered, a look of bland surprise on his face,
ripped open from belly to chest.
"Pt-sss-ss-tss-sst!" he hissed, and fell forward.
Kara hurled herself into Nikka's arms.
"You are the greatest knife-fighter of the Tziganes!" she cried
triumphantly. "You are a king! You are my man! See, while you
conquered your enemy, I, too, stabbed the rat who tried to put his
knife in your back."
And she led Nikka to the body of Hilmi, which, I regret to say, she
kicked with her brown toes. Nikka absent-mindedly leaned over to
wipe his knife on the Levantine's coat-tails, but Kara intervened.
"No, no," she exclaimed. "Here is my hair! Wipe it on my hair,
beloved of my heart. Let me suck it clean with my lips! So we shall
have strong sons."
Nikka looked sufficiently annoyed to show that he had some instincts
of civilization remaining.
"Peace," he ordered royally. "Be quiet, girl!"
She cowered before him, and he recognized me.
"Oh, hullo, Jack! Where's Hugh?"
Hugh loomed through the rain as he spoke.
"That you, Nikka? We think we've got Tokalji's people rounded up,
but we need you to talk to them. Has Toutou--"
"He's there."
Nikka pointed his knife to the heap of drab garments that had been
the French "killer."
"Good for you!" exclaimed Hugh. "I'm glad he didn't get off. When
you think of Uncle James and--that girl we saw--and I suppose others!
What a beast!"
We splashed after him, Kara following Nikka like a dog. Wasso
Mikali, his surviving young men, King and Watkins were guarding
thirteen shivering Gypsies in the lee of the bachelors' quarters. In
reply to questions, Tokalji told Nikka--and Kara, shamelessly
throwing in her lot with us, corroborated him--that there had been
fifteen of their band on the premises. A search of the courtyard
disclosed two of them dead, together with one of Wasso Mikali's men.
We bound the arms of the prisoners, most of whom were suffering from
bullet-wounds or stabs, and marched them over to the House of the
Married.
The one lantern was still flickering when we entered, and Betty rose
to greet us.
"Thank God!" she said soberly as her eyes envisaged us all. "What
did you do with Mrs. Hilyer?"
"Isn't she here?" asked Hugh.
"No. I don't know just when she left. There was a lot of firing,
and I looked to where she had been sitting by her husband, and she
was gone."
Nikka and I sped back into the courtyard. We picked our way over the
occasional bodies to the street-door. It was ajar.
"I locked it myself!" cried Nikka. "Old Wasso picked it without
damaging the spring. I took time when we entered to fasten it again."
I was feeling very weak. My shoulder throbbed. Nausea assailed me
in recurrent waves. But I clutched the gate-post, and peered into
the street. Nobody was in sight. Sokaki Masyeri was a bare waste of
mud and foaming gutters.
"She escaped," said Nikka. "Too bad! We might have-- What's the
matter, Jack?"
He caught me as my knees bent under me. I felt the rain on my
eyelids, and then everything was blotted out.