THE ATTACK
When after this I looked across the parapet I was as a man of highly
tempered steel. The compact mass had begun to disintegrate, spreading in
both directions until their flanks must have been an eighth of a mile
apart. Then they advanced.
On a guess I judged their line to be quite fifteen hundred yards away
because each unit looked about the size of a pea; and, as these
represented the upper halves of men, the distance was too great to open
fire. So I raised my sight to a thousand yards and waited. My nerves
were steady with a purpose deep-set in me, for I was about to shoot for
the greatest trophy of my life, so when the line had advanced a third of
the way I took careful aim, and fired. A second passed; then my target
disappeared.
"Is he hit or hiding?" Doloria asked excitedly, adding with a little
gasp: "He's hit, for some are going to him--see?"
"I believe he is," I agreed, taking another careful aim at one who had
not started to his comrade's assistance. He, too, disappeared, and
immediately afterwards all of them ducked from view.
"That's awkward," I growled. "They'll do some crawling up, now!"
"They won't dare come close after that," she cried, "for I know you hit
one!" Yet this might have been what Echochee would have called
"good-medicine-talk," and while standing ready I warned her not to be
too sure, as both men might have dropped only for safety.
It will not seem strange that we both felt some disappointment over the
probability of this, if one stops to consider what lurked in the other
side of the scales for us.
Heads soon began to bob up nearer, now accompanied by quickly fired
shots, and I ordered Doloria to the ground. But with relief I noticed
that these shots went wild, many times hitting too far away to be heard
at all, so our position obviously was as yet undiscovered. The morning
sun shone directly in the men's eyes, while the protective coloration of
our fort blended most elusively into the background of somber forest.
At the bobbing heads I continued to fire with what quickness I could,
sometimes sending a second, third and fourth shot purposely low to probe
the grass where it seemed that a man might be crouching. I could not
reasonably have expected to register a hit by this, but it kept them in
check, and that was our chief concern. From the beginning I realized
that if they got near enough to rush us the night would close over a
very silent little fort.
Suddenly Doloria gave a cry that froze my blood, for I thought it meant
an attack from the rear.
"Quick--quick! Your matches! Oh, not to have thought of it before!" But
this last was added while I dug into my pockets for the precious box.
"You can't do it," I exclaimed.
"I can! Keep them down, and I'll crawl! They won't see me!"
There was wisdom here, and I yielded. Nimbly she climbed the wall,
dropped to her hands and knees, and crawled to the prairie. In another
minute a string of smoke appeared; then with a bunch of grass alight
she flew from place to place, stooping as she ran, and leaving in her
wake a trail of fire. Almost as quickly she was back at my side,
breathing fast.
"You glorious genius, we'll win out yet," I yelled.
The grass was dry and tall and thick, and the wind was blowing smartly.
Fire asks for no better playground, and with incredible swiftness a wall
of flame sprang up, crackling and roaring as it spread out fan-wise.
She knew, as did I, that the men would back-fire. But while this would
save them from the flames it would at the same time remove their cover,
and my rifle could then have a whole man to bite at instead of merely
his head and shoulders, or less. They would have no alternative now but
to come forward quickly or retreat. I think Doloria realized that
anything might be about to happen, for she laid the other rifle in
position on the parapet, rather casually asking:
"Will it matter if I stand on the canteens? They raise me just high
enough!"
Why should she not be given a chance to fight for her life--at least,
until they located our point of concealment and began to concentrate
their fire on it. That this would inevitably happen might be a matter of
minutes, but until then I thought she had every right to stay. There's
no denying, too, that I knew her value.
What was going on behind the wall of racing flame we could not tell. But
now it rose majestically, leapt skyward and sank to insignificance. The
back-fire had met our own; they had gripped, flared up, and died.
Likewise were our forces about to clash, and perhaps burn out with the
heat of human passion.
Staring through the smoke we counted seven men running to the rear. They
well enough knew the danger of being without cover, and were intending
first to get beyond our range and then bring the fight back by some
other means. Shooting fast I heard Doloria give several quick gasps of
excitement as I knocked up the ash dust close to them, and although,
their number was not reduced we gained a feeling of greater security to
find the fort more impregnable than I had prophesied.
But our budding hope lasted about as long as it took us to conceive it.
One of the fellows suddenly changed his direction, waving as he ran, and
the others dashed after him. Then we, too, saw the discovery he had
made, and it filled me with a sense of desperation.
This was a long, low line of green, indicating a ditch, or slough, edged
with saw-palmettoes and bay bushes, that began at some indefinite
northwestward point and diagonally crossed the prairie until it passed
around our Oasis scarcely more than a hundred feet away. Heretofore,
completely hidden by the tall grass, I had had no idea of its existence,
and neither had the men, until Doloria's torch changed the prairie to a
charred waste. In reality it was the outlet from our spring, and I knew
that it must be fairly wide because the fire had not jumped it.
To Efaw Kotee's band it offered both an immediate cover and a place from
which to carry on the fight; moreover, by following it toward us, they
could reach the Oasis and eventually creep up behind so near that a
well-directed shot in my head would be only a question of persistence
and time.
Doloria must have understood this, and for the first time she began to
fire, yet at nearly a thousand yards, when one's target not only moves
but looks small and black upon a blackened background, and is made
further elusive by a haze of smoke, only luck can hit it. Still we
played that luck to the last card, until one by one the men made safe
and disappeared. Then she laid her rifle on the parapet, and I think
took a long breath. For a moment neither of us spoke, each being afraid
of saying too much, perhaps.
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
passed.
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 space 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 passed 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 snatched it away. The howls
of triumph had ceased; no leering enemy appeared above our parapet. The
smart in my eyes was passing 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 passed--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 passing, 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:
"I'm glad that crescendo of horrors is over--if you'll allow a kind of
musical term; but I've got music in my soul to-day."
"It's a funny time for music," I grumbled, "--except funeral marches."
"By the way, did you find out about that other funeral march?"
"No, I forgot," I confessed. "Don't bother me, Tommy; I feel like the
devil."
"I know it," he gave my arm a squeeze--for Tommy possessed that
characteristic making for a community of mind and spirit that did not
wait for explanations. "I know it," he repeated, "but you _look_ a whole
lot better--really like your old self! Now, what's the trouble? If
you're worrying about the ruins we created back there, cut it out! I'm
not bothered over the one or two I might have got! Fact is, nobody knows
which of us hit which, anyway. So what is it? I'm not asking, merely
insisting!"
So I told him pretty much everything, as one chum can to another.
"You mean she may listen to the little gezabo and go back?" he asked.
"I mean just that. She will if she thinks it has a bigger claim on her.
I know how square she is!"
"Besides being square," he said thoughtfully, "there's also something in
the make-up of woman that I've never understood: her apparent hankering
after sacrifice. When it comes to a show-down between heart and
conscience, she'll follow the conscience ten to one--if she's straight.
Look at it," he swept his arm toward the prairie, as if innumerable
instances were in sight of us. "See the sweet-faced old ladies who never
wrote 'Mrs.' before their names--not that they've missed anything, God
knows, but just look at 'em! All because some over-finicky parent didn't
approve, no doubt! And see the heart starvation stamped on 'daughter's'
face, because 'father' was nearly bankrupt and she _did_ write 'Mrs.' to
save him! Taking them in retrospect, it's a question if the thing they
called sacrifice wasn't plain damn foolishness. Why, hell, Jack, d'you
mean to say that the professor and his musty European customs--oh, I
can't be profane enough!--the English language is trifling and
inadequate! But I'm going to take a hand in this courtship, myself!"
"For a gregarious animal, Tommy, you're something of a wonder," I began
to laugh, because it was like myrrh and frankincense blown upon my
doubts and fears to hear him talk.
We went quietly on after this. Our boots made no noise in the soft
earth, and thus silently we approached the fort; then halted. For on the
farther side, hidden by the walls, a man was speaking in tones of
earnestness, yet at that very instant a voice interrupted him.
"I wish you wouldn't persist in talking now," it said irritably, "I'm
too unhappy over the lives which most have been lost, and----"
"But Your Serenity must realize that lives are nothing. The new destiny
that----"
"Oh, I know what you'd say," the voice cried. "But don't give me any
more arguments, for Heaven's sake! They're utterly useless and, besides,
you might convince me!"
Softly we tiptoed away and, when at a safe distance I stopped to rub my
arm where Tommy's fingers had been digging into it, he whispered:
"That didn't sound sacrificy, did it?"
"The old fellow hasn't struck his pace, yet," I answered doubtfully.
"Well," Tommy looked back toward the fort, "the pressure's high enough
for one day. She needs another rescuing. You go and speed up the grub."
So, whistling the Charpentier love song, he left me.