"Go eastward, swiftly, two hundred yards parallel with the
precipice. Make no sound, Yellow-hair."
The girl cast a pallid, heart-breaking look at him, but he lay there
without turning his head, his steady pistol levelled across the
chasm. Then, bending a trifle forward, she stole eastward through
the forest dusk, the pigeon in its wicker cage in one hand, and on
her back the pack.
And all the while, across the gulf out of which golden vapours
curled more thickly as the sun's burning searchlight spread out
across the world, the man in Swiss uniform stood on the chasm's
edge, as though awaiting some further word or movement from McKay.
And, after awhile, the word came, clear, startling, snapped out
across the void:
"Unsling that haversack! Don't touch the flap! Take it off, quick!"
The Swiss seemed astounded. "Quick!" repeated McKay harshly, "or I
fire."
"What!" burst out the man, "you offer violence to a Swiss officer on
duty within Swiss territory?"
"I tell you I'll kill you where you stand if you don't take off that
haversack!"
Suddenly from the scrubby thicket behind the Swiss a man's left arm
shot up at an angle of forty degrees, and the right arm described an
arc against the sun. Something round and black parted from it, lost
against the glare of sunrise.
Then in the woods behind McKay something fell heavily, the solid
thud obliterated in the shattering roar which followed.
The man in Swiss uniform tore at the flap of his haversack, and he
must have jerked loose the plug of a grenade in his desperate haste,
for as McKay's bullet crashed through his face, the contents of his
sack exploded with a deafening crash.
At the same instant two more bombs fell among the trees behind
McKay, exploding instantly. Smoke and the thick golden steam from
the ravine blotted from his sight the crag opposite. And now,
bending double, McKay ran eastward while behind him the golden dusk
of the woods roared and flamed with exploding grenades.
Evelyn Erith stood motionless and deathly white, awaiting him.
"Are you all right, Kay?"
"All right, Yellow-hair."
He went up to her, shifting his pistol to the other hand, and as he
laid his right arm about her shoulders the blaze in his eyes almost
dazzled her.
"We trust no living thing on earth, you and I, Yellow-hair.... I
believed that man for awhile. But I tell you whatever is living
within this forest is our enemy--and if any man comes in the shape
of my dearest friend I shall kill him before he speaks!"
The man was shaking now; the girl caught his right hand and drew it
close around her body--that once warm and slender body now become so
chill and thin under the ragged clothing of a boy.
"Drop your face on my shoulder," she said.
His wasted cheek seemed feverish, burning against her breast.
"Steady, Kay," she whispered.
"Right!... What got me was the thought of you--there when the
grenades fell.... They blew a black pit where your blanket lay!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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