CHAPTER LXX
THE LAST OF OLD FAITHFUL
The old man clapped his smoking musket down, and snatched his cutlass.
"Any more for me, sir?"
"Another on your right, Piper!"
"Very good, sir."
The old man spun himself to the corner, and waited behind the wall.
The boy, running with all his might, watched fascinated.
Round the corner the doomed man whirled with a grin. The cutlass swooped. The fellow sprawled over his slayer, the shock of the onset rolling the chair back. The old man shook off the body, as he might have shaken off a cloak, and backed himself, cutlass bloody in his mouth.
"In with you, Master Kit!"
"You too!" panted Kit, thrusting the chair before him.
"No, sir, no!" fiercely. "I can do a bit o business here yet." He was loading swiftly, eyes on the battle. "Starn agin the door, larboard in the loo'th, and cutlass-room all round—what better can a seaman want?"
"But—"
"Sharp, sir!—No time to waste. Here they come."
The Gentleman had gathered his Grenadiers in his hand, and was swinging them back at the cottage.
"In with you, sir!" urged the old man, ablaze. "Bolt and bar."
"O Piper!" whimpering.
"Nelson, sir!"
The word went home. The boy shot in, and slammed the door. All again was darkness, and Blob breathing heavily at his side.
"I'm through! I'm through!" came a triumphant yell.
Kit's eye was at a crack.
The Parson had broken away from the rout, and was making for the hills, the despatch-bag flopping in his back.
The Gentleman, leading the charge at the cottage, turned.
"Abattez moi eel homme là!" he sang.
A Grenadier dropped to his knee.
Outside the door a musket cracked.
The Grenadier leapt to his feet, whirled round with floating tails, bowed to his executioner in absurdest doll-fashion, and subsided languidly into death.
The Parson was away, the Gentleman after him with sleuth-hound strides.
The bunch of Grenadiers stormed on for the cottage.
Kit shot the bolts.
He was banging the door of life on that maimed old man, and he would as soon have slammed the gate of heaven in his mother's face.
"Good-bye, dear old Piper!" he whispered.
"Good-bye, sir," cheerily. "And if I might make so bold my sarvice to
Lard Nelson—Ralph Piper, old Agamemnon."
There was silence: then the patter of feet and deep breathing of men racing to kill.
Kit could see the back of the old man's head on a level with his eye, and just beyond, growing hugely on his gaze, the face of the leading Grenadier, livid beneath his bearskin.
Kit shut his eyes as he rammed the last bolt home. Close to his ear, he heard a voice, low as the sea and as deep. It was humming
Soldiers of Christ arise.
That too ceased.
Old Faithful was spitting on his hands.