III
He plunged down the bank.
As he reached the greensward a warning shout from the cottage reached him.
"Ha! what's this?" joggled the Parson sharply. "Flank attack! who the pest? Oh, Gap Gang—I forgot."
A stream of fierce dark figures with running legs poured down the Wish and across the greensward at him.
"Hold tight round my neck, Kit!" he panted, taut to meet the new attack. "I want my sword-arm free. What! the boy's fainted!" He gave the limp body a hoist on his shoulder. "Now, Knapp! Let's see these guts o yours!"
Knapp shot by him, his arms working like piston-rods.
"Come on, Blob, me boy. Slaughder for somebody!" He pranced into action, throwing his legs like a hackney trotter. "Pray, duckie darlins, pray!" he called. "I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin!"
The life was bursting out of him. It made him laughing-mad. He was lusty as a young lion.
"Here they come!" muttered the Parson, labouring behind.
And come they did at a hound-slink, bunched together, and babbling. It was clear they were uncertain of each other and of success. Sin, the mighty Disintegrator, was at work upon their spirits. A more half- hearted crew of blackguards never attempted murder. They needed Black Diamond. He, and he alone, might have held them and swung them, as a fine horseman holds and swings a refuser at a fence.
And what dark faces! what dreadful eyes! what voices popping up like foul bubbles from a sewage pond!
_"Them three all?"
"Enough too, ain't it?"
"I'm for gain back. Look at the face on that buster with the sword!"
"H'into em!" came a shrill treble from the rear. "Cheerily, chaps, cheerily!"_
A crack from the cottage, the crack of doom.
The leading ruffian, a lumbering great horse-faced fellow, clapped his hand to his side.
"What's that?" he snapped.
"That's death!" came a solemn voice from across the green.
The man bowed his head as though in acknowledgement.
"I got it," he said, and fell like a falling tower.
His fellows wavered. This sudden arrow from the quiver of the Great
Bowman, so unexpected expected, pierced the hearts of all.
Into them, toppling, bowled Knapp like a cannon-ball.
"Ow, dear! Ow's that? Ow, my pore face!"
The chirpy Cockney voice popped out from the thick of them like a cork from a bottle, and a smack from a sledge-hammer fist punctuated each ow.
Blob, at a lurching gallop, plunged into the opening his leader had made, flashing his knife with a gurgling "Ho! ho!"
Last came the Parson with terrific sword.
It was all over before it had begun: a scuffle, a squeak, the flicker and tinkle of steel; and the cloud burst and scattered into its component drops.
The smugglers scampered away.
The Parson was wiping the point of his sword on a man.
"Dirty skunks!" he panted. "Had their bellyful before I'd begun."
Blob was laughing to himself.
"Oi loike killin," he gurgled. "It goos in so plop-loike."
A figure, tall and black as a winter tree, shot up against the light on the shingle-bank, and hung a second there.
The Parson waved.
"Too late, Monsieur le Poseur," he called mockingly. "Better luck next time."
The little party trotted across to the cottage, and entered.
Piper, awaiting them, slammed the door, and made all fast.
"Near thing, sir," chuckled the old man.
"Would have been but for that shot of yours," said the Parson, laying his burthen on the bed.
He leaned up against the wall, and panted, his good red face dripping.
"First round to England—eh?" he grinned.