Feet crashed up the shingle. As he topped the crest, a Grenadier, all eyes and bayonet and bristling chin, was plunging up the steep, another at his heels. The first flashed his eyes up in the boy's.
"Sapristi!" he cried, and tried to come down to the ready. The shingle roared away beneath his feet. Back he slithered. And as he did so, Kit launched down on him.
"Sacré nom!" the fellow screamed, and toppled back on the bayonet of his mate.
Kit ran over his falling body into the arms of the other.
"Take the man behind!" he yelled back.
Arms wound about him: a stertorous breathing was at his ear: for a moment the two rocked, then fell.
The boy was buried alive. A stifling carcase blotted out the sun. His arms were pinioned, but his hands remained free.
Short-handling his dirk, he turned it in.
"Assassin!" muttered the man, in his ear.
Kit pressed and slowly pressed. The man writhed and tried to rise. The boy's lithe young arms, though they could not squeeze to death, could hold; and hold they did. The man saw it, ceased to struggle, and hugged.