Turning once again, a murmured prayer upon his lips, Blakely started at sight of Carmody. With one hand uplifted, as though to caution silence, the other concaved at his ear, the sergeant was bending eagerly forward, his eyes dilating, his frame fairly quivering. Then, on a sudden, up he sprang and swung his hat about his head. "Firing, sir! Firing, sure!" he cried. Another second, and with a gasp and moan he sank to earth transfixed; a barbed arrow, whizzing from unseen space, had pierced him through and through.
CHAPTER XX
WHERE IS ANGELA?
or a moment as they drew under shelter the stricken form of the soldier, there was nothing the defense could do but dodge. Then, leaving him at the edge of the pool, and kicking before them the one cowed and cowering shirker of the little band, Blakely and the single trooper still unhit, crept back to the rocky parapet, secured a carbine each and knelt, staring up the opposite wall in search of the foe. And not a sign of Apache could they see.
Yet the very slant of the arrow as it pierced the young soldier, the new angle at which the bullets bounded from the stony crest, the lower, flatter flight of the barbed missiles that struck fire from the flinty rampart, all told the same story. The Indians during the hours of darkness, even while dreading to charge, had managed to crawl, snake-like, to lower levels along the cliff and to creep closer up the stream bed, and with stealthy, noiseless hands to rear little shelters of stone, behind which they were now crouching invisible and secure. With the illimitable patience of their savage training they had then waited, minute after minute, hour after hour, until, lulled at last into partial belief that their deadly foe had slipped away, some of the defenders should be emboldened to venture into view, and then one well-aimed volley at the signal from the leader's rifle, and the vengeful shafts of those who had as yet only the native weapon, would fall like lightning stroke upon the rash ones, and that would end it. Catlike they had crouched and watched since early dawn. Catlike they had played the old game of apparent weariness of the sport, of forgetfulness of their prey and tricked their guileless victims into hope and self-exposure, then swooped again, and the gallant lad whose last offer and effort had been to set forth in desperate hope of bringing relief to the suffering, had paid for his valor with his life. One arrow at least had gone swift and true, one shaft that, launched, perhaps, two seconds too soon for entire success, had barely anticipated the leader's signal and spoiled the scheme of bagging all the game. Blakely's dive to save his fallen comrade had just saved his own head, for rock chips and spattering lead flew on every side, scratching, but not seriously wounding him.
And then, when they "thought on vengeance" and the three brown muzzles swept the opposite wall, there followed a moment of utter silence, broken only by the faint gasping of the dying man. "Creep back to Carmody, you," muttered Blakely to the trembling lad beside him. "You are of no account here unless they try to charge. Give him water, quick." Then to Stern, his one unhurt man, "You heard what he said about distant firing. Did you hear it?"
"Not I, sir, but I believe they did—an' be damned to them!" And Stern's eyes never left the opposite cliff, though his ears were strained to catch the faintest sound from the lower cañon. It was there they last had seen the troop. It was from that direction help should come. "Watch them, but don't waste a shot, man. I must speak to Carmody," said Blakely, under his breath, as he backed on hands and knees, a painful process when one is sore wounded. Trembling, whimpering like whipped child, the poor, spiritless lad sent to the aid of the stricken and heroic, crouched by the sergeant's side, vainly striving to pour water from a clumsy canteen between the sufferer's pallid lips. Carmody presently sucked eagerly at the cooling water, and even in his hour of dissolution seemed far the stronger, sturdier of the two—seemed to feel so infinite a pity for his shaken comrade. Bleeding internally, as was evident, transfixed by the cruel shaft they did not dare attempt to withdraw, even if the barbed steel would permit, and drooping fainter with each swift moment, he was still conscious, still brave and uncomplaining. His dimmed and mournful eyes looked up in mute appeal to his young commander. He knew that he was going fast, and that whatever rescue might come to these, his surviving fellow-soldiers, there would be none for him; and yet in his supreme moment he seemed to read the question on Blakely's lips, and his words, feeble and broken, were framed to answer.