Already they were within half a mile. He had reined back to speak to Omar, when a shout of exultation from Saïd, taken up by his followers till the rocks above them echoed with the ringing cry, heralded the arrival of the last party. There was no time to recapitulate orders or to urge steadiness among the men. With almost no sign from Omar, or so it seemed to Craven, with another deafening shout that drowned the yelling of the enemy the whole force leaped forward simultaneously. Craven's teeth clenched on his lip in sudden fear for Omar's plan of attack, but a quick glance assured him that the madly galloping horses were being kept in good formation, and that fast as was the pace the right and left wing were, according to instructions, steadily opening out and drawing forward in an extended line. The feeling of excitement had left him, and, revolver in hand, he sat down firmer in the saddle with no more emotion than if he were in the hunting field at home.
They were now close enough to distinguish faces—it would be an almighty crash when it did come! It was surprising that up till now there had been no shooting. Accustomed to the Arabs' usually reckless expenditure of ammunition he had been prepared minutes ago for a hail of bullets. And with the thought came a solitary whining scream past his ear, and Saïd, close on his left, flung him a look of reproach and shouted something of which he only caught the words, “Frenchman ... burnous.”
But there was no time left to reply. Following rapidly on the single shot a volley was poured in among them, but the shooting was inaccurate and did very little damage. That it had been intended to break the charge and cause confusion in the orderly ranks was apparent from the further repeated volleys that, nearer, did more deadly execution than the first one. But, bending low in their saddles, Mukair Ibn Zarrarah's men swept on in obedience to Omar's command. His purpose was, by the sheer strength of his onset, to cut through the opposing force with his centre while the wings closed in on either side. To effect this he had bidden his men ride as they had never ridden before and reserve their fire till the last moment, when it would be most effectual. And the swift silent onslaught seemed to be other than the enemy had expected, for there were among them signs of hesitation, their advance was checked, and the firing became wilder and more erratic. Omar and his immediate companions appeared to bear charmed lives, bullets sang past them, over and around them, and though here and there a man fell from the saddle or a horse dropped suddenly, the main body raced on unscathed, or with wounds they did not heed in the frenzy of the moment.
The pace was terrific, and when at last Omar gave the signal for which his men were waiting, the crackling reverberation of their rifles had not died away when the impact came. But the shattering crash that Craven had expected did not occur. Giving way before them and scattering to right and left a break came in the ranks of the opposing force, through which they drove like a living wedge. Then with fierce yells of execration the enemy rallied and the next moment Craven found himself in the midst of a confused mêlée where friends and foes were almost indistinguishable. The thundering of horses' hoofs, the raucous shouting of the Arabs, the rattle of musketry, combined in deafening uproar. The air was dense with clouds of sand and smoke, heavy with the reek of powder. He had lost sight of Omar, he tried to keep near to Saïd, but in the throng of struggling men he was carried away, cut off from his own party, hemmed in on every side, fighting alone. He had forgotten his desire for death, his heart was leaping with a kind of delirious happiness that found nothing but fierce enjoyment in the scene around him. The stench in his nostrils of blood and sulphur seemed to awaken memories of another existence when he had fought for his life as he was doing now, unafraid, and caring little for the outcome. He was shooting steadily, exulting in his markmanship with no thought in his mind but the passionate wish to kill and kill, and he laughed with almost horrible pleasure as he emptied his revolver at the raving Arabs who surrounded him. Drunk with the blood lust of an unremembered past for the moment he was only a savage like them. And to the superstitious desert men he seemed possessed, and with sudden awe they had begun to draw away from him when a further party galloped up to reinforce them. Craven swung his horse to meet the new-comers and at the same moment realised that he had no cartridges left. With another reckless laugh he dashed his empty revolver in the face of the nearest Arab and, wheeling, spurred forward in an attempt to break through the circle round him. But he found retreat cut off. Three men bore down upon him simultaneously with levelled rifles. He saw them fire, felt a sharp searing as of a red hot wire through his side, and, reeling in the saddle, heard dimly their howl of triumph as they raced toward him—heard also another yell that rose above the Arabs' clamour, a piercing yell that sounded strangely different to the Arabic intonation ringing in his ears. And as he gripped himself and raised his head he had a vision of another horseman mounted on a frenzied trampling roan that, apparently out of control and mad with excitement, was charging down upon them, a horseman whose fluttering close-drawn headgear shaded features that were curiously Mongolian—and then he went down in a welter of men and horses. A flying hoof touched the back of his head and consciousness ceased.
CHAPTER IX
Craven woke to a burning pain in his side, a racking headache and an intolerable thirst. It was not a sudden waking but a gradual dawning consciousness in which time and place as yet meant nothing, and only bodily suffering obtruded on a still partially clouded mind. Fragmentary waves of thought, disconnected and transitory, passed through his brain, leaving no permanent impression, and he made no effort to unravel them. Effort of any kind, mental or physical, seemed for the moment beyond him. He was too tired even to open his eyes, and lay with them closed, wondering feebly at the pain and discomfort of his whole body. He had the sensation of having been battered, he felt bruised from head to foot. Suffering was new to him. He had never been ill in his life, and in all his years of travel and hazardous adventure he had sustained only trivial injuries which had healed readily and been regarded as merely part of the day's work.
But now, as his mind grew clearer, he realised that some accident must have occurred to induce this pain and lassitude that made him lie like a log with throbbing head and powerless limbs. He pondered it, trying to pierce the fog that dulled his intellect. He had a subconscious impression of some strenuous adventure through which he had passed, but knowledge still hovered on the borderland of fancy and actuality. He had no recollection of the fight or of events preceding it. That he was Barry Craven he knew; but of where he had no idea—nor what his life had been. Of his personality there remained only his name, he was quite sure about that. And out of the past emerged only one clear memory—a woman's face. And yet as he dwelt on it the image of another woman's face rose beside it, mingling with and absorbing it until the two faces seemed strangely merged the one into the other, alike and yet wholly different. And the effort to disentangle them and keep them separate was greater than his tired brain could achieve, and made his head ache more violently. Confused, and with a sudden feeling of aversion, he stirred impatiently, and the sharp pain that shot through him brought him abruptly to a sense of his physical state and forced utterance of his greatest need. It had not hitherto occurred to him to wonder whether he were alone, or even where he was. But as he spoke an arm was slipped under him raising him slightly and a cup held to his lips. He drank eagerly and, as he was again lowered gently to the pillow, raised his eyes to the face of the man who bent over him, a puckered yellow face whose imperturbability for once had given place to patent anxiety. Craven stared at it for a few moments in perplexity. Where had he seen it before? Struggling to recall what had happened prior to this curiously obscured awakening there dawned a dim recollection of shattering noise and tumult, of blood and death and fierce unbridled human passion, of a horde of wild-eyed dark-skinned men who surged and struggled round him—and of a yelling Arab on a fiery roan. Memory came in a flash. He gave a weak little croaking laugh. “You damned insubordinate little devil,” he murmured, and drifted once more into unconsciousness. When he woke again it was with complete remembrance of everything that had passed. He felt ridiculously weak, but his head did not ache so badly and his mind was perfectly clear. Only of the time that had elapsed between the moment when he had gone down under the Arabs' charge and his awakening a little while ago he had no recollection. How long had he been unconscious? He found himself mildly puzzled, but without any great interest as yet. Plenty of time to find out about that and what had befallen Omar and Saïd. It was not that he did not care, but that, for the moment, he was too tired and listless to do more than lie still and endure his own discomfort. His side throbbed painfully and there was something curious about his left arm, a dead feeling of numbness that made him wonder whether it was there at all. He glanced down at it with sudden apprehension—he had no fancy for a maimed existence—and was relieved to find it still in place but bent stiffly across his chest wrapped in a multitude of bandages—broken, presumably. His eyes wandered with growing interest round the little tent where he lay. It was his own, from which he inferred that the fight must have gone in favour of Mukair Ibn Zarrarah's forces or he would never have been brought back here to it. He glanced from one familiar object to another with a drowsy feeling of contentment.
Presently he became aware that somebody had entered and turning his head he found Yoshio beside him eyeing him with a look in which solicitude, satisfaction, and a faint diffidence struggled for supremacy. Craven guessed the reason of his embarrassment, but he had no mind to refer to an order given, and disobeyed through overzealousness. That, too, could wait—or be forgotten. He contented himself with a single question. “How long?” he asked laconically. With equal brevity the Jap replied: “Two days,” and postponed further inquiries by slipping a clinical thermometer into his master's mouth. He had always been useful in attending on minor camp accidents, and during the last two years in Central Africa he had picked up a certain amount of rough surgical knowledge which now stood him in good stead, and which he proceeded to put into practice with a gravity of demeanour that made Craven, in his weakened state, want to giggle hysterically. But he suppressed the inclination and held on to the thermometer until Yoshio solemnly removed it, studied it intently, and nodded approval. With the exact attention to detail that was his ruling passion he carefully rinsed the tiny glass instrument and returned it to its case before leaving the tent. He was back again in a few minutes with a bowl of steaming soup, and handling Craven as if he were a child, fed him with the gentleness of a woman. Then he busied himself about the room, tidying it and reducing its confusion to order.