What was that? Another vision of white, and gold, and blue, dashing into the sunlight with something in a little clenched right hand. Childish itself in frills, and laces, and ribbons, but with a face as relentless as the old man's, as spiritual. And a clear confident voice rang above those discordant cries.
"All right, Sonny! All right, dear!"
On, swift and straight in the sunlight; and then a pause to level the clenched right hand over the left arm coolly, and fire. The lance wavered. It was two feet further from that soft flesh and blood when Alice Gissing caught the child up, turned and ran; ran for dear life to shelter.
"Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!"
The cry came after the woman and child, and over them, released by Sonny's wild clutch at sheltering arms, the bird fluttered, echoing the cry.
But one bolt was down at last, the next yielding--Ah! who was that dressed like a native, riding like an Englishman, who leaped the high garden fence and was over among the flower-beds where Sonny was being chased. Was he friend or foe? No matter! Since under her vehement hands the bolt had fallen, and Kate was out in the veranda. Too late! The flying sunlit vision of white, and gold, and blue had tripped and fallen. No! not too late. The report of a revolver rang out, and the Cry of Faith came only from the bird, for the fierce relentless face was hidden among the laces, and frills, and ribbons that hid the withered flowers.
But the lance? The lance whose perilous nearness had made that shot Jim Douglas' only chance of keeping his promise? He was on his knees on the scorched grass choking down the curse as he saw a broken shaft among the frills and ribbons, a slow stream oozing in gushes to dye them crimson. There was another crimson spot, too, on the shoulder, showing where a bullet, after crashing through a man's temples, had found its spent resting place. But as the Englishman kicked away one body, and raised the other tenderly from the unhurt child, so as not to stir that broken shaft, he wished that if death had had to come, he might have dealt it. To his wild rage, his insane hatred, there seemed a desecration even in that cold touch of steel from a dark hand.
But Alice Gissing resented nothing. She lay propped by his arms with those wide blue eyes still wide, yet sightless, heedless of Kate's horrified whispers, or the poor old Mai's frantic whimper. Until suddenly a piteous little wail rose from the half-stunned child to mingle with that ceaseless iteration of grief. "Oh! meri buchchi murgyia!" (Oh, my girlie is dead!--dead!)
It seemed to bring her back, and a smile showed on the fast-paling face.
"Don't be a fool, Mai. It isn't a girl; it's a boy. Take care of him, do, and don't be stupid. I'm all right."