"Come, my son!" he said, motioning him to dismount.
A tension broke. She lifted up her riding-whip and struck hard at him, struck with the concentrated strength of passion and despair. He leaped aside, but the end of the lash reached him and left a staring weal of red upon his cheek.
He cursed aloud; he made as if he would spring at her.
A warning cry came from behind him; half a dozen revolver shots rang out upon the evening air.
Absalaam, sitting stark upon his stallion, covered by the revolvers which encircled him, had struck his spurs against his horse's flank. The fire in the animal's blood had responded in a great leap forward. Landon wheeled round to see, towering above him, man and horse, looming gigantic against the glare of the sunset. Instinctively, automatically, he threw up the muzzle of his own revolver, and fired full at the Moor's broad chest.
The other bullets flew wide, but that one, so near was the human target, had no room to miss. Absalaam fell limply, heavily from the saddle, fell at his mistress's feet. The horse tore past a dozen restraining hands into liberty.
There was shouting, confusion, the rattle of other shots. And then the voice of the brown djelabed man thundered out high above the uproar.
"In God's name, Sidi, have haste. Four of them have fled into the thicket! God alone knows what help they may bring their fellows and how soon!"
And Landon, who had been flung to his knees in the dust, rose swiftly, without another word snatched his son from the saddle, and led the way into the jungle.
In five short minutes he had come, conquered, and gone. He had won every trick, every trick! Claire passed her hand across her brow as she stared at the huddle of wounded and—she shuddered in agony as the thought thrilled—perchance the dead! What lay within that ring of broken bodies—what? With white lips and fear-brimmed eyes she slipped from her saddle to see.