The fog covered him with its drifting folds. Stern shuddered that Beatrice should see such hideous sights; but even now he almost fell over another prostrate body, hideously wounded in the back, and still kicking.
“Ready, now!” panted Stern. “Ready with the pistols!”
Where was the patriarch?
He no longer knew. About him the Folk pressed, but none molested either him or Beatrice.
In the confusion, the rush of the outskirts of battle, he could have shot down a score of them, but he was reserving his fire. It might, perhaps, be true, who could tell--that safety lay in battling now against the Lanskaarn!
All at once the captives saw vague fire-lights in the gloom--seemingly blazing comets of blue, that tossed and hurled and disappeared.
Then came the nearer sound of shouting and the clash of arms.
Stern, with the atavistic instincts of even the most civilized man, scented the kill. And with a roar he whirled into the confused and sweltering mass of men which now, emerging from the darkening mists, had suddenly become visible by the uncanny light of the cressets on the wall.
Beside him the girl, her face aglow, nostrils dilated, breath quick, held her revolver ready.
And then, quite suddenly, they found themselves at the wall.