“All right. About face! Allons!”
Tony turned with the others. But before a foot was lifted there came an interruption. The priest’s voice was raised in an urgent command in an unfamiliar tongue. He, with the others, had seen the bloodstained, tattered, huge figure that sprang out from concealment behind a rock.
“Kill those men!” a bull voice shouted. “Blast ’em down!”
“Commander Desquer!” Brady clipped—and then—
“Out guns!”
For from the ranks of the Copts a pale ray had lanced, striking full upon Desquer’s bison chest, bared by a tattered tunic. Another ray touched Tony; he felt a wave of intolerable heat as he snatched out the carbon-gun at his belt.
Cr-rack! Brady’s weapon snarled viciously, and the heat-ray left Tony. He slipped a coal-cartridge into the cup and triggered almost without aiming. The deadly little guns worked havoc. But there were almost a dozen Copts, and for a few moments the tunnel was a chaotic Maelstrom of battle, dominated by Desquer’s deep voice roaring commands.
“Get them! All of them! Aim at their bellies!”
Smoke drifted away. The Copts lay in helpless huddles amid red stains. Tony lowered his gun and stared around anxiously. Jimmy was painfully rubbing his arm where a heat-ray had cindered the cloth. Phil was apparently untouched, and so was Jacklyn, but Captain Brady was rubbing his thigh and cursing quietly. As for Commander Desquer, it was impossible to judge whether he had been injured in the conflict. He was already wounded in a dozen places.
Tony’s fascinated gaze clung to the man. The mighty body was thewed like an auroch-bull, the matted, deep chest heaving convulsively with exhaustion. The commander’s head was shaved, but nevertheless there was something leonine about his face. Shaggy, tufted eyebrows overhung glittering small eyes, and thick, sensual lips were pressed tightly together. Desquer reminded Tony, somehow, of a Nero or a Caligula—a degenerate Roman despot.