'We are lost,' cries Elzevir; 'it is the Posse; but if we die, this traitor shall go before us,' and he makes towards Maskew to brain him with the pistol.
'Shoot, shoot, in the Devil's name,' screams Maskew, 'or I am a dead man.'
Then there came a flash of fire along the black line of silhouettes, with a crackle like a near peal of thunder, and a fut, fut, fut, of bullets in the turf. And before Elzevir could get at him, Maskew had fallen over on the sward with a groan, and with a little red hole in the middle of his forehead.
'Run for the cliff-side,' cried Elzevir to me; 'get close in, and they cannot touch thee,' and he made for the chalk wall. But I had fallen on my knees like a bullock felled by a pole-axe, and had a scorching pain in my left foot. Elzevir looked back. 'What, have they hit thee too?' he said, and ran and picked me up like a child. And then there is another flash and fut, fut, in the turf; but the shots find no billet this time, and we are lying close against the cliff, panting but safe.
CHAPTER 10
THE ESCAPE
… How fearful
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!
… I'll look no more
Lest my brain turn—Shakespeare
The while chalk was a bulwark between us and the foe; and though one or two of them loosed off their matchlocks, trying to get at us sideways, they could not even see their quarry, and 'twas only shooting at a venture. We were safe. But for how short a time! Safe just for so long as it should please the soldiers not to come down to take us, safe with a discharged pistol in our grasp, and a shot man lying at our feet.
Elzevir was the first to speak: 'Can you stand, John? Is the bone broken?'
'I cannot stand,' I said; 'there is something gone in my leg, and I feel blood running down into my boot.'