Captain Smith was dead, with the snake's jaws buried in his throat.
Dimly Tex heard the mellow notes of the war-chief's horn. The sky cleared of the remnants of the suicide squad. The ground attackers vanished into the swamps. And then the woman whirled her mount sharply and sped straight for the fort.
Puffs of smoke burst around her but she was not hit. Low over the parapet she came, so that Tex saw the pupils of her pale-green eyes, the vital flow of muscles beneath pearly skin.
He fired, but his gun was empty.
She flung one hand high in derisive salute, and was gone. And Breska spoke softly behind Tex.
"You're in command now. And there are just the fourteen of us left."
Tex stood staring down at the dead and dying caught in the rusty net. He felt suddenly tired; so tired that just standing and looking seemed too much drain on his wasted strength.
He didn't want to fight any more. He wanted to drink, to sleep, and forget.
There was only one possible end. His mouth and throat were dry with this strange new dryness, his thirst intensified a hundredfold. The swamp men had only to wait. In another week they could take the fort without losing a man.