Harilek

by Martin Louis Alan Gompertz

I thought that was the end. I struggled on twenty paces or so and then stopped, slipped my arm from under the girl’s knees so that she could stand, and with my left arm round her shoulders turned, drawing my pistol as I did, and covering her body as best I could with my own.

The leading man, a sinister, dark-visaged fellow, was within twenty yards of me, a short heavy sword in his hand. Practically level with him was another man. Ten yards behind them was a third, and beyond that again two more, all running fast, with guttural shouts, while two or three more showed in the open gate.

As I turned I saw one of the hindmost pair stop, sink slowly to his knees, and then roll over sideways. Payindah had caught him, all right. I asked him afterwards why he picked the last man, and found that we had been between him and the leading man, and he dared not shoot at them for fear of hitting us.

The leaders were within ten yards as I fired. The heavy bullet took the first low in the middle of the body, and he smashed down in a heap, his steel cap ringing over the stones nearly to our feet. His feet drummed a second on the ground, and then he lay still—face buried in a huddle of bones, one of his earlier victims. The girl gave a little gasp as he went over. The second man had leaped in at the same moment, and was barely three yards from me when my second shot caught him in the chest, and he flung forward at my feet. He tried to struggle up, but sank again, blood pouring from mouth and nose.

Seeing his leaders drop, the third man, checked at this new fashion of killing, turned his head to see if he was supported, missed the fifth man, and as he looked saw the fourth pitch backwards with a ringing crash of metal, and then turned to fly. I fired, but missed him, and he made for the gate.

I thrust the pistol back into its holster, swung the girl up again, and made off once more. And as we started, out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the last fellow shooting forward on to his face, roll over, wriggle up on his hands again trying to claw his way forward, struggling and screaming like a wounded rabbit. I think Payindah must have broken his spine low down. From what I learnt of him and his kind afterwards, I’m glad he took some little time to die.

Then Payindah turned on to the gate, and within fifteen seconds that was shut again hurriedly. I expect the bullets ricocheting round corners into the passage behind, as arrows could never have done, was pretty scaring to the men inside, leaving out the sudden incomprehensible deaths of the party in the open.

But his switching off the loopholes gave the men above a chance. Probably some bold spirit had rallied them after their first surprise, and as we started off the second time two arrows shot by, just missing us; then two more, one of which went through the skirt of my coat.

So far I had not had much time to consider the girl, but I glanced down at her as the arrows came over, and tried to get her head below the level of my shoulder. She was quite conscious, and cooler than most people would have been in her circumstances; and yet as I stumbled along over the stones she must have been suffering agonies, with her arms bound so tight that her shoulder-joints seemed to stick clean out of her body. There was no colour in her drawn face, and there were dark shadows below her big hazel-grey eyes. But she lay there in my arms with never a moan.

Then I caught my foot in some snag and nearly fell. Something tore across my face, and I heard the girl give a little faint cry. An arrow had flicked in between us as I stumbled and, tearing open my cheek, had grazed a couple of inches below her right shoulder. But she didn’t scream, just looked down at the wound and up at me again.