Fear fell on all of us, as if the sky had opened; and the warriors grounded their guns upon the moss, and crowded round one who had an image on his breast. Then with one accord they began a mournful howl, of a quality to come from the bowels of the earth, or send all her inhabitants into them. My presence of mind was restored by this; and with scarcely a wound I leaped back into my shelter, recovered my weapons, and determined to die hard.
CHAPTER LVI HARD IS THE FIGHT
What right had I to be out of breath, after standing stock-still no one knows how long, like a cardboard dummy to be shot at? But there seemed to be a hollow where my heart in its duty should have been staunch and steadfast; and my brain (having never been wrought up like this) must have lost its true balance and standard. Otherwise could it have shocked me to know that a career of cruelty and wickedness was brought to an ignominious close?
"Marva is dead," I kept on saying; "the greatest woman of the age is dead! Not the best, not the purest, not even a true woman. But how grand was her attitude, and how she disdained me! And now a wretched Svân has shot her!"
Let any one despise me as he likes, with reason on his tongue and humanity in his eyes. For the world at large it might be better to have such a woman stretched beneath the turf; but a man with his heart in the right place—which the muzzle of her musket knew too well—could not help feeling for her grandeur.
However, it was not for me to lay down the law, or even to stand up for it against this crew of savages. To keep out of their way was my one desire, and at first there seemed to be some chance of it, with their leader a corpse, and superstition frowning at them from the dungeon-gate. Hoping thus, I stood back in a niche of granite, while a bullet or two sang along the vault, and I strove to recover the spirit of a man, by thinking of my country and the luck we have in turning the corner of situations, where others would lie down and breathe their last.
The bar to which Sûr Imar had been bound was still in place; but he was not in sight, neither could I see his son, the gentle youth sent to assassinate him. Then I heard the sound of heavy blows, and concluded that the younger man was striving to release his sister, while the father lay half-conscious still from brutal cruelty and want of food. There was none but myself to guard the entrance—for Usi and Nickols had not appeared—until our friends at the valley's mouth should have time to come to the rescue.