“That’s a brave little chap!” said Charlie. “Now let Miss Anstruther lean upon your shoulder for a minute;” and he drew a revolver from his pocket, and turning, presented it at the foremost of the mob, who were by this time unpleasantly near. The front rank recoiled precipitately, and Charlie seized the opportunity.
“Take my arm again, Miss Anstruther. Hold on tight, Bey. We have not much farther to go now.”
They got on a little way, Cecil stumbling along with clenched teeth and brow drawn with pain. Then the mob began to press on them again, and Charlie fired over their heads. This daunted them a little, but they quickly came on anew, headed by a ferocious-looking ruffian who got near enough to make a snatch at Azim Bey. The boy struck out valiantly with his dagger, and Charlie turned and shot through the wrist the man who had seized him. This excited the pursuers to fury, and Charlie was obliged to walk backwards, threatening the crowd with his revolver, and doing his best to support Cecil at the same time. Happily the lane was so narrow that he was able to foil all attempts at passing him, for if these had succeeded the mob could easily have surrounded and annihilated the three fugitives, but they had a wholesome fear of the revolver in a spot where only two could comfortably walk abreast.
“Four shots more,” said Charlie, half audibly, after a short experience of the difficulties of his present mode of progression, “and the Residency is still—— We shall never reach it at this rate. Here, Bey, you run on until you come to the Residency, and tell them to have the gate open and to call out the guard. Run your hardest, and tell them we are in for a row.”
“I will not run,” said Azim Bey. “I am not a coward. Do you run on, monsieur, and leave me to defend mademoiselle.”
Charlie stamped with impatience, and his revolver went off without his intending it. He turned to the Bey with a very ugly look on his face, and uttered words which it took long for the Pasha’s son to forgive or forget.
“Look here, small boy,” he said, “you will obey orders, if you please. Do you think I would bother myself with you if I didn’t care more for Miss Anstruther’s finger-tip than for the whole of your wretched little body? I might have been able to defend her alone, but you are endangering us both. I tell you what, if you don’t go, I’ll put a bullet through your head, and have no more trouble with you. The only good you can do is to run on and give my message, and fetch help. If you don’t, mademoiselle’s death will lie at your door.”
Away went Azim Bey, in a tumult of rage, indignation, and disgust, hard to imagine and impossible to describe. Charlie heard him running off, and calculated mentally how long he would be in reaching the Residency, and how long in returning with help. Almost at the same moment he found that he was deciding, half mechanically, on which of the leaders of the mob he should bestow his last three shots. He had some more cartridges with him, but he could not load with one hand, and Cecil was clinging, half-unconscious, to his left arm. Moreover, if the crowd saw him stop to load, they would be upon him instantly.
Meanwhile Azim Bey, rushing on, had found that the lane led into the street in which the Residency stood. Running up to the gate, he was stopped by the Sepoy sentry, who refused absolutely to allow him to enter. Here was a blow.
“Slave!” cried the boy, in a frenzy, “dost thou refuse me admittance? Thou knowest not that I am Azim Bey, the Pasha-Governor’s son?”