“Quick, Naida!” he snapped again. “We must hold the tower!”
Naida, all of the girls, were staring dazedly at Elana, dead.
“The tower!” she choked. “But we cannot go there. It is the Duca’s!”
“Because it is the Duca’s,” Kirby said firmly, “is exactly why we must hold it. Come, Naida, please—”
And then he saw comprehension begin to dawn at last.
He also saw two of the caciques glide from the wooden line, and slink toward him past the unconscious Duca, stealthily.
As Naida suddenly cried out to her companions, pushed at two of them, and then darted like a rainbow nymph toward the silent and forbidding upward spiral of steps, Kirby faced the gliding caciques.
One he clutched with viselike hands, and lifted him. As the other shrieked and sprang, he was mowed down by the hurtling body of his fellow priest which Kirby flung forward mightily.
The rest of the caciques were howling. While Naida waited beside the tower door, the other girls flashed up the steps. The Duca still lay where he had fallen, a thread of blood oozing from his mouth. Kirby, after his last look over all, solemnly stooped and gathered in his arms the limp, radiant little body of the girl who had given her life that her friends might be left with a leader.