Kitabı oku: «The Argus Pheasant», sayfa 5
Van Slyck restrained a guffaw with difficulty. It was so ridiculous – this mountain of flesh, this sweaty, panting porpoise in his unwashed linen in love with the slender, graceful Koyala. He choked and coughed discreetly.
"I am certain, mynheer," he assured.
"Tell me, kapitein, what makes you think so?" Muller begged.
Van Slyck forced himself to calmness and a judicial attitude.
"You know I have seen something of women, mynheer," he replied gravely. "Both women here and in the best houses in Amsterdam, Paris, and London. Believe me, they are all the same – a fine figure of a man attracts them."
He ran his eye over Muller's form in assumed admiration.
"You have a figure any woman might admire, mynheer. I have seen Koyala's eyes rest on you, and I know what she was thinking. You have but to speak and she is yours."
"Say you so, kapitein!" Muller cried ecstatically.
"Absolutely," Van Slyck assured. His eyes narrowed. The devilish humor incarnate in him could not resist the temptation to harrow this tortured soul. Watching Muller closely, he inquired:
"Then I can expect you to spread the net, mynheer?"
The light died in Muller's eyes. A slow, volcanic fury succeeded it. He breathed deeply and exhaled the breath in an explosive gasp. His hands clenched and the veins in his forehead became almost black. Van Slyck and he leaped to their feet simultaneously.
"Kapitein Van Slyck," he cried hoarsely, "you are a scoundrel! You would sell your own mother. Get out of my sight, or God help you, I will break you in two."
The door of the controlleur's dwelling opened. Muller leaped back, and Van Slyck's hand leaped to his holster.
"I am here, Kapitein Van Slyck," a clear, silvery voice announced coolly.
Koyala stood in the doorway.
CHAPTER VIII
Koyala's Warning
For a moment no one spoke. Koyala, poised lightly on her feet, her slender, shapely young figure held rigidly and her chin uptilted, gazed steadily at Van Slyck. Her black eyes blazed a scornful defiance. Before her contempt even the proud Amsterdammer's arrogance succumbed. He reddened shamefacedly under his tan.
"I am here, Kapitein Van Slyck," Koyala repeated clearly. She stepped toward him and reached out a slender, shapely arm, bare to the shoulder. "Here is my arm, where are your manacles, kapitein?"
"Koyala!" Muller gasped huskily. His big body was trembling with such violence that the veranda shook.
"This is my affair, mynheer," Koyala declared coldly, without removing her eyes from Van Slyck. She placed herself directly in front of the captain and crossed her wrists.
"If you have no irons, use a cord, kapitein," she taunted. "But bind fast. The Argus Pheasant is not easily held captive."
Van Slyck thrust her roughly aside.
"Let's have done with this foolishness," he exclaimed bruskly.
"What folly, mynheer kapitein?" Koyala demanded frigidly.
"You had no business eavesdropping. If you heard something unpleasant you have only yourself to blame."
Koyala's eyes sparkled with anger.
"Eavesdropping, kapitein? I came here with a message of great importance to mynheer the controlleur. Even the birds cock their ears to listen when they hear the hunter approach, kapitein."
Turning her back with scornful indifference on Van Slyck, she crossed over to Muller and placed both her hands on his shoulder. Another fit of trembling seized the acting resident and his eyes swam.
"You will forgive me, will you not, mynheer, for taking such liberties in your house?"
"Of – of course," Muller stammered.
"I heard a little of what was said," Koyala said; "enough to show me that I have a good friend here, a friend on whom I can always rely."
Van Slyck caught the emphasis on the word "friend" and smiled sardonically.
"Well, Sister Koyala," he remarked mockingly, "if you and Brother Muller will be seated we will hear your important message."
Muller plumped heavily into a chair. Things had been going too rapidly for him, his heavy wits were badly addled, and he needed time to compose himself and get a fresh grip on the situation. There was only one other chair on the veranda. Perceiving this, Van Slyck sprang forward and placed it for Koyala, smiling satirically as he did so. Koyala frowned with annoyance, hesitated a moment, then accepted it. Van Slyck swung a leg over the veranda rail.
"Your message, my dear Koyala," he prompted. He used the term of endearment lingeringly, with a quick side glance at Muller, but the controlleur was oblivious to both.
"The message is for Mynheer Muller," Koyala announced icily.
"Ah? So?" Van Slyck swung the leg free and rose. "Then I am not needed. I bid the dear bother and sister adieux."
He made an elaborate French bow and started to leave. The embarrassed Muller made a hasty protest.
"Ho, kapitein!" he cried, "do not leave us. Donder en bliksem! the message may be for us both. Who is it from, Koyala?"
Van Slyck was divided between two desires. He saw that Muller was in a panic at the thought of being left alone with Koyala, and for that reason was keenly tempted to get out of sight as quickly as possible. On the other hand he was curious to hear her communication, aware that only a matter of unusual import could have called her from the bush. Undecided, he lingered on the steps.
"It was from Ah Sing," Koyala announced.
Van Slyck's indecision vanished. He stepped briskly back on the porch.
"From Ah Sing?" he exclaimed. "Mynheer Muller and I were just discussing his affairs. Does it concern the new resident we are to have?"
"It does," Koyala acknowledged.
"Who is it?" Muller and the captain cried in the same breath.
Koyala glanced vindictively at Van Slyck.
"You are sure that you will not sell me to him, mynheer kapitein?"
Van Slyck scowled. "Tell us about the resident," he directed curtly.
Koyala's eyes sparkled maliciously.
"The new resident, mynheer kapitein, seems to have a higher opinion of me than you have. You see, he has already persuaded the governor to withdraw the offer he made for my person."
Van Slyck bit his lip, but ignored the thrust.
"Then he's one of us?" he demanded bruskly.
"On the contrary, he is a most dangerous enemy," Koyala contradicted.
"Lieve hemel, don't keep us waiting," Muller cried impatiently. "Who is it, Koyala?"
"A sailor, mynheer," Koyala announced.
"A sailor?" Van Slyck exclaimed incredulously. "Who?"
"Mynheer Peter Gross, of Batavia."
Van Slyck and Muller stared at each other blankly, each vainly trying to recall ever having heard the name before.
"Pieter Gross, Pieter Gross, he must be a newcomer," Van Slyck remarked. "I have not heard of him before, have you, mynheer?"
"There is no one by that name in the colonial service," Muller declared, shaking his head. "You say he is of Batavia, Koyala?"
"Of Batavia, mynheer, but by birth and upbringing, and everything else, a Yankee."
"A Yankee?" her hearers chorused incredulously.
"Yes, a Yankee. Mate on a trading vessel, or so he was a year ago. He has been in the Indies the past seven years."
Van Slyck broke into a roar of laughter.
"Now, by the beard of Nassau, what joke is Chanticleer playing us now?" he cried. "He must be anxious to get that Yankee out of the way."
Neither Koyala nor Muller joined in his mirth. Muller frowned thoughtfully. There was the look in his eyes of one who is striving to recollect some almost forgotten name or incident.
"Pieter Gross, Pieter Gross," he repeated thoughtfully. "Where have I heard that name before?"
"Do you remember what happened to Gogolu of Lombock the time he captured Lieutenant de Koren and his commando?" Koyala asked. "How an American sailor and ten of his crew surprised Gogolu's band, killed a great many of them, and took their prisoners away from them? That was Pieter Gross."
"Donder en bliksem. I knew I had reason to remember that name," Muller cried in alarm. "We have no Mynheer de Jonge to deal with this time, kapitein. This Yankee is a fighter."
"Good!" Van Slyck exclaimed with satisfaction. "We will give him his bellyful. There will be plenty for him to do in the bush, eh, mynheer? And if he gets too troublesome there are always ways of getting rid of him." He raised his eyebrows significantly.
"This Yankee is no fool," Muller rejoined anxiously. "I heard about that Lombock affair – it was a master coup. We have a bad man to deal with, kapitein."
Van Slyck smiled cynically.
"Humph, mynheer, you make me tired. From the way you talk one would think these Yankees can fight as well as they can cheat the brown-skins. We will fill him up with Hollands, we will swell his foolish head with praise till it is ready to burst, and then we will engineer an uprising in the hill district. Koyala can manage that for us. When Mynheer, the Yankee, hears of it he will be that thirsty for glory there will be no holding him. We will start him off with our blessings, and then we will continue our business in peace. What do you think of the plan, my dear Koyala?"
"Evidently you don't know Mynheer Gross," Koyala retorted coldly.
"Do you?" Van Slyck asked, quick as a flash.
"I have seen him," Koyala acknowledged. "Once. It was at the mouth of the Abbas River." She described the incident.
"He is no fool," she concluded. "He is a strong man, and an able man, one you will have to look out for."
"And a devilish handsome young man, too, I'll wager," Van Slyck observed maliciously with a sidelong glance at Muller. The controlleur's ruddy face darkened with a quick spasm of jealousy, at which the captain chuckled.
"Yes, a remarkably handsome man," Koyala replied coolly. "We need handsome men in Bulungan, don't we, captain? Handsome white men?"
Van Slyck looked at her quickly. He felt a certain significance in her question that eluded him. It was not the first time she had indulged in such remarks, quite trivial on their face, but invested with a mysterious something the way she said them. He knew her tragic history and was sharp enough to guess that her unholy alliance with Ah Sing grew out of a savage desire to revenge herself on a government which had permitted her to be brought up a white woman and a victim of appetites and desires she could never satisfy. What he did not know, did not even dream, was the depth of her hate against the whole white race and her fixed purpose to sweep the last white man out of Bulungan.
"We do have a dearth of society here in Bulungan," he conceded. "Do you find it so, too?"
The question was a direct stab, for not a white woman in the residency would open her doors to Koyala. The Dyak blood leaped to her face; for a moment it seemed that she would spring at him, then she controlled herself with a powerful effort and replied in a voice studiedly reserved:
"I do, mynheer kapitein, but one must expect to have a limited circle when there are so few that can be trusted."
At this juncture Muller's jealous fury overcame all bounds. Jealousy accomplished what all Van Slyck's scorn and threats could not do, it made him eager to put the newcomer out of the way.
"What are we going to do?" he thundered. "Sit here like turtles on a mud-bank while this Yankee lords it over us and ruins our business? Donder en bliksem, I won't, whatever the rest of you may do. Kapitein, get your wits to work; what is the best way to get rid of this Yankee?"
Van Slyck looked at him in surprise. Then his quick wit instantly guessed the reason for the outburst.
"Well, mynheer," he replied, shrugging his shoulders indifferently, "it seems to me that this is a matter you are more interested in than I. Mynheer Gross does not come to displace me."
"You are ready enough to scheme murders if there is a gulden in it for you, but you have no counsel for a friend, eh?" Muller snarled. "Let me remind you, kapitein, that you are involved just as heavily as I."
Van Slyck laughed in cynical good humor.
"Let it never be said that a Van Slyck is so base as that, mynheer. Supposing we put our heads together. In the first place, let us give Koyala a chance to tell what she knows. Where did you get the news, Koyala?"
"That makes no difference, mynheer kapitein," Koyala rejoined coolly. "I have my own avenues of information."
Van Slyck frowned with annoyance.
"When does he come here?" he inquired.
"We may expect him any time," Koyala stated. "He is to come when the rainy season closes, and that will be in a few days."
"Donder en bliksem, does Ah Sing know this?" Muller asked anxiously.
Van Slyck's lips curled in cynical amusement at the inanity of the question.
"He knows," Koyala declared.
"Of course he knows," Van Slyck added sarcastically. "The question is, what is he going to do?"
"I do not know," Koyala replied. "He can tell you that himself when he comes here."
"He's coming here?" Van Slyck asked quickly.
"Yes."
"When?"
"I am not in Ah Sing's councils," Koyala declared coldly.
"The deuce you're not," Van Slyck retorted irritably. "You seem to know a lot of things we hadn't heard of. What does Ah Sing expect us to do? Pander to this Yankee deck-scrubber until he comes?"
"We will do what we think best," Muller observed grimly.
Koyala looked at him steadily until his glance fell.
"You will both leave him alone and attend to your own affairs," she announced. "The new resident will be taken care of by Ah Sing – and by me."
CHAPTER IX
The Long Arm of Ah Sing
Two weeks after receiving his appointment as resident of Bulungan, Peter Gross stood on a wharf along the Batavia water-front and looked wistfully out to sea. It was early evening and quite dark, for the moon had not risen and the eastern sky from the zenith down was obscured by fitful patches of cloud, gray-winged messengers of rain. In the west, Venus glowed with a warm, seductive light, like a lamp in a Spanish garden. A brisk and vigorous breeze roughed the waters of the bay that raced shoreward in long rollers to escape its impetuous wooing.
Peter Gross breathed the salt air deeply and stared steadfastly into the west, for he was sick at heart. Not until now did he realize what giving up the sea meant to him. The sea! – it had been a second mother to him, receiving him into its open arms when he ran away from the drudgery of the farm to satisfy the wanderlust that ached and ached in his boyish heart. Ay, it had mothered him, cradling him at night on its fond bosom while it sang a wild and eerie refrain among sail and cordage, buffeting him in its ill-humor, feeding him, and even clothing him. His first yellow oilskin, he remembered poignantly, had been salvaged from a wreck.
Now he was leaving that mother. He was leaving the life he had lived for ten years. He was denying the dreams and ambitions of his youth. He was casting aside the dream of some day standing on the deck of his own ship with a score of smart sailors to jump at his command. A feeling akin to the home-sickness he had suffered when, a lad of fifteen, he lived through his first storm at sea, in the hold of a cattle-ship, came over him now. Almost he regretted his decision.
Since bidding good-bye to Captain Threthaway two weeks before, he had picked twenty-four of the twenty-five men he intended to take with him for the pacification of Bulungan. The twenty-fifth he expected to sign that night at the home of his quondam skipper, Captain Roderick Rouse, better known as Roaring Rory. Rouse had been a trader in the south seas for many years and was now skipper of a smart little cottage in Ryswyk, the European residence section of Batavia. Peter Gross's presence at the water-front was explained by the fact that he had an hour to spare and naturally drifted to Tanjong Priok, the shipping center.
The selection of the company had not been an easy task. Peter Gross had not expected that it would be. He found the type of men he wanted even scarcer than he anticipated. For the past two weeks beachcombers and loafers along the wharves, and tourists, traders, and gentlemen adventurers at the hotels had looked curiously at the big, well-dressed sailor who always seemed to have plenty of time and money to spend, and was always ready to gossip. Some of them tried to draw him out. To these he talked vaguely about seeing a little of Java before he went sailoring again. Opinion became general that for a sailor Peter Gross was remarkably close-mouthed.
While he was to all appearances idly dawdling about, Peter Gross was in reality getting information concerning hardy young men of adventuresome spirit who might be persuaded to undertake an expedition that meant risk of life and who could be relied upon. Each man was carefully sounded before he was signed, and when signed, was told to keep his mouth shut.
But the major problem, to find a capable leader of such a body of men, was still unsolved. Peter Gross realized that his duties as resident precluded him from taking personal charge. He also recognized his limitations. He was a sailor; a soldier was needed to whip the company in shape, a bush-fighter who knew how to dispose those under him when Dyak arrows and Chinese bullets began to fly overhead in the jungle.
Two weeks of diligent search had failed to unearth any one with the necessary qualifications. Peter Gross was beginning to despair when he thought of his former skipper, Captain Rouse. Looking him up, he explained his predicament.
"By the great Polar B'ar," Roaring Rory bellowed when Peter Gross had finished his recital. "How the dickens do you expect to clean out that hell-hole with twenty-five men? Man, there's a hundred thousand Dyaks alone, let alone those rat-faced Chinks that come snoopin' down like buzzards smellin' carrion, and the cut-throat Bugis, and the bad men the English chased out of Sarawak, and the Sulu pirates, and Lord knows what all. It's suicide."
"I'm not going to Bulungan to make war," Peter Gross explained mildly.
Roaring Rory spat a huge cud of tobacco into a cuspidor six feet away, the better to express his astonishment.
"Then what in blazes are you goin' there for?" he roared.
Peter Gross permitted himself one of his rare smiles. There was a positive twinkle in his eyes as he replied:
"To convince them I am their best friend."
Roaring Rory's eyes opened wide.
"Convince 'em – what?" he gasped.
"That I am their friend."
The old sea captain stared at his ex-mate.
"You're jokin'," he declared.
"I was never more serious in my life," Peter Gross assured gravely.
"Then you're a damn' fool," Roaring Rory asserted. "Yes, sir, a damn' fool. I didn't think it of ye, Peter."
"It will take time, but I believe I see my way," Peter Gross replied quietly. He explained his plan briefly, and as he described how he expected to win the confidence and support of the hillmen, Roaring Rory became calmer.
"Mebbe you can do it, Peter, mebbe you can do it," he conceded dubiously. "But that devil of an Ah Sing has a long arm, and by the bye, I'd keep indoors after sundown if I were you."
"But this isn't getting me the man I need," Peter Gross pointed out. "Can you recommend any one, captain?"
Roaring Rory squared back in his chair.
"I hain't got the latitude and longitude of this-here proposition of yours figured just yet," he replied, producing a plug of tobacco and biting off a generous portion before passing it hospitably to his visitor. "Just what kind of a man do you want?"
Peter Gross drew his chair a few inches nearer the captain's.
"What I want," he said, "is a man that I can trust – no matter what happens. He doesn't need to know seamanship, but he's got to be absolutely square, a man the sight of gold or women won't turn. He has to be a soldier, an ex-army officer, and a bush-fighter, a man who has seen service in the jungle. A man from the Philippines would just fill the bill. He has to be the sort of a man his men will swear by. And he has to have a clean record."
Roaring Rory grunted. "Ye don't want nothin', do ye? I'd recommend the Angel Gabriel."
"There is such a man," Peter Gross insisted. "There always is. You've got to help me find him, captain."
Rouse scratched his head profoundly and squinted hard. By and bye a big grin overspread his features.
"I've got a nevvy," he announced, "who'd be crazy to be with ye. He's only seventeen, but big for his age. He's out on my plantation now. Hold on," he roared as Peter Gross attempted to interrupt. "I'm comin' to number twenty-five. This nevvy has a particular friend that's with him now out to the plantation. 'Cordin' to his log, this chap's the very man ye're lookin' for. Was a captain o' volunteer infantry and saw service in the Philippines. When his time run out he went to Shanghai for a rubber-goods house, and learned all there is to know about Chinks. He's the best rifle shot in Java. An' he can handle men. He ain't much on the brag order, but he sure is all there."
"That is the sort of a man I have been looking for," Peter Gross observed with satisfaction.
"He's worth lookin' up at any rate," Captain Rouse declared. "If you care to see him and my nevvy, you're in luck. They're comin' back to-night. They had a little business here, so they run down together and will bunk with me. I expect them here at nine o'clock, and if ye're on deck I'll interduce you. What d'ye say?"
"I knew you wouldn't fail me, captain," Peter Gross replied warmly. "I'll be here."
The shrill whistle of a coaster interrupted Peter Gross's melancholy reflections. He recollected with a start that it must be near the time he had promised to be at Captain Rouse's cottage. Leaving the wharves, he ambled along the main traveled highway toward the business district until overtaken by a belated victoria whose driver he hailed.
The cool of evening was descending from the hills as the vehicle turned into the street on which Captain Rouse lived. It was a wide, tree-lined lane, with oil lamps every six or seven hundred feet whose yellow rays struggled ineffectually to banish the somber gloom shed by the huge masses of foliage that shut out the heavens. Feeling cramped from his long ride and a trifle chill, Peter Gross suddenly decided to walk the remainder of the distance, halted his driver, paid the fare, and dismissed him. Whistling cheerily, a rollicking chanty of the sea to which his feet kept time, he walked briskly along.
Cutting a bar of song in the middle, he stopped suddenly to listen. Somewhere in the darkness behind him someone had stumbled into an acacia hedge and had uttered a stifled exclamation of pain. There was no other sound, except the soughing of the breeze through the tree-tops.
"A drunken coolie," he observed to himself. He stepped briskly along and resumed his whistling. The song came to an abrupt close as his keen ears caught a faint shuffling not far behind, a shuffling like the scraping of a soft-soled shoe against the plank walk. He turned swiftly, ears pricked, and looked steadily in the direction that the sound came from, but the somber shadows defied his searching glance.
"Only coolies," he murmured, but an uneasy feeling came upon him and he quickened his pace. His right hand involuntarily slipped to his coat-pocket for the pistol he customarily carried. It was not there. A moment's thought and he recollected he had left it in his room.
As he reached the next street-lamp he hesitated. Ahead of him was a long area of unlighted thoroughfare. Evidently the lamp-lighter had neglected his duties. Or, Peter Gross reflected, some malicious hand might have extinguished the lights. It was on this very portion of the lane that Captain Rouse's cottage stood, only a few hundred yards farther.
He listened sharply a moment. Back in the shadows off from the lane a piano tinkled, the langorous Dream Waltz from the Tales of Hoffman. A lighted victoria clattered toward him, then turned into a brick-paved driveway. Else not a sound. The very silence was ominous.
Walking slowly, to accustom his eyes to the gloom, Peter Gross left the friendly circle of light. As the shadows began to envelop him he heard the sound of running feet on turf. Some one inside the hedge was trying to overhaul him. He broke into a dog-trot.
A low whistle cut the silence. Leaping forward, he broke into a sprint. Rouse's cottage was only a hundred yards ahead – a dash and he would be there.
A whistle from in front. A like sound from the other side of the lane. The stealthy tap-tapping of feet, sandaled feet, from every direction.
For a moment Peter Gross experienced the sensation of a hunted creature driven to bay. It was only for a moment, however, and then he acquainted himself with his surroundings in a quick, comprehensive glance. On one side of him was the hedge, on the other a line of tall kenari-trees.
Vaulting the hedge, he ran silently and swiftly in its shadow, hugging the ground like a fox in the brush. Suddenly and without warning he crashed full-tilt into a man coming from the opposite direction, caught him low, just beneath the ribs. The man crashed back into the hedge with an explosive gasp.
Ahead were white pickets, the friendly white pickets that enclosed Captain Rouse's grounds. He dashed toward them, but he was too late. Out of a mass of shrubbery a short, squat figure leaped at him. There was the flash of a knife. Peter Gross had no chance to grapple with his assailant. He dropped like a log, an old sailor's trick, and the short, squat figure fell over him. He had an instant glimpse of a yellow face, fiendish in its malignancy, of a flying queue, of fingers that groped futilely, then he rose.
At the same instant a cat-like something sprang on him from behind, twisted its legs around his body, and fastened its talons into his throat. The impact staggered him, but as he found his footing he tore the claw-like fingers loose and shook the creature off. Simultanelusly two shadows in front of him materialized into Chinamen with gleaming knives. As they leaped at him a red-hot iron seared his right forearm and a bolt of lightning numbed his left shoulder.
A sound like a hoarse, dry cackle came from Peter Gross's throat. His long arms shot out and each of his huge hands caught one of his assailants by the throat. Bringing their heads together with a sound like breaking egg-shells, he tossed them aside.
Before he could turn to flee a dozen shadowy forms semi-circled about him. The starlight dimly revealed gaunt, yellow faces and glaring eyes, the eyes of a wolf-pack. The circle began to narrow. Knives glittered. But none of the crouching forms dared venture within reach of the gorilla arms.
Then the lion arose in Peter Gross. Beside him was an ornamental iron flower-pot. Stooping quickly, he seized it and lifted it high above his head. They shrank from him, those crouching forms, with shrill pipings of alarm, but it was too late. He hurled it at the foremost. It caught two of them and bowled them over like ninepins. Then he leaped at the others. His mighty right caught one under the chin and laid him flat. His left dove into the pit of another's stomach. The unfortunate Chinaman collapsed like a sack of grain.
They ringed him round. A sharp, burning sensation swept across his back – it was the slash of a knife. A blade sank into the fleshy part of his throat, and he tore it impatiently away. He struck out savagely into the densely packed mass of humanity and a primitive cave-man surge of joy thrilled him at the impact of his fists against human flesh and bone.
But the fight was too unequal. Blood started from a dozen cuts; it seemed to him he was afire within and without. His blows began to lack power and a film came over his eyes, but he struck out the more savagely, furious at his own weakness. The darkness thickened. The figures before him, beside him, behind him, became more confused. Two and three heads bobbed where he thought there was only one. His blows went wild. The jackals were pulling the lion down.
As he pulled himself together for a last desperate effort to plough through to the security of Rouse's home, the sharp crack of a revolver sounded in his ear. At the same instant the lawn leaped into a blinding light, a light in which the gory figures of his assailants stood out in dazed and uncertain relief. The acrid fumes of gunpowder filled his nostrils.
Darting toward the hedges like rats scurrying to their holes, the Chinamen sought cover. Peter Gross hazily saw two men, white men, each of them carrying a flash-light and a pistol, vault the pickets. A third followed, swinging a lantern and bellowing for the "wacht" (police). It was Roaring Rory.
"Are you hurt?" the foremost asked as he approached.
"Not bad, I guess," Peter Gross replied thickly. He lifted his hand to his forehead in a dazed, uncertain way and looked stupidly at the blood that gushed over it. A cleft seemed to open at his feet. He felt himself sinking – down, down, down to the very foundations of the world. Dimly he heard the cry:
"Quick, Paddy, lend a hand."
Then came oblivion.
