Part 34 (1/2)

After a few moments a faint glow appeared in the shed. There was a crackling noise. The glow grew pinker.

III

Inside Clinch's house Eve awoke with a start. Her ears were filled with a strange, rus.h.i.+ng, crackling noise. A rosy glare danced and shook outside her windows.

As she sprang to the floor on bandaged feet, a shrill scream burst out in the ruddy darkness--unearthly, horrible; and there came a thunderous battering from the barn.

The girl tore open her bedroom door. ”Jack!” she cried in a terrified voice. ”The barn's on fire!”

”Good G.o.d!” he said, ”--my horse!”

He had already sprung from his chair outside her door. Now he ran downstairs, and she heard bolt and chain clash at the kitchen door and his spurred boots land on the porch.

”Oh,” she whimpered, s.n.a.t.c.hing a blanket wrapper from a peg and struggling into it. ”Oh, the poor horse! Jack! Jack! I'm coming to help!

Don't risk your life! I'm coming--I'm coming----”

Terror clutched her as she stumbled downstairs on bandaged feet.

As she reached the door a great flare of light almost blinded her.

”Jack!”

And at the same instant she saw him struggling with three masked men in the glare of the wagon-shed afire.

His rifle stood in the corridor outside her door. With one bound she was on the stairs again. There came the crash and splinter of wood and gla.s.s from the kitchen, and a man with a handkerchief over his face caught her on the landing.

Twice she wrenched herself loose and her fingers almost touched Stormont's rifle; she fought like a cornered lynx, tore the handkerchief from her a.s.sailant's face, recognised Quintana, hurled her very body at him, eyes flaming, small teeth bared.

Two other men laid hold. In another moment she had tripped Quintana, and all four fell, rolling over and over down the short flight of stairs, landing in the kitchen, still fighting.

Here, in darkness, she wriggled out, somehow, leaving her blanket wrapped in their clutches. In another instant she was up the stairs again, only to discover that the rifle was gone.

The red glare from the wagon-house lighted her bedroom; she sprang inside and bolted the door.

Her chamois jacket with its loops full of cartridges hung on a peg. She got into it, seized her rifle and ran to the window just as two masked men, pus.h.i.+ng Stormont before them, entered the house by the kitchen way.

Her own door was resounding with kicks and blows, shaking, s.h.i.+vering under the furious impact of boot and rifle-b.u.t.t.

She ran to the bed, thrust her hand under the pillow, pulled out the case containing the Flaming Jewel, and placed it in the breast pocket of her shooting jacket.

Again she crept to the window. Only the wagon-house was burning.

Somebody, however, had led Stormont's horse from the barn, and had tied it to a tree at a safe distance. It stood there, trembling, its beautiful, nervous head turned toward the burning building.

The blows upon her bedroom door had ceased; there came a loud trampling, the sound of excited voices; Quintana's sarcastic tones, clear, dominant:

”Dios! The police! Why you bring me this gendarme? What am I to do with a gentleman of the Constabulary, eh? Do you think I am fool enough to cut his throat? Well, Senor Gendarme, what are you doing here in the Dump of Clinch?”

Then Stormont's voice, clear and quiet: ”What are _you_ doing here? If you've a quarrel with Clinch, he's not here. There's only a young girl in this house.”