The Russian fell forward, shot through the head.
And then Bugs forgot everything but the lust to kill. The gallant Russian was dead. Bugs' great plan was dead with him. But it was not the plan that roused Bugs. It was grief. He had come to love his strange bedfellow.
The cadi's car came alongside the truck, its brakes screaming. Bugs shot the Nubian dead. The body toppled on to the road. The terrified cadi fired his rifle, but he was too scared in his cowardly soul to take aim.
"Drop it, and reach up with your hands!"
The cadi obeyed the terrible ferocity in Bugs' voice. Bugs turned on the chauffeur.
"You, too, get out of the car!"
The shivering cadi and driver stood on the side of the road, their trembling hands held skyward.
"This is an execution." Bugs was mad with rage and grief. "I could easily have shot you, without troubling to talk. But this will hurt you more! I wish I had rope to hang you. . . . I have never done such a thing before!"
He walked a few yards away. Then he fired at the cadi's head—missing him by deliberate inches. Intentionally. He fired again. The terrified cadi went through hell with every shot.
Suddenly it came to Bugs that he, a white man, was lowering himself to the cadi's level by this brutality—much as the cadi deserved such a death. He put his next bullet through the cadi's head.
Then he spoke to the chauffeur.
"Got a gun on you?"
The chauffeur went down on his knees. He had no weapon at all.
"Go to that old truck," commanded Bugs. "In it you will find the dead body of a very gallant gentleman. Carry that body over here to this car. Be reverent. You are greatly honored in ways beyond your vile comprehension! . . . So, very gently now! Rest him on the cushions of the back seat. Compose him! Gently now, with reverence! So! Now, worm of hell, get back to your driver's seat, and drive ahead—to Aden. And be careful! If you hit a rock and disturb this dead gentleman I will put a bullet through the back of your head, and drive the car myself!"
The chauffeur obeyed. He drove as if on the edge of a precipice. . . .
Bugs looked at the dead Russian. He took the dead hand in his, and shook it respectfully.
"I shall never know your name, old man," he said gently. "But as I am quite sure that you are watching me from somewhere on the 'other side,' may I tell you that you were the best man I ever met! We are enemies—according to the laws of our countries. But we became brothers, you dear strange bedfellow—by the law of God. Good-bye, old man. We played a great game together. It ended in a draw, for the papers you so gallantly gave your life to deliver to your government are useless to me now. . . . So, the game is over. A draw. . . . Somehow I am glad—I would not have liked to have won from so gallant a man. . . . Good-night, old man. Good-night!"
Bugs wiped a hand across his eyes and looked ahead. Over to the right, in the morning refraction of the steaming Red Sea, was Perim Island. And, bearing to the left, was Aden and the flag in the morning breeze.
Another gripping Bugs Sinnat story will bo published in our next issue.
