XI
Despite the utmost vigilance, despite full preparations, the attack came in the waning darkness of dawn as a total surprise. It was more than an attack—it was a deluge!
Bundles of oil-soaked fagots suddenly burst into flame outside the compound walls. Before the guards could fire on the men who had set the flames, a burst of musketry came from the roofs of the main palace. Slugs and balls swept the compound, and a storm of death rained upon the crowded soldiery. Trees and roofs vomited forth arrows. From the gardens a mass of troops rushed swiftly forward to the attack.
Smith, who was on guard at the moment, strove desperately to rally his men; but bows were unstrung, arbalests unwound. Before any head could be made, before any order could be brought out of the confusion, the attackers were beating at the gates and scaling the low walls. And all the while the brilliantly lighted compound was showered with slugs and balls from the muskets on the palace roofs; while archers, stationed in the gardens close by, kept up a rain of shafts that struck down man after man.
In this moment of peril it was Wemyss who saved the situation.
He appeared suddenly, half naked, on the wall beside the gateway. He stood there, cool as ice, in the full glare of light, an automatic in each hand. Into the raging faces below he fired shot after shot, while about him sang shafts and quarrels, and long spears plucked at him with their curved hooks. Under his deliberate and deadly fire, the center of the attack broke, and by the time Smith dragged him to shelter the nobles had armed and were at the walls.
Now the attack surged up anew, with a fierce venom, in a hand-to-hand combat. But here the nobles proved their worth. Armed from head to foot, swinging long swords, they held the surging tide of foemen, beat back those who had gained the wall, and gave Chou time to get his archers at work.
These opened suddenly, sending into the mass of the attackers a deadly rain of shafts, while the hum of the bowstrings sounded through the din of shouts in a vibrant and angry undertone.
The blazing fires, which had almost brought success to that first wave of attack, now served the defenders well. The assailing forces were in the full light, and the angry shafts searched pitilessly through their ranks. Smith and Wemyss, with the last of their cartridges, began to work havoc with the musketeers on the palace roofs; and as suddenly as it had begun, the attack was broken.
There was no let-up, however. From the gardens about the compound, archers and arbalests shot their bolts of death, which rose high and came pattering down about the courtyard in a continual rain. Occasional bullets, too, came rattling into the place, and it was plain that Liu Ku meant to make a second and more determined effort.
As the gray dawn broke into day, Smith surveyed his fortress. He could not repress a groan of dismay. The place was a shambles; that commanding rain of slugs and bullets had left the courtyard red and reeking.
Suddenly the groups of nobles and soldiers were swept by a stir of excited interest; then a murmur of delight broke from them, and they prostrated themselves. Smith turned, and saw Ardzrouni approaching, in his faded khaki.
"Feeling fit?" he asked casually. "How's the wound?"
Ardzrouni shrugged.
"All right, thanks. Have you any spare pistol cartridges? I've run low."
"I've run out entirely." Smith smiled. "Sorry!"
"This evens us up—I think they'll fit."
Ardzrouni extended half a dozen cartridges—half of what he had. Smith nodded and accepted them. At this instant a scream echoed from the buildings. The eyes of the two men met in startled recognition; then Ardzrouni turned and dashed away.
He entered the rooms occupied by Major Wemyss and Florence, to see the girl bending above the figure of her father. With an exclamation, Ardzrouni rushed forward and raised the major's head in his arms. The sallow features smiled faintly.
"Liu Ku was right—cursed thing bad luck— I say, you'll take—care of her—"
The head lolled suddenly. Ardzrouni glanced up to the girl's horrified face.
"How did it happen?"
"A bullet came in through the window and struck that pipe of jade and gold, and a piece of the jade went into his throat!"
With a burst of sobs she threw herself across the body of her father. Ardzrouni touched her hair with his hand, a caress in the gesture. Then, at a tumult of quick yells from outside, he rose.
"Wait here for me," he said, and hurriedly ran to rejoin Smith.
The sun was rising. The red fingers of the dawn had already turned to golden shafts that searched out the zenith. Above the palace, the flag of France hung like a glowing spot of color against the sky.
The final attack was begun.
Another outburst of confident yells greeted the appearance of Ardzrouni. For an instant he halted, sickened by the thought of the false faith that these men held in his miraculous powers. Bolts and arrows were devastating their ranks, looming across the new day like clouds, yet still they cheered him. Then he found Smith at his elbow.
"What happened?"
"Wemyss—a stray bullet. Here they come!"
They came, indeed, converging upon the compound from three sides, heralded by a last discharge of arrows. Chou's voice rang out, and the thinned ranks of his archers made response. The long shafts bit into the attackers, the last bullets from the pistols of Smith and Ardzrouni dropped their men; but the attack was not halted. A wave of men broke upon the wall, surged up and over it, and fell inside.
Now came a clash of steel as the nobles met the shock. Smith drew back a little, and waited. He saw at a glance that everything was lost. The gates were smashed in, the wall was taken in several places. Ardzrouni, blood streaming down his face from a wound made by a glancing arrow, seized a long sword and threw himself into the thick of the combat. Beside him the lean, terrible figure of Colonel Chou uprose, smiting again and again.
Smith's eye was caught by a moving object outside the walls, and he saw the golden palanquin of Liu Ku coming from the palace. It halted at a safe distance from the compound, and the huge figure of the eunuch appeared, to watch the overwhelming of his enemies. A curse broke from Smith—his last cartridge was gone!
The whole line of wall was taken now, and in the compound everything had fallen into wild confusion—broken, scattered groups of men fighting madly. Ardzrouni and his followers were gradually driven back, encircled, hemmed in. Admiration filled the eyes of Smith as he watched the man who had been king.
"Well, the game's up!" he muttered. "If we could have only held out for a day or two, we might have been all right. As it is, I'd better join Ardzrouni and—"
His eyes lifted to the sky. They fastened upon something there, widened, and into his face leaped a great incredulity. Then, suddenly, his voice cracked across the din.
"Ardzrouni! Ardzrouni! Your eagle!"
The dark man heard. He drove his blade into a man who clung to him, shook himself clear, and looked upward with a laugh. The laugh froze upon his face. Into the air shot his arm and sword, the steel shaking at the sky, and his voice rang like a trumpet to his men around.
"The eagle comes! Ha, Ardzrouni!"
Abruptly everything fell silent. Men looked upward, forgot their weapons, and stared wildly at the sky. Remembrance of the prophesied miracle swept through all that fighting crowd—and they saw that the miracle had happened!
For, sweeping down from a great height, was the fighting aëroplane which Smith had ordered, and of whose arrival he had begun to despair. The vibrant thrum of the engine reached the watching, staring men, and voice them from their trance. Ardzrouni's nobles uttered one soul-piercing yell, and drove into their foes; and those foes broke before them, fleeing with screams of terror. The miraculous bird had come to shatter them in the very moment of victory!
Ardzrouni leaped out among the foremost as the assailants flowed back over the wall, to be pursued and cut down mercilessly. He, too, had seen that golden palanquin—but Colonel Chou was ahead of him.
Liu Ku was striving frantically, furiously, to rally some of his men, when Chou reached him. The sword of the noble flashed in the sunlight, and rose crimsoned.
Ardzrouni came back, panting, to where Smith stood at the gateway. The aëroplane was circling the gardens, seeking a landing place, and suddenly it darted down among the trees. Smith, disregarding everything around, quietly filled and lighted his pipe.
"Rather dramatic!" he said. "I'll have to go over and meet those chaps. There'll be a company of Territorials somewhere on the way, to consolidate things here, but I anticipated.that the 'plane would make an impression. Lucky thing, eh?"
"More than lucky," said Ardzrouni. "A miracle, I should call it!"
Smith laughed quietly.
"That's what your friends are calling it, and no mistake! Well, you'd better come along with me."
Ardzrouni shook his head.
"No—you're in command here. I'm going to get out of this cursed place the minute poor Wemyss is buried. I'm going to see her now, to see if she'll go with me."
Smith's brows lifted in comprehension.
"So? Congratulations! I fancy she'll go, right enough; but why not stay here for a while? There'll be a priest with the troops, you know."
Ardzrouni laughed, then turned and entered the building where Florence Wemyss awaited him. As he went, he smiled like one who has wakened from a dream into the light of day. And Florence, when he came to her, was smiling through her tears at the sight of his face; for, despite its marks of battle, that face was transfigured.
"It is ended!" said Ardzrouni, taking her hand in his.
She looked at him and shook her head.
"No," she said, and again that smile broke through her grief. "No—it is only beginning."
"Thank God!" said Ardzrouni, and bowed his lips to her hand.
THE END