CHAPTER XVII
YA-HOO!
Time dragged in the White Chapel. The air seemed devitalized. The kerosene flare, the exploded powder gases, the carbonic discharge of their own lungs, appeared to have robbed it of freshness, despite the great vault of the cave, the tunnels and the rift above the dry waterfall. The taint of the cavern where the mummies sat in ghastly conclave crept into the place. Worst of all, the explosions had somewhere opened a fissure, and, drop by drop, with an iteration that was maddening, somewhere within the walls water was falling. It was impossible in that place of hollows even to trace the general direction of the sound, but sitting there in the silence, parching with a thirst that seemed to increase with every drip, the tantalizing plop-plop dominated everything. Their pulses began to beat to it, it was like the tick of a clock, beating off the hours they had left to live; it seemed to pound upon their brains like the water torment of medieval prisons.
So it affected Sheridan, a species of hypnosis that caused the little thread of water to assume the proportions of a sparkling mountain torrent, clear and cold, impressed upon his brain until, with an effort, he concentrated upon more material things.
The three riders were asleep, the wounded man lying with his head pillowed on Red's lap. Sheridan was not so much on watch as unable to sleep. Quong's eyes were closed but every now and then the lids opened to show glittering slits of wakefulness. Occasionally there were sounds high above as if the cold was loosening, shifting the clay already loosened by the blasting.
Sheridan went over and over the situation, like a squirrel in a revolving cage, getting nowhere, finding no way out.
Once, before they fell asleep with their responsibilities shifted to Sheridan's shoulders, the three riders had whispered together and then talked to Red in a low voice. He had laughed at them but he reported to Sheridan.
"The boys have got an idee that mebbe Quong is in on this deal. Got you an' us to get out the stuff, an' arranged for the rest of his pals to come on an' take it away from us, savin' his face."
"You don't believe that. Red, do you?"
"No, I don't. Not if I'm enny judge of humans. Course a Chink's hard to read. He don't give himself away."
"He risked as much as we did when they threw in the dynamite."
"Yep, but you might have noticed he was well to the rear. But I don't take stock in it, an' I told 'em so."
Now this sinister suggestion returned to Sheridan. Everything was distorted in the face of their dilemma. And, if the air was devitalized, it was also surcharged with premonition, a prickly sort of statics that got at the very soul of him. The quiet and the silence were ominous. He could not reason that the Chinese would wait until the defenders were too weak to repulse them. That might take a day or two, depending upon the air. The cactus plug was effective in more ways than one. But Hsu Fu could not know how soon they might be missed, or the idea come to their friends that something had gone wrong. To blast them in and come back later would be too big a risk for a rescue in the meantime. Everything pointed to a speedy clean-up and he was certain that the crafty minds outside were planning a coup. And the helpless waiting was demoralizing. Was Quong playing double?
He looked across at the mandarin, and envied him his capacity for absolute relaxation and withdrawal into a placidity that reserved all forces. Yet he felt that the will of the man was like a tightly coiled spring, encased for the time, but able to fling off its cover and lash out into action the second it was necessary. If he had nerves he had some way of temporarily disconnecting the circuit. The dripping of the water, by now growing to an exquisite agony with Sheridan, failed to even annoy Quong. With Red it was different. Sheridan saw him carefully shifting, so as not to disturb the uneasy rest of the wounded rider, with every sign of restlessness, blinking eyes and twitching muscles; folded arms with hands that plucked continually at the flannel of his shirt. Red met his glance.
"If ennyone said Boo to me I'd jump clean through the roof of this God-forsaken hole," he said in a low tone. "My sister-in-law used to go nigh crazy if they was a tap leakin' in the house. She cu'd hear it way down cellar. Me, I ain't goin' to la'f at her no more. Why in hell don't they start somethin'?"
Then, above them, hell broke loose. With thunder and with flame the high roof was riven and split apart, great masses of sandstone hurtling down amid a rain of flying fragments. Quong leaped to his feet, gun in hand, only to have the weapon struck from his grasp as he jumped out of the zone of the falling rocks. Sheridan sprang to give Red a hand with the wounded man. A ponderous mass struck his outstretched right arm and it fell to his side numbed and bruised. Red was hit a glancing blow on the head and staggered dizzily to the side wall, dragging with him the cowboy. The two other riders, wakening dazed to the roar, had jumped to their feet and both had dropped again under the bombardment. Sheridan, back to the wall beneath the sheltering curve of the vaulted roof, saw them scramble for safety. The scalp of one of them was torn and his face ran blood.
The flare wavered, almost went out, then flamed up again. A fog of dust rose, obscuring things. Above there showed a gap through which stars shone coldly. Through the gap fiery twisting snakes came whirling, sticks of dynamite, exploding just before they touched the floor, flinging them all flat, poisoning the already overladen air, blinding them with scattering silt and debris, driving the breath out of them, leaving them prostrate, gasping, battered, helpless.
The wily Hsu Fu and his men had found a weak place in the roof, a cleft worn deep by water, and their experiment of breaking through to the cave had succeeded.
A rush of air came through the tunnel. The plug of cactus had been yanked out as if attached to one of the cars. A horde of yellow men poured into the cavern where the flare lamp, hanging from a crowbar stuck into a superficial rift, glowed through the choking clouds.
Sheridan dragged himself to a mass of rock and tried to steady his left forearm upon it, firing at the dim, darting figures. One—or two—shots rang out beside him while, from the besiegers, there came the rattle of guns and the zip of bullets.
He had but one coherent thought. This was the end. Blood was surging through his brain. It seemed as if the blood vessels had broken down under pressure. His body lacked all co-ordination. He fired jerkily, without aim and effect. Yet the air was clearing. Somewhere, deep within him, his spirit summoned his will, that had gone far off, to return and assume control. Slowly he was recovering, but it was too late. Before he. . . .
Vaguely there drifted to his consciousness the wild squawk of auto horns, shouting that swelled into a cheer. It was the slogan of the cattle riders, high-pitched, exultant, athrill with a note of cheer, of triumph!
"Ya-hoo. Yi-yi-yippy-ya-hoo!"
The firing ceased. The tongmen of Hsu Fu, trapped themselves, faltered, bolted for the passage. The entrance now blazed with light. Shouts and shots mingled with the noise of a starting motor.
Sheridan got clumsily to his feet. Belated hope revived him. And, as he stood uncertain, shaken, dizzy, other figures darted through the narrow way. There were cheers somewhere, scattered firing still going on outside, the quick rush of feet, a flying figure that came straight to him, nestling close to the pressure of his one good arm. The face of Mary Burrows lifted to his. He felt the soft warmth of her cheek, the moisture of her tears, her lips meeting his and then her cry,—
"Peter, Peter! Oh, my dear, my dear!"
The cavern seemed to clear of fog. He saw Stoney, grinning at him. He saw Red, gripped tight by Thora, almost lost in her embrace.
"They got away, in one machine," said Stoney. "Some of 'em. We're shy on gas!"
He saw the figure of the Sheriff of the County, gun in each hand, tall, dominant, his thin, tanned face alight with congratulation. How had they got there? How. . . .
He saw Quong, as he released Mary—Quong standing in the center of the White Chapel, in line with the passage, crouching a little, looking intently about him.
A spit of fire came from one of the inner caves, spurting out between two pillars, just as Quong leaped sideways. The bullet flattened itself below the flare. Following it came the gleam of a flung pistol, emptied of its last cartridge, and then the high bounding figure of a Chinaman, a flashing knife in his hand, his face asnarl with hate and murderous resolve. Even in the speed of the tigerish spring, Sheridan sensed that it was Hsu Fu, intent upon the killing of Quong. The twisted features were of the same high-caste stamp as the mandarin's.
Quong had struck up the sheriff's ready hand, the shot echoing up to the roof.
"Leave him to me," he cried in a voice that held such command, such confidence, that they automatically obeyed and stood spellbound to watch the strange duel. From somewhere Quong, gunless, had produced a knife and, sidestepping the first rush of Hsu Fu, the two shuttled and circled over the gritty floor, in the light of the flare, their shadows distorted on the farther wall.
The long blades clashed and sparked in lightning thrust and parry. Gone was Quong's veneer of calm, his teeth showed plain between his drawn-back lips, deep lines angled from his nose towards the comers of his mouth, his nostrils flared. The sharp cut nose was now a beak and his eyes flamed with the lust of killing. His face flamed with incarnate ferocity; it was the face of a pirate, drunk, amok with the desire to carve the soul of his enemy from his body.
Twice they locked, hand about wrist, left arm to right, muscles swelling in leg and shoulder, glaring, tense with supreme effort. They sprang apart as if by mutual consent and leaped in again, crouching, lunging, emitting harsh grunts, beastlike, primitive.
Sheridan saw Quong spring to the right and then, with flexing ankles, leap to the left. There was a flash as he tossed his knife from one hand to the other with juggling dexterity. This time his right hand caught the knife-wrist of Hsu Fu, tugged downwards, jerking Hsu forwards, off his balance, caught unaware. And Quong's left hand and arm shot across the barrier of their two right arms, swift and sure as the strike of an eagle in an overhanded curve. The point of his blade sank into Hsu Fu's abdomen with the sharp skreel of steel against bone as it slid over the hip and ripped across the undefended stomach. Hsu Fu pitched forward as Quong released him, blood spouting from the frightful wound and fell in the growing puddle of it; one hand outstretched, groping, twitching, still; pointing towards the piled-up bars of gold.
Quong's features reverted swiftly to their ivory calm. Only his heaving chest showed token of the subsiding whirlwind of his fight. He glanced at his wet, smoking blade, then tossed it from him, tinkling, far into the interior.
"It was not my hour that struck," he said. Then took out his little box and placed an opium pellet in his mouth.
"Let's get out of this," said Red. Thora, the stout-hearted, had quailed before the smell and sight of the blood of the savage conflict. She clung to Red, pale, trembling, averting her face on his shoulder.
They filed out of the cave in silence, Mary close to Sheridan. Very close, now and for always, he thought, for the barrier was down. She would not have come had she not meant to stay.
There were two dead Chinamen in the opening, three more on the ground. Close by was the twisted ruin of a motor car, its engine a muddle of scrap. Two other cars, their engines still running, their headlights biting into the darkness, illuminating the cave mouth, stood as they had raced in from the direction of Metzal, of the Circle S. One tall cowboy stood off to the side of the rays, by a still body. He came forward as they emerged and joined them.
"Me, I got my man," he said with an odd note of boyishness. It was Jim Lund.
"It was Pedro. Me an' him shot it out. I came after him—an' I got him."
Stoney and the sheriff moved towards the two cars to shut off the engines. The rest hurried to Bonanza Canyon. Sheridan stumbled as he went and Mary threw a slim, vigorous arm about him to steady him.
"You are badly hurt?" she asked, the keen anxiety in her voice music to his ears. "Your arm?"
"Nothing but a bruise," he said thickly. "No bones broken. But I am literally perishing for water. With the rest of us."