"Mahmud! Shadman! Idderao, juldi!"
"Watch the woman!" sings out Hudson, and I saw Narreeman in the act of snatching up the bloody dagger he had dropped. She was still on hands and knees, and with one step I caught her a flying kick in the middle that flung her breathless against the wall. Out of the tail of my eye I saw Hudson spring down the steps, sabre whirling, and then I had thrown myself at Narreeman, catching her a blow on the head as she tried to rise, and grabbing her wrists. As the steel clashed behind me, and the door re-echoed to pounding from outside, I dragged her arms behind her back and held them, twisting for all I was worth.
"You bitch!" I roared at her, and wrenched so that she screamed and went down, pinned beneath me. I held her so, got my knee on the small of her back, and looked round for Hudson.
He and Gul were going at it like Trojans in the middle of the cell.
Thank God they teach good swordsmanship in the cavalry,(21) even to lancers, for Gul was as active as a panther, his point and edge whirling everywhere while he shouted oaths and threats and bawled to his rascals to break in. The door was too stout for them, though. Hudson fought coolly, as if he was in the gymnasium, guarding every thrust and sweep, then shuffling in and lunging so that Gul had to leap back to save his skin. I stayed where I was, for I daren't leave that hell-cat for a second, and if I had Gul might have had an instant to take a swipe at me.
Suddenly he rushed Hudson, slashing right and left, and the lancer broke ground; that was what Gul wanted, and he sprang for the steps, intent on getting to the door. Hudson was right on his heels, though, and Gul had to swing round halfway up the steps to avoid being run through from behind. He swerved outside Hudson's thrust, slipped on the steps, and for a moment they were locked, half-lying on the stairway. Gul was up like a rubber ball, swinging up his sabre for a cut at Hudson, who was caught all a-sprawl; the sabre flashed down, ringing on the stone and striking sparks, and the force of the blow made Gul overbalance. For a moment he was crouched over Hudson, and before he could recover I saw a glittering point rise out of the centre of his back; he gave a choked, awful cry, straightened up, his head hanging back, and crashed down the steps to the cell floor. He lay there writhing, mouth gaping and eyes glaring; then he was still.
Hudson scrambled down the steps, his sabre red to the forte. I let out a yell of triumph.
"Bravo, Hudson! Bravo, shabash!"
He took one look at Gul, dropped his sabre, and to my amazement began to pull the dead man out of the middle of the floor to the shadowy side of the cellar. He laid him flat on his back, then hurried over to me.
"Make her fast, sir," says he, and while I trussed Narreeman's arms with the jezzailchi's belt, Hudson stuffed a gag into her mouth.
We dropped her on the straw, and Hudson says:
"Only once chance, sir. Take the sabre - the clean one -and stand guard over that dead bugger. Put your point to his throat, an' when I open the door, tell 'em you'll slaughter their chief unless they do as we say. They won't see he's a corpse, in this light, an' the bint's silenced.
Now, sir, quick."
There could be no argument; the door was creaking under the Afridis' hammering. I ran to Gul's side, snatching up his sabre on the way, and stood astride him, the point on his breast. Hudson took one look round, leaped up the steps, whipped back the bolt, and regained the cell floor in a bound. The door swung open, and in surged the lads of the village.
"Halt!" roars I. "Another move, and I'll send Gul Shah to make his peace with Shaitan! Back, you sons of owls and pigs!"
They bore up sharp, five or six of them, hairy brutes, at the head of the steps. When they saw Gul apparently help-less beneath me one lets out an oath and another a wail. "Not another inch!" I shouted. "Or I'll have his life!" They stayed where they were, gaping, but for the life of me I didn't know what to do next. Hudson spoke up, urgently.
"Horses, sir. We're right by the gate; tell 'em to bring two - no, three ponies to the door, and then all get back to the other side o' the yard."
I bawled the order at them, sweating in case they didn't do it, but they did. I suppose I looked desperate enough for anything, stripped to the waist, matted and bearded, and glaring like a lunatic. It was fear, not rage, but they weren't to know that. There was a great jabbering among them, and then they scrambled back through the doorway; I heard them yelling and swearing out in the dark, and then a sound that was like music - the clatter of ponies' hooves.
"Tell 'em to keep outside, sir, an' well away," says Hudson, and I roared it out with a will. Hudson ran to Narreeman, swung her up into his arms with an effort, and set her feet on the steps.
"Walk, damn you," says he, and grabbing up his own sabre he pushed her up the steps, the point at her back. He disappeared through the doorway, there was a pause, and then he shouts:
"Right, sir. Come out quick, like, an' bolt the door."
I never obeyed an order more gladly. I left Gul Shah staring up sightlessly, and raced up the steps, pulling the door to behind me. It was only as I looked round the courtyard, at Hudson astride one pony, with Narreeman bound and writhing across the other, at the little group of Afghans across the yard, fingering their knives and muttering
- only then did I realise that we had left our hostage. But Hudson was there, as usual.
"Tell 'em I'll spill the bint's guts all over the yard if they stir a finger. Ask 'em how their master'll like that - an' what he'll do to 'em afterwards!" And he dropped his point over Narreeman's body.
It held them, even without my repetition of the threat, and I was able to scramble aboard the third pony. The gate was before us; Hudson grabbed the bridle of Narreeman's mount, we drove in our heels, and in a clatter of hooves we were out and away, under a glittering moon, down the path that wound from the fort's little hill to the open plain.
When we reached the level I glanced back; Hudson was not far behind, although he was having difficulty with Narreeman, for he had to hold her across the saddle of the third beast. Behind, the ugly shape of the fort was outlined against the sky, but there was no sign of pursuit.
When he came up with me he said:
"I reckon down yonder we'll strike the Kabul road, sir. We crossed it on the way in. Think we can chance it, sir?"
I was so trembling with reaction and excitement that I didn't care. Of course we should have stayed off the road, but I was for anything that would get that damned cellar far behind us, so I nodded and we rode on. With luck there would be no one moving on the road at night, and any-way, only on the road could we hope to get our bearings.
We reached it before very long, and the stars showed us the eastern way. We were a good three miles from the fort now, and it seemed, if the Afridis had come out in pursuit, that they had lost us. Hudson asked me what we should do with Narreeman.
At this I came to my senses again; as I thought back to what she had been preparing to do my gorge rose, and all I wanted to do was tear her apart.