The Rumble staggered and it was his turn to go on the defensive. Bingo thrust and fenced and fought, holding the lance now one-handed, now two-handed. They circled and struggled and still the fight went on and still Bingo found it impossible to get through his adversary's guard. But Bingo had had time to think; only cunning would win him this battle. So, still on the attack, pressing his namesake slowly back down the hill of books, Bingo tried a strategem. He pretended to stumble. He slithered a step, and, keeping a wary eye all the time on his opponent, he fell backwards, crying in pain for an imagined twisted foot.
The watching Rumbles cheered anew and Napoleon cursed his luck and moved nearer the ladder. He only had one chance, to climb out of the Library as quickly as possible while the Rumbles celebrated their victory. But Napoleon was sure of one thing: if that Rumble did for Bingo, he wouldn't live long to brag about it. He, Napoleon Boot, would make certain that a stone was rattling round inside the warrior's skull before his brain registered the triumph.
Bingo lay on the books, groaning and writhing, but his eyes kept still, watching the Rumble who, in his excitement, had not noticed that the Borrible, in spite of all his pain, had not relinquished his grip on the lance.
The Rumble stepped forward, a smirk spreading over the whole length of his snout. Quickly he raised his spear, ready to pierce Bingo's breast. He plunged it down hard, leaning on it like a man pushing a shovel. At that moment Bingo rolled over with a thrust from legs and hands. He came to his knees and, as the point of the Rumble's weapon embedded itself in the closed pages of some solid volume, he swung the shaft of his sticker and clouted the Rumble behind the ear. The animal fell back, his legs buckling. He half turned, as if to run, but Bingo's lance, still twirling above his head, struck the Rumble again and he fell to his knees. Then Bingo, slipping his grasp along the haft of his spear so that he could hold it like a sword, leapt upon the swaying figure of his enemy and bore him to the ground, and the four inches of steel found the warrior's heart.
The fire crackled in the room and the Rumbles groaned, hope gone with their greatest Warrior slain. The smoke swirled redder and redder in the draught between the door and the open ventilation shaft. Napoleon twisted his head and saw that his comrade, who he had imagined dead, was in fact rising from the prostrate body of the Rumble. Bingo swayed, his face was grimy and his clothes were torn. Blood was pouring down his left arm and down the side of his face where the Rumble spear had grazed his head, taken off his hat and cut his pointed ear. He was a sorry sight, blackened by soot, smoke and sweat.
"Are you all right?" called the Wendle, not taking his eyes from the Rumbles who stood motionless and saddened.
"Yes," lied Bingo, "fine, but I think we've outstayed our welcome."
Napoleon did not reply but went over to the body of the Rumble, removed the sash and placed it over Bingo's shoulders.
"There, Bingo," he said with a smile, "when you get home you can hang it on the wall and write underneath, 'Souvenir of Happy Days in Rumbledom'."
Bingo looked down at the trophy. "Here," he said proudly, "I've got my name. I hope everyone else has. . ."
They backed slowly up the mountainous pile of books, and the Rumbles made no attempt to stop them; they were leaderless and weaponless for the time being. The danger would come when the two Borribles mounted the ladder and the Rumbles could charge forward and repossess the lances they had thrown earlier. They would be able to pick the Borribles off as they climbed, or, more likely, they would overturn the ladder and spike their falling enemies on the raised barbs of their spears.
At the bottom of the ladder Napoleon and Bingo considered their situation. "Best thing would be to have one of us at the top first," said Bingo, "then he can cover the other while he climbs."
The Battersea Borrible had been greatly weakened by his battle and Napoleon could see that he was in no condition to sustain another fight should the need arise, so he sent Bingo to the top of the ladder first.
Bingo climbed slowly, like an injured snail. His head ached and there was only a faint grip left in his hands.
The hole in the ceiling seemed to get no nearer but he went on, taking care all the way. A fall from that height would be fatal. Looking down on the Library he saw a scene of chaos. The great bookcases were cast down and the once carefully classified books were strewn across the floor or had been built into redoubts by the Rumbles. The smoke was dense and lay across the floor in dirty wraiths and had crept up the walls towards the ventilation shaft. Bingo could see, from his high vantage point, scores of Rumbles looking at him from their barricades and from under the tables in the little alcoves. Their snouts were pointed upwards, greedily twitching for his blood. All that held them in check was the steady gaze of Napoleon Boot.
When Bingo neared the opening in the ceiling he stopped climbing and shoved his left arm over and under a rung. He took his catapult from his back pocket with his right hand, loaded a stone and stretched the thick black rubber, ready to fire at any Rumble that moved.
"All right, Nap," he called and the Wendle, with a last threatening look around the room, began to climb, fast, his catapult between his teeth. He had climbed barely a dozen rungs when there was a commotion in the corridor leading to the Library. Rumble Warriors, sent on the errand by their Chief, were returning, their arms loaded with lances. Their companions in the Library aroused themselves and emerged from their hiding-places and surged towards the ladder, calling loudly for vengeance.
Bingo shot his catapult as rapidly as he could, but hanging by one arm made it tedious work, and he was becoming terribly feeble. Rumbles were near to Napoleon now and lances struck the ladder by the Wendle's hands, one took a chunk of flesh from his leg. He slipped and almost fell. The Rumbles shouted but Napoleon gritted his teeth and pulled his body upwards even faster, and Bingo fired his catapult past his friend's head and broke many a Rumble's skull with stones from the banks of the Bluegate Gravel Pit.
But at last Bingo was forced to retreat into the ventilation shaft in order to give Napoleon a clear run through the trap. No longer worried by missiles from above, the Rumbles swarmed forward and they seized the ladder and yanked at it. The ladder shook and trembled and began to tilt, and it seemed that Napoleon would soon fall onto the deadly spearheads below. Bingo seized the top rung and pulled against the dozen or so Rumbles who were tugging with might and main from the Library floor, but, as Napoleon had said earlier, gravity was a force to be reckoned with and now it was on the side of the Rumbles.
Inside the shaft Bingo struggled and swore, bumping his head and knocking his wounds till the blood ran. Napoleon scurried upwards, hand over hand, not looking at the shining spears beneath him.
When the Wendle was a few rungs only from safety, the exhausted Bingo was almost lugged out of the shaft by a violent heave on the part of the Rumbles. Bingo managed to hold fast but he was now protruding, half in and half out of the trap-door. He wrestled with the ladder which was gyrating resolutely in an effort to shake Napoleon into space. A great shout went up from the Rumbles and the Wendle only stuck to the ladder by clinging with legs and arms together, but he still found time to spit directly downwards.
"You cross-eyed bunch of weasels," he yelled. "You swivel-eyed moles."
The Rumbles only pulled the harder, determined to drag the wretched Bingo back into the Library. The top rung was torn from his bleeding hands and Napoleon seemed about to sway away from his friend for ever. But Bingo held his arms out to Napoleon and, as the Rumbles threw the ladder down with a fearsome roar, the Wendle thrust his feet into space, floated on air for a split second and then grabbed Bingo's right arm with both his hands. He swung there, lances falling about him, and he looked up into the pained and desperate face of his fellow Adventurer.
"Don't faint now, Bingo," he cried. "I'll be skewered up like a pork joint if you do."
Bingo slipped and slithered in the narrow space, lucky that it was so narrow. Had the shaft been any wider the weight of Napoleon, dangling and trying to work his way up to the lip of the trapdoor, would have pulled them both down. Bingo wedged himself across the opening and, although the pain pierced his shoulder terribly, he allowed Napoleon to climb up his arm. When the Wendle had one hand on the trap-door Bingo shifted his grip a fraction and hauled Napoleon up and in and they fell together in a heap.
It took a long while for them to recover. They gulped deep breaths, though each lungful had more smoke than air in it, and they coughed and retched in dreadful spasms. At last Napoleon got to his hands and knees and peered cautiously from the hole. A dozen or so of the Rumbles were grappling with the ladder, attempting to get it upright. Others raced from the fiercely burning Library, instructing their comrades to run from room to room and along the corridors to guard against the escape of the two Borribles.
Napoleon roused the flagging Bingo. "Come on," he said tenderly, the first time that Bingo, or anyone else, had heard him talk in such a manner. "We've got to get you out of here."
"You'd better leave me," said Bingo, raising his head with an effort. "I can knock them off the top of the ladder as they come up. Give you time to get away."