A man jumped over the ridge and landed, knees bent, on the floor of the amphitheater. He was carrying a rifle, one of Keller’s, but he wasn’t Keller. He was my father.
“Stand still, Chris,” he called, raising the weapon to his shoulder. “Drop the gun.”
“You wouldn’t dare shoot.” Sir Christopher’s voice came from the air six feet over my head. “You never were that good a shot, Frederick. Will you risk hitting your daughter?”
“At this range I think I have an excellent chance of missing her,” Frederick answered calmly.
I started beating my hands against the ground, trying to get some life into them. Frederick was quite capable of risking a shot; his monumental ego and his indifference to my welfare would overcome any qualms a normal man might feel. When I remembered the battered condition of his right arm I had even less confidence in his aim. I managed to roll over and raise myself on one elbow.
“I’ll shoot the girl,” Sir Christopher shouted.
“With a bullet that can be shown to come from a gun registered to you?” Frederick gave one of his nasty sneering laughs. “Go ahead.”
Sir Christopher fired-but not at me. He shot at Frederick, and hit him. I saw Frederick stagger. He dropped the rifle, but he kept on walking. Sir Christopher shot again. By this time Frederick was so close I saw the blood spurt. My own was at freezing point; it was terrifying to see him come on, apparently undisturbed by the wounds, like some vampire out of a horror show. Sir Christopher was shaken too; his next shot was a clean miss. The fourth one struck the ground as I hit his ankles with my shoulder. He stumbled forward, off balance, and Frederick fell on him.
The pistol was on the ground not far from me. I tried to pick it up, but my hands were still clumsy. The two men were rolling around on the ground. It was the first time I had ever seen a real honest-to-God fight-not a rough and tumble, but a struggle to the death. It made me sick.
I abandoned the gun. I wouldn’t have fired it anyway; humanitarian considerations aside, I couldn’t risk hitting the wrong man. I started fumbling around for a rock that was big enough to knock Sir Christopher out. Then Jim, whom I had momentarily forgotten, rose up off the ground like Lazarus, and hurled himself into the fight.
He had no trouble separating the combatants; Frederick was flat on the ground, with Sir Christopher kneeling on him and trying to beat his face in. Jim yanked his erstwhile boss to his feet and unleashed the most beautiful right hook I’ve ever seen. Then I reached Frederick.
The first thing I noticed was his right hand, which lay twisted on his chest in the middle of a spreading bloodstain. The fingers were swollen to twice their normal size. I don’t think he could have gotten one of them through the trigger guard, much less squeezed the trigger.
He didn’t move or open his eyes, not even when my tears started splashing down on his face.
III
The Red Cross arrived the next day. Whenever I get discouraged with the human race I remember that time, when people from all over the world pitched in to help. The volcano had subsided; I had seen its last defiant outburst in the amphitheater, but there had been a lot of damage and injury. Huge waves had hit some of the coastal villages.
An efficient Swedish nurse made arrangements for Frederick to be taken off by helicopter. The road to Phira was practically demolished, and he couldn’t have stood any more rough handling. He had been unconscious since dawn, but he had revived, after we brought him back to the villa, to say a few characteristic words.
“I see no reason…to become maudlin,” he had wheezed, when I started thanking him.
“You saved our lives,” Jim said, because I couldn’t talk too plainly. “And deliberately risked your own. Sorry, I’ve got to say it, whether you like it or not; that was a very brave thing. I saw most of it. I was conscious, but it took me a while to get moving.”
Frederick ’s lip curled. “Waste time,” he muttered. “Statement. Chris. Names of men who were with me…”
“It’s unnecessary,” Jim cut in. “Save your breath, sir. Keller has agreed to testify.”
“Good.” Frederick ’s smile was only a shadow of its former self, but it was distinctly malicious. Then he fainted.
In addition to his injured arm, which had not been improved by his activities, he had two bullet wounds, one through the chest and another in his right thigh.
“I can’t see how the hell he kept on moving,” Jim muttered, as we turned away from the bed. “Come on, Sandy. Lie down for a few hours. Kore will sit with him.”
Kore nodded reassuringly at me. She was dressed for the role of angel of mercy in a simple little Dior dress that was probably the plainest outfit she owned; her hair was pulled severely back and she wore almost no makeup. She was wearing her diamonds-there is a limit to the personality change anyone can make-but the golden serpent bracelets were nowhere to be seen. She blinked as she caught my eye, but that was the only sign of embarrassment she showed, then or ever.
She had redeemed herself the previous night; we’d have had a rough time if she hadn’t come sneaking back, stung by a belated attack of conscience, to see what had become of us. Or maybe Keller had acted as her conscience. After hearing her story he had set out at once for the amphitheater. They arrived while Jim was tying up Sir Christopher with the handy ropes that had been used on me, and I was trying to give Frederick first aid. Keller had been a pillar of strength; he had constructed a litter out of branches and the embroidered covering of the sacred couch, and after we got Frederick to the house he had worked over him for almost an hour.
He talked as he worked, his account oddly interspersed with curt directions to Kore, who was acting as his nurse. He talked as if he had thirty years’ stored-up conversation to unload. We heard it all. His admiration for the young men who were fighting for their countries as he would have fought for his, had their circumstances been reversed; his contempt and disgust when Chris had come to him with his offer.
“It is accepted procedure,” he insisted, while his hands moved with quick efficiency over Frederick ’s body. “Your uncle was the leader, Poseidon himself, it was he whom we wanted; and with two of the three out of action, the underground would be severely crippled. I had no choice. Never did I regret the action. I regretted only the necessity for it. And then to find that Poseidon was one whom I knew and admired…”
In the last few hours of his life, Vincent Durkheim had come to trust the man who was about to kill him. The feeling between them couldn’t be called friendship, but in some ways it was more intense than ordinary friendship. Keller’s tormented conscience, their mutual interests, and the need of a dying man for comfort and human warmth… I can’t explain it or understand it, but I believe it happened. The result was that Durkheim told Keller of his discovery on Thera.
“He died bravely,” Keller said. “You cannot comprehend, you young people-it was the last of the popular wars, the war to which we marched with banners flying and patriotic slogans firing our minds. The glamour soon faded; there is no romance in killing or being killed. But there was courage, and he had both kinds-the long, uncomplaining endurance of hardship, and the silent acceptance of his own end. He never knew that one of his friends had betrayed him. I spared him that, at least. His death made an enormous impression on me. I was already questioning some of the orders I had to carry out…”
So Keller came to Thera. And there he remained for years, losing ground slowly but perceptibly in the struggle with his guilt. When he learned of Frederick ’s presence on the island, he interpreted it as an omen. Sir Christopher had been right to fear an encounter between them, for Keller was almost ready to seek out his old enemy and bare his soul. And Frederick would have acted on the information. He would have been delighted at the chance to bring his rival down in disgrace.