"Where's White–Mouse?" I said.
"I don't know, Baas. Talking with those fellows up there, I think."
"Out of the way!" I cried. "She can't be left. They will kill her!"
I climbed past him up the ladder again until I could look over the edge of the hole.
This is what I saw and heard: White–Mouse, the knife in her hand, was haranguing the oncoming Arabs so fiercely that they shrank together before her, invoking curses on them as I imagine, which frightened them very much, and pointing now at one and now at another with the knife. As she called down her maledictions she retreated slowly backwards towards the mouth of the pit, whence she must have rushed to meet the men as they burst through the gateway, I presume in order to give us time to get down the ladder. Suddenly the crowd of them seemed to recover courage. One shouted:
"It is White–Mouse, not a ghost!" Another invoked Allah; a third called out: "Kill the foreign sorceress who has brought the spotted sickness on us and snatched away the star–worshipper."
They came forward—doubtfully lifting their spears, for they did not seem to have any firearms.
"Give me my rifle," I called to Hans, for in my hurry I forgot that I had a pistol in my pocket, my purpose being to get on the top step of the ladder, and thence open fire on them, so as to hold them back till White–Mouse could join us.
"Yes, Baas," called Hans from below as he began to climb the ladder again with the rifle in his hand, a slow job, because it cumbered him. I bent down as far as I could to grasp it, thus lowering my head, although I still managed to watch what was going on in the courtyard.
Just as my fingers touched the barrel of the Winchester, White– Mouse hurled her knife at the first of her attackers. Then she turned, followed by the whole crowd of them, and ran for the pit. One caught hold of her, but she slipped from his grasp and, although another gripped her garment, reached the stone which stood up edgeways some three feet above the level of the pavement of the courtyard.
In a flash I divined her purpose. It was not escape she sought, indeed, now that was impossible, but to let fall the block of rock or cement, and thus make pursuit of us also impossible. Horror filled me and my blood seemed to freeze, for I understood that this meant that she would be left in the hands of her enemies.
It was too late to do anything; indeed, as the thought passed my mind she hurled her weight against the stone (if she had ever wedged it open, as she said she would, which I doubt, she must have knocked away the prop with her foot). I saw it begin to swing downwards, and ducked instinctively, which was fortunate for me, for otherwise it would have struck my head and killed me. As it was it crushed in the top of the soft hat I was wearing. Down it came with a clang, leaving us in the dark.
"Hans," I cried, "bring that lantern and help me to try to push up this stone!"
He obeyed, although it took a long while, for he had to go back to the resting–place to fetch it. Then, standing side by side upon the ladder, we pushed at the stone, but it would not stir a hair's breadth. We saw something that looked like a bolt, and worked away at it, but utterly without result. We did not know the trick of the thing, if there was one. Then I bethought me of Kaneke who all this while was on the landing–place beneath, and sent Hans to ask him how to raise the stone. Presently he returned and reported that Kaneke said that if once it had been slammed down in this fashion, it could only be opened from above with much labour, if, indeed, this could be done at all.
I ran down the ladder in a fury and found Kaneke seated on the landing–place, a man bemused.
I reviled him, saying that he must come and move the stone, of which doubtless he knew the secret, so as to enable us to try to rescue the woman who had saved him. He listened with a kind of dull patience, then answered:
"Lord, you ask what cannot be done. Believe me I would help White– Mouse if I could, if indeed she needs help, but the catches that loose this mass of rock are very delicate and doubtless were destroyed by its violent closing. Moreover by this time of a certainty she is killed, if death can touch her, and even were it possible to lift it, you would be killed also, for those sons of Satan will wait there hoping that this may happen."
Still I was not satisfied, and made the man come up the ladder with me, which he did very stiffly, threatening to shoot him if he did not. This, to tell the truth, at that moment I would have done without compunction, so enraged and horrified was I at what had happened which, perhaps unjustly, I half attributed to him.
Well, he came and explained certain things to me about the catches whereof I forget the details, after which we pushed with all our might, till the stave of the ladder on which we stood began to crack, in fact; but nothing happened. Evidently in some way the block was jammed on its upper side, or perhaps the pin or hinges upon which it was balanced had broken. I do not know and it matters nothing.
All was finished. We were helpless. And that poor woman—oh, that poor woman!—what of her?
I returned to the landing–place and sat down to rest, almost weeping. Hans, I observed, was in much the same state, without a gibe or an impertinence left in him.
"Baas," he said, "if we had got out of the hole too, it would have been no better; worse, indeed, for we should have been killed as well as White–Mouse, even if we had managed to shoot some of those Prophet–worshipping dogs before they spotted us. Alas, Baas, I think that White–Mouse meant to get herself killed from the first. Perhaps she had had enough of that man," and he nodded towards Kaneke, who sat brooding and taking no heed, "or perhaps her job was done and she knew it. Or perhaps she can't be killed, as this Kaneke seems to think."
Listening to him, I reflected that he must be right, for now I remembered that White–Mouse had spoken several times of the escape of Hans, Kaneke, and myself, and never of her own, though when she did so I had not quite caught her drift. The woman meant to die, or knew that she would die, it did not matter which, seeing that the end was the same. Or she meant something else that was dark to me.
Presently, Hans spoke again:
"Baas," he said, "this place is a good grave, but I do not want to be buried in it, and oil in these Arab lamps does not last for ever; they are not like those of the widow, which the old prophet kept burning for years and years to cook meal on, as your reverend father used to tell us. Don't you think we had better be moving, Baas?"
"I suppose so," I answered, "but what about Kaneke? He seems in a bad way."
"Oh, Baas, let him come or let him stay behind. I don't care which. Now I will strap the basket with the lantern on to my back as White–Mouse did, and go first, and you must follow me, and Kaneke can come when he likes, or stop here and repent of his sins."
He paused, then added (he was speaking in Dutch all this time):
"No, Baas, I have changed my mind. Kaneke had better go first. He is very heavy, also stiff, and if he came last and fell on to our heads, where should we be, Baas? It is better that we should fall on Kaneke rather than that Kaneke should fall on us."
Being puzzled what to do, I turned to speak to the man. Hans, who was fixing the basket on his back, had set down the lamp which was to be placed in such a position that its light fell full upon Kaneke. By it I saw that his face had changed. While I was questioning him about the bolts of the stone, it had been that of a man bemused, of one who awakes from a drunken sleep, or has been drugged, or is in the last stage of terror and exhaustion. Now it was very much alive and grown almost spiritual, like to the face of one who is rapt in prayer. The large round eyes were turned upwards as though they saw a vision, the lips were moving as if in speech, yet no word came from them, and from time to time they ceased to move, as though the ears listened for an answer.