CHAPTER LVI

THE RACE FOR THE COTTAGE

I

And it was full time.

As he stormed up the knoll, he heard upon his right the clink of arms, and the sound of a Frenchman shouting.

Down through the sheltering sycamores he plunged, and burst out into the open.

A tall Grenadier, who had been sentry upon the shingle-bank, was racing up on his right across the greensward, screaming as he ran.

His yells were of effect. Half a dozen ragged ruffians bobbed up from behind the broken wall in the rear, and seeing only the boys, made fiercely for them.

It was a race for the cottage; and the door of the cottage was shut.

That dead mask of wood stared at Kit blankly. Had it no eyes? no soul? no understanding? was it not English, heart of oak, its life sucked these centuries from the breast of the same mother? could it not _feel_ his agony?

"Piper! Piper! the door's shut!"

"_Ay, sir, but it wun't be drackly-minute_," came a straining voice from within; and the boy could hear the rending of torn boards, and the splintering of terrific hatchet-work.

The Grenadier with set teeth and blue-black muzzle was launching forward with huge strides.

Kit could hear the rattle of his cartridge-pouch flopping as he ran.

Would the door open? if so, which would reach it first?

"Faster, Blob, faster!"

"Oi'd run faaster, if ma legs would," panted Blob, lumbering behind.

He was doing his best; but he was no match for the fawn-footed gentleman, who led him. Lumps of ghostly clay, inherited from a long line of furrow-following ancestors, clung to his heels, impeding him.

Kit gripped his dirk and ran.

His eyes were on the Grenadier, a black and yellow fellow, with a wart between the brows. That wart held Kit's imagination. It sickened him. It was just his luck to have to deal with a warted man, when he had always loathed warts! But for the wart he felt he could have been heroic.

At the thought the tide of his humour welled within him; and the Grenadier was amazed to see a smile in the eyes of this boy with the long face, ghastly-pale, racing against him.

Taken off his guard, he smiled too.

So each ran towards the other, whom he meant to kill, with smiling eyes.

II

The cottage door began to open slowly, so slowly.

The boy could see the old foretop-man in the darkened passage. A hatchet was in his mouth; he was handling the door with one hand, and his chair with the other.

So easy for a whole man to open the door, so hard for the disabled seaman!

The Grenadier, hounding with huge strides, was already almost there.

"Man on your left, Piper!" the boy screamed.

"All right, sir!" mumbled the old seaman. "Give me cutlass room--all I ask!"

He put both hands to the wheels of his chair, and spun out into the open, hatchet in mouth.

As he did so, round the corner of the cottage swooped half a dozen yelling cut-throats.

"Take the Frenchman, sir!" roared the old man. "I'll tackle these--"

With a wrench, he slewed his chair, spun the wheels furiously, and shocked into the cloud of them.

The Grenadier launched at his back, bayonet at the charge.

"Coward!" gasped Kit, still five yards away, and flung his dirk.

It stuck in the ground at the man's feet, and tripped him. He plunged forward on hands and knees, and gathered himself as a wave about to break.

As he rose, Kit leapt on him, naked-handed.

The man was hurled through the open door, and brought up against the inner wall with an appalling shock.

For a moment man and boy hugged cheek to cheek.

Kit's legs were round the other's hips, his arms about the other's neck.

"Beast! don't bite!" he gurgled, as the man munched his shoulder; and the image of Gwen, who when hard-driven used her teeth effectively, rose before him.

The image faded. The man had the under-grip, and was squeezing his soul out. Another moment, and his ribs must go.

"Blob!" he choked.

A dark something shot through the door and shocked against the Frenchman.

"Where'll Oi kill him?" asked a voice.

"Where you like," muttered Kit, swooning.

A hand rose and fell.

The man relaxed his grip. Kit could feel him fading and fading away, as the life oozed out of him. He was a-horse on Death.

"Assez," muttered the Frenchman sleepily, swayed and fell.

Dazed and dizzy, Kit staggered to his feet.

A shadow darkened the door; a strange voice cried in horrible triumph:

"_Our'n!_"

Two pistols lay on the table. Blindly the boy snatched both.

"Now!" he said, as one in a dream, and, shoving a pistol against the man's bare and shaggy bosom, fired.

Blindly he stepped over the fellow's body, and out into the open.

A man, on hands and knees, was crawling away round the corner of the cottage; another lay dead on his face across the way.

Before him he saw a little cloud of men, and the gleam of a silver head thrusting out moon-like from among them.

Blindly he fired into the brown, and blindly followed up.

One man fell; others slunk away, snarling.

III

The whole thing was over.

Buzzing August prevailed again.

"Are you hurt?" sobbed Kit.

"No, sir, I'm bravely, thank you. Properly shook up, though." The old man was heaving like the sea. "They'd no knives nor nothin, only one on em, and Boy Hoad stuck him as he passed. They hurt emselves more'n me. I bluv I'm a better man above the waist nor ever I were. All the juice like goes to my arms now I've no legs--that's how I reck'n it be."

"We must get in before they come again. Quick!"

"Ah, they won't come again, sir. Easy satisfied, the Gap Gang. Got no guts because they got no God.... Ah, here's Mr. Joy!"

The Parson was coming across the greensward, high and mighty as a turkey-cock.

The Gentleman was standing among the sycamores, laughing.

He waved his hand to the boy.

"Congratulations, Little Chap," he called.

"Don't accept em," snarled the Parson. "Posing impostor!--coxcomb!-- cad!"

"What! has he wounded you, sir?" asked old Piper.

"Pinked me in the calf, the coward!" snapped the Parson. "He's not a gentleman. I always knew he wasn't!--Frenchified feller!"

He looked round with grim satisfaction.

"So you've been busy, too. I reckon they're half a dozen short o what they were before the sally. And we've got our man through, too!"

He pointed across the plain.

From the foot of the Downs a string of Grenadiers were coming back at the double.

They had no prisoner.

III

THE SHADOW OF THE WOMAN

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