Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/319

 Another man took his place as he fell. McKinnon sprang for him, catching and jerking upward the barrel of his carbine as he fired, tearing a hole through the car-roof.

Then the two men closed, and as they fought and tore at each other in the swerving and pounding car, the sentries from the ship's bow kept ﬁring along the dark track.

Then a third man, the officer who had held the lantern, swung from the now racing car's hand-rail forward, until he reached the driving-seat. He had taken out his sword—the girl could see the white steel glimmer in the dim light. The thought flashed through her, as she saw it, that swords were foolish and obsolete weapons. She had always looked on them as mere ornaments of dress, as useless as an epaulette. But now she knew that she had been mistaken, for she could see the agile little officer whipping and slashing with his naked blade as he climbed and worked his way up to the box-pile, and the nearness of that glimmering steel intimidated her even more than a carbine-ﬂash could.

It must have been several seconds before she realised that the slashing sword-end was meant for her, that the frenzied little ﬁgure was beating and prodding through the darkness in an effort to reach her own shrinking body.