Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/350

 about the car again. The moment he did so the sharp, complaining pinnnnng of a bullet sounded close over his head. It had come from the west, from Guariqui. Before he could dodge in under the far side of the car-body it was repeated, again, and still again. One of Duran's own men, he knew, was picking at him from a housetop.

He found the girl, as he dodged back into shelter, sitting against the floor of the overturned car. Her face was colourless, and her eyes unnaturally large.

"Is this the end?" she asked, as he caught up one of the carbines half-smothered in sand at her feet.

"The end?" he cried. "No, it’s not the end!"

"What can I do?" she asked.

"We've got to have water—and I'm going to get it! Keep close to that car until I get back!"

"But they'll cut you off; they'll"

He had not waited to hear her. He was running out across the open and undulating ground, bending low as he ran. She could easily follow his moving black shadow, in the glare of the open sunlight. She heard a scattering of rifle-shots further eastward as he crossed a stretch of higher ground. Then she saw him drop to his knee. Her first thought was that