Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/309

 held the automatic, the other still clutched the pearls.

The shock of the bodies, the panting, the shaking of the floor—it was like a scene transposed from the Iliad. The oil-lamp (which had in the previous battle escaped miraculously) contributed a weird theatricality to the movement of the struggling group, throwing it here into dead, black shadow, there into flashes of yellow-white.

And all for her! She had dreamed of such moments, but life itself had been singularly free of thrills. Men had fought for her in her daydreams, sometimes with rapier, sometimes with lance, sometimes with musket at the cabin's loop-holes, and just as the last shot had sped they had heard the bugle of the cavalry. It was very pleasant to dream like that. But this! …

He was like a madman; he was here, there, everywhere, unexpectedly, jabbing, swinging, heaving. Frequently there was a screech of ripping cloth. His shirt was hanging on his shoulders in shreds and streamers. It was impossible to follow his arms clearly; all she could identify was that shock of red hair surging among the swinging pigtails.

All at once he tripped and went down, and she was sure that the end had come. But no! There he was, like a swimmer caught and buried for a second by a toppling surge. This time he broke away from the milling, yellow bodies. He clutched the teak stand, heavy and tough, and swung it high above his head.