Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/110

 Those primal shots which had whistled harmlessly over the invaders' heads were followed by others less inaccurate, as the Tawareks improved their range of their enemies. Bullets began to plow up the sand at the toes of the retreating soldiers; and one w%s, hit hard and dropped his rifle to stanch the flow of blood from his chest.

Another screamed shrilly and reeled about, to fall with his face to the sea—stone dead: a Turco that. A third groaned at the loss of a finger nipped off by a flying bullet.

By now they were come up with the prostrate figure of Danny. O'Rourke dropped the command for a moment to lean over this countryman of his and to feel of his heart; it was still beating, and the man moaned and stirred beneath O'Rourke's touch. He called two of the soldiers and bade them carry their wounded captain to the rear as gently and as expeditiously as they might; then turned his mind to the problem at hand.

Rapidly the situation was becoming desperate; two more men were out of the fighting—one with a bullet through his brain, another with a shattered forearm. Massed as they were, they formed a conspicuous mark, a dark blur upon the starlit sands, a bold target for the Tawareks; while the latter kept themselves carefully in concealment.

With each second a spurt of fire would belch from a black clump of sand grass on a hilltop; and never twice from the same tuft. The foreigners fired valiantly at the flashes; but it is doubtful if their bullets did more than to disturb the sands.

O'Rourke thought quickly, as quickly came to his decision. It appeared that their present mode of retreat was untenable, their pace slow, their eventual escape to the boats problematical. Meanwhile, Madame la Princesse was in the gravest danger; the men who shielded her were falling right