Helena cried again, a sound without words, it was exactly that strange wild cry that she had uttered at the zenith of one of their wildest flights of passion together, and for an instant Mark remembered her face shining and triumphant, the dark eyes burning and the open red mouth and the soft pink petal of her tongue aflutter.
Mark started to run, hurling himself upwards.
The screams caught Fergus like a flight of arrows in the heart. A piercing, physical agony, he dropped the pistol to his side and stood irresolute staring upwards, not knowing what had happened, except that Helena was dying. He had heard the death scream too often to have any doubt about that. What he was listening to was mortal agony, and he could not force his body to begin the climb upwards, to the horror he knew waited him there.
While he hesitated, Mark came around the angle of the staircase and Fergus was not ready for him. The pistol was at his side, and he fell back and tried to bring it up, to fire at point-blank range into the chest of the uniformed figure.
Mark was as off balance as he was. He had not expected to run into another enemy, but he saw the pistol and swung the broken rifle at Fergus'head.
Fergus ducked, and the Webley fired wide, the bullet flew inches past Mark's temple and the report slammed against his eardrum and made him flinch his head. The rifle struck the girder behind Fergus and was jerked from Mark's grip, then they came together chest to chest. Mark seized the wrist of his pistol hand and held with all his strength.
Neither of them had recognized the other. Fergus had aged into a grey caricature of himself and his eyes were shaded by the cloth cap. Mark was in unfamiliar uniform, dusty and bloodied, and he had changed also, youth had become man.
Mark was taller, but they were matched in weight and Fergus was endowed with the terrible fighting rage of the berserker which gave him superhuman strength.
He drove Mark back against the guardrail, and bowed his back out over the open shaft, but Mark still had his pistol wrist, and the weapon was pointed up over his head.
Fergus was sobbing wildly, driving with all the wiry uncanny strength of a body tempered by hard physical work, and fired now by the strength of anger and sorrow and despair.
Mark felt his feet slip, the hob-nails of his boots skidding on the steel steps and he went over further, feeling the mesmeric suck of a thousand feet of open space plucking at his back.
Above them, Helena screamed again, and the sound drove like a needle into the base of Fergus brain, he shuddered, and his body convulsed in one great rigid spasm that Mark could not hope to hold. He Vent backwards over the guardrail, but still he had his grip on Fergus gun hand and his other arm he had wound about his shoulders.
They slid into the void, locked together in a horrible parody of a lovers embrace, but as they started to fall, Mark hooked both legs over the rail, like a trapeze artiste, and jerked to a halt, hanging upside down into the shaft.
Fergus was somersaulted over him by the force of his own thrust; as he turned in the air, the cloth cap flew from his head and he was torn from the arm that Mark had around his shoulder.
He came up with a jerk that almost tore Mark's shoulder from its socket, for some animal instinct had kept Mark's grip locked on the pistol hand, and he dangled from that precarious hold.
The two of them pendulurned out over the black emptiness of the shaft, Mark's legs hooked over the rail, hanging at full stretch, with Fergus'body the next link in the chain.
Fergus head was thrown back, staring up at Mark, and with the cap gone, his lank sandy hair fell back from his face and Mark felt fresh shock loosen his grip.
Fergus! he croaked, but the madman's eyes that stared back at him were devoid of recognition. Try and get a grip, Mark pleaded, swinging Fergus towards the staircase. Grab the rail. He knew he could not hold many seconds longer, the fall had wrenched and weakened his arm, and the blood was rushing to his head in this inverted position, he could feel his face swelling and sufflusing and the pounding ache in his temples, while the black and hungry mouth of the shaft sickened him; with his other hand he groped and got a second hold on Fergus' wrist.
Fergus twisted in his grip, but instead of going for the rail he reached upwards and took the pistol from his own hand, transferring it to his free hand. No, Mark shouted at him. Fergus, it's me! It's me, Mark! But Fergus was far past all reason, as he juggled with the Webley, getting a firing grip on the hilt with his left hand. Kill them, he muttered. Kill all the scabs. He lifted the barrel to aim upwards at Mark, dangling over the drop, twisting slowly in that double retaining grip. No, Fergus! screamed Mark, and the muzzle of the revolver pointed into his face. At that range, it would tear half his head away, and he saw Fergus forefinger tighten on the trigger, the knuckle whitening under pressure.
He opened his hands and Fergus wrist slipped from his fingers.
He spun away, falling swiftly, and the revolver never fired but Fergus began to scream a high thin wall.
Still hanging upside down Mark watched Fergus body, limbs spread and turning like the spokes of a wheel, as it dropped away, shrinking rapidly in size, and the despairing wailing cry receding with it, dwindling away to a small pale speck, like a dust mote which was swallowed abruptly into the dark mouth of the shaft far below and the wailing cry with it.
In the silence afterwards, Mark hung batlike, blinking the sweat out of his eyes and for many seconds unable to find strength to move. Then from the platform above him came a long shuddering moan and it roused him.
Forcing his bruised body to respond, he managed to get a grip on the guardrail and drag himself up, until he tumbled on to the staircase, and started up it on rubbery legs.
Helena had dragged herself to the pile of timber, leaving a dark wet smear across the platform. The khaki breeches she wore were sodden with blood and it oozed from her still to form a spreading puddle in which she sat.
She lay back against the timber next to the tripoded Vickers in an attitude of utter weariness, and her eyes were closed.
Helena, Mark called her, and she opened her eyes.
