rifle in his hand, Jake need not have fretted.
Seeming to rise from the flat scorched earth under the wheels of the
leading Italian vehicles, a small galloping knot of horsemen flitted
across the heat-tortured earth, seeming to float above it like a flock
of dark birds. Their shapes wavering and indistinct, wrapped in pale
streamers of dust, they cut back obliquely across the Italian line of
march, running hard for the centre of the hidden Ethiopian line.
Almost instantly a single vehicle detached itself from the head of the
column and headed on a converging course with the flying horsemen.
Its speed was frightening, and it closed so swiftly that the squadron
of cavalry was forced to veer away, forced to edge out towards where
the two armoured cars were hidden.
Behind the single speeding vehicle the Italian column lost its rigid
shape. The front half of it swung away in a long untidy line abreast
in pursuit of the horsemen. These were all larger, heavier vehicles,
with high, canvas-covered cupolas, and their progress was ponderous and
so slow that they could not gain perceptibly on the galloping horses.
However, the smaller faster vehicle was gaining rapidly and Jake stood
higher to give himself a better view as he refocused the binoculars. He
recognized instantly the big open Rolls-Royce tourer that he had last
seen at the Wells of Chaldi. Its polished metalwork glittered in the
sunlight, its low rakish lines enhancing the impression of speed and
power, as the dust boiled out from behind its spinning rear wheels with
their huge flashing central bosses.
Even as he watched, the Rolls braked and skidded broadside, coming to a
halt in a furiously billowing cloud of dust. A figure tumbled from the
rear seat.
Jake watched the man brace himself over the sporting rifle and the
spurt of gunsmoke from the muzzle as he fired seven shots in quick
succession, the rifle kicking up abruptly at the recoil and the thud
thud of the discharge reaching Jake only seconds later.
The horsemen were drawing swiftly away from the Rolls, but neither the
changing range nor the dust and mirage affected the marksman. At each
shot a horse went down, sliding against the earth, legs kicking to the
sky or plunging and rolling, as it struggled to regain its legs,
falling back at last and lying still.
Then the rifleman leaped aboard the Rolls again, and the pursuit was
continued, gaining swiftly on the survivors, the heavy phalanx of
trucks and troop transports lumbering on behind it the whole mass of
horses, men and machines rolling steadily deeper into the
killing-ground that Gareth Swales had so carefully surveyed and laid
out for them.
'The bastard!' whispered Jake, as he watched the Rolls skid to a
standstill once more. The Italian was taking no chances of approaching
the horsemen closely. He was standing well off, out of effective range
of their ancient weapons, and he was picking them off one at a time, in
the leisurely fashion of a shot gunner at a grouse shoot in fact, the
whole bloody episode was being played out in the spirit of the hunt.
Even at the range of almost a thousand yards, Jake seemed able to sense
the blood passion of the Italian marksman, the man's burning urge to
