steps.
'It is time, Flashman,', says Gul Shah, sticking his sneering face up to mine. 'Wake up, you dog, and prepare for your last love play.'
And he laughed and struck me across the face. I staggered, but held right to the chains. Hudson never moved a muscle.
'Now, my precious,' says Gul to Narreeman. 'He is here, and he is yours.' She came forward to his side, and the big jezzailchi, having placed the torch, came on her other side, grinning like a satyr. He stood about a yard in front of Hudson, but his eyes were fixed on me.
The woman Narreeman had no veil now; she was turbanned and cloaked, and her face was like stone. Then she smiled, and it was like a tigress showing its teeth; she hissed something to Gul Shah, and held out her hand towards the dagger at his belt.
Fear had me gripped, or I would have let go the chains and rushed blindly past them. Gul put his hand on his hilt, and slowly, for my benefit, began to slide the blade from its sheath.
Hudson struck. His right hand shot down to the big jezzailchi's waist band, there was a gleam of steel, a gasp, and then a hideous shriek as Hudson drove the man's own dagger to the hilt in his belly.
As the fellow dropped Hudson tried to spring at Gul Shah, but he struck against Narreeman and they both went sprawling. Gul leaped back, snatching at his sabre, and I let go my chains and threw myself out of harm's way. Gul swore and aimed a cut at me, but he was wild and hit the swinging chains; in that moment Hudson had scrambled to the dying jezzailchi, grabbed the sabre from his waist, and was bounding up the steps to the door. For a moment I thought he was deserting me, but when he reached the doorway it was to slam the door to and shoot the inside bolt. Then he turned, sabre in hand, and Gul, who had sprung to pursue him, halted at, the foot of the steps. For a moment the four ? of us were stock still, and then Gul bawls out:
'Mahmud! Shadman! Idderao, juldi!'
'Watch the woman!' sings out Hudson, and I saw Narreeman in the act of snatching up the bloody dagger he had dropped. She was still on hands and knees, and with one step I caught her a flying kick in the middle that flung her breathless against the wall. Out of the tail of my eye I saw Hudson spring down the steps, sabre whirling, and then I had thrown myself at Narreeman, catching her a blow on the head as she tried to rise, and grabbing her wrists. As the steel clashed behind me, and the door re-echoed to pounding from outside, I dragged her arms behind her back and held them, twisting for all I was worth.
'You bitch!' I roared at her, and wrenched so that she screamed and went down, pinned beneath me. I held her so, got my knee on the small of her back, and looked round for Hudson.
He and Gul were going at it like Trojans in the middle of the cell.
Thank God they teach good swordsmanship in the cavalry,(21) even to lancers, for Gul was as active as a panther, his point and edge whirling everywhere while he shouted oaths and threats and bawled to his rascals to break in. The door was too stout for them, though. Hudson fought coolly, as if he was in the gymnasium, guarding every thrust and sweep, then shuffling in and lunging so that Gul had to leap back to save his skin. I stayed where I was, for I daren't leave that hell-cat for a second, and if I had Gul might have had an instant to take a swipe at me.
Suddenly he rushed Hudson, slashing right and left, and the lancer broke ground; that was what Gul wanted, and he sprang for the steps, intent on getting to the door. Hudson was right on his heels, though, and Gul had to swing round halfway up the steps to avoid being run through from behind. He swerved outside Hudson's thrust, slipped on the steps, and for a moment they were locked, half-lying on the stairway. Gul was up like a rubber ball, swinging up his sabre for a cut at Hudson, who was caught all a-sprawl; the sabre flashed down, ringing on the stone and striking sparks, and the force of the blow made Gul overbalance. For a moment he was crouched over Hudson, and before he could recover I saw a glittering point rise out of the centre of his back; he gave a choked, awful cry, straightened up, his head hanging back, and crashed down the steps to the cell floor. He lay there writhing, mouth gaping and eyes glaring; then he was still.
Hudson scrambled down the steps, his sabre red to the forte. I let out a yell of triumph.
'Bravo, Hudson! Bravo, shabash!'
He took one look at Gul, dropped his sabre, and to my amazement began to pull the dead man out of the middle of the floor to the shadowy side of the cellar. He laid him flat on his back, then hurried over to me.
'Make her fast, sir,' says he, and while I trussed Narreeman's arms with the jezzailchi's belt, Hudson stuffed a gag into her mouth.
We dropped her on the straw, and Hudson says:
'Only once chance, sir. Take the sabre - the clean one -and stand guard over that dead bugger. Put your point to his throat, an' when I open the door, tell 'em you'll slaughter their chief unless they do as we say. They won't see he's a corpse, in this light, an' the bint's silenced.
Now, sir, quick.'
There could be no argument; the door was creaking under the Afridis' hammering. I ran to Gul's side, snatching up his sabre on the way, and stood astride him, the point on his breast. Hudson took one look round, leaped up the steps, whipped back the bolt, and regained the cell floor in a bound. The door swung open, and in surged the lads of the village.
'Halt!' roars I. 'Another move, and I'll send Gul Shah to make his peace with Shaitan! Back, you sons of owls and pigs!'
They bore up sharp, five or six of them, hairy brutes, at the head of the steps. When they saw Gul apparently help-less beneath me one lets out an oath and another a wail. 'Not another inch!' I shouted. 'Or I'll have his life!' They stayed where they were, gaping, but for the life of me I didn't know what to do next. Hudson spoke up, urgently.
'Horses, sir. We're right by the gate; tell 'em to bring two - no, three ponies to the door, and then all get back to the other side o' the yard.'
I bawled the order at them, sweating in case they didn't do it, but they did. I suppose I looked desperate enough for anything, stripped to the waist, matted and bearded, and glaring like a lunatic. It was fear, not rage, but they weren't to know that. There was a great jabbering among them, and then they scrambled back through the doorway; I heard them yelling and swearing out in the dark, and then a sound that was like music - the clatter of ponies' hooves.
'Tell 'em to keep outside, sir, an' well away,' says Hudson, and I roared it out with a will. Hudson ran to Narreeman, swung her up into his arms with an effort, and set her feet on the steps.
'Walk, damn you,' says he, and grabbing up his own sabre he pushed her up the steps, the point at her back. He disappeared through the doorway, there was a pause, and then he shouts:
'Right, sir. Come out quick, like, an' bolt the door.'
I never obeyed an order more gladly. I left Gul Shah staring up sightlessly, and raced up the steps, pulling the door to behind me. It was only as I looked round the courtyard, at Hudson astride one pony, with Narreeman bound and writhing across the other, at the little group of Afghans across the yard, fingering their knives and
