A MODERN KNIGHT-ERRANT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19712, 11 August 1927, Page 16

A MODERN KNIGHT-ERRANT.

BY ROLAND PERTWEE.

CHAPTER XXXlV.—(Continued.) NikkO urged his 5 horse into a solid block of cursing humanity. A bayonet was jabbed into his horse's flank. ihe enraged beast spun round, lashing out with heels ana backing. The hoofs drummed against soft flesh arid brittle bone, kicking an avenue toward the cap. Screams, shrieks and a pistol shot. A man drove at Nikko with a knife and reeled back with a broken wnst. The horse tottered, grew rigid, and coughed. Someone had stabbed fiom below. i Nikko dragged his legs clear of the press, stood lor an instant on the saddle and jumped over men s heads. He landed fair and square on a limber, swung clear and,raced on foot down the pass beside steaming horses and ' clanking artillery. " The road before him was a solid, mass of marching men for a hundred yards or more. To pass them Nikko slithered down' to the river bed and leapt from rock to rock. Then came another battery of guns —six guns with limbers. Before them rode an officer, and before him the empty road. At a long, lopmg run Nikko passed the guns one by one until only the officer was ahead. The road curved sharply and the officer was lost to view. Nikko rounded the curve like a shadow. A sharp exclamation of surprise, a thud —a stifled cry—the officer's body fell with a splash into the river and Nikko was in the saddle. As the first gun came round the bend, Nikko fired, at point-blank range. The near-side leader threw up his head and todk the bullet, intended for the driver, between his eyes. The poor brute reared and fell, those behind - trying to bojt, stumbling and floundering over its body Ltter confusion followed. The off-side wheel of the gun struck a projecting rock, and the whole mass heeled over sideways. A tangle of traces, metal, spinning ■wheels and kicking horses. The Pass of Djevo was blocked. NikSo Cheyne rode on alone. At the mouth of the' Pass the police cordon drew aside to let the rider go through. Without slackening speed. Nikko rode through the Eastern gate of Djevo. which gaped wide for the coming Rifles. Over his shoulder he shouted: " They' are at my heels, comrade." " And not a minute too soon." was answered. " The devils from Plesna are not a mile distant." But Nikko wheeled his horse to the left, and, stopping beside the palace wall, once more stood upon the saddle, gripped the spikes, and swung himself over into the garden. The riderless horse began to graze peacefully. It was. not fear which caused Nikko's heart to hammer so fiercely, but the joy, the certainty, of triumph. In five minutes —in ten minutes —the balance of power ■would be in the Queen's favour. In his hands was the power to dictate terms. Dodging from tree to tree, crawling across open spaces" on hands and knees, he reached the summerhouse. Here were the railings that fringed the gorge, and there the iron stanchion to which his coil of ■wire had been attached. As his fingers closed round it, Nikko breathed a prayer of thankfulness. Slipping the coil over his left arm and keeping the.two naked ends of wire in his right hand, along with his. pistol. he crept toward the lighted ■window of Foscani's room. Like a black silhouette stood the sentry on duty. " Screened by a bed of standard roses, Nikko' hesitated, whether to shoot now or make certain of the business by gaining a few yards. While he hesitated, borne clear as a bell on the quiet air, came Ihe sound of men's voices, singing: " We fight to live, yet do not fear to die, Natalie—Oh, Natalie." It rose, swelled, and died away, to be answered by a crackle of musketry from the C?ivil Guard at the city gate. Then came another sound: The angry stutter of a machine gun. " Tat-tat-tat-tat—tat-tat-tat." " What is that—there are no machine guns in Djevo!" The voice was Foscani's. " Go and .see. " ." Yes. master." The black silhouette at the window Shouldered a rifle and came across the grass to where Nikko was crouching. That he would be seen was inevitable, but Nikko waited until the last second before springing to his feet and striking. He had shifted the naked wires to his left hand, and, using the trigger-guard of the pistol as a knuckle-duster, he struck with every ounce of strength at the man's jaw.. The sentry settled like melting wax on the grass and lay still. Nikko picked up the rifle and .talked across the lawn to the lighted room. As his foot rasped on the stone steps, came the question : " What was it, Ivan ?" Nikko leaned the rifle against the wall, dropped,"' the pistol into his pocket, and holding a naked end of the wire in either hand, entered the room. Foscani's back was to the window; he was in the act of taking the telephon«3 receiver from its rest when Nikko spoke. " Machine guns. Foscani. Machine guns of Her Gracious Majesty, Queen Natalie of Sciriel." " Cheyne!" Foscani' put down the receiver and Stared. " I didn't wait for them to be carried out. I had much to do. But you will obey my orders now, Foscani. " Where is the sentry ?" " Dead." Foscani's hand moved to the knob of £ table drawer. " Keep still," Nikko's voice was sharp as a pistol shot, " D'vou think I'm such it fool as to come here without a better ■weapon than that ?" "You must have lost your reason, Cheyne. Go away. I am too busy.' " There's nothing for you to say, Nikko replied. " Pick up that telephone and issue instructions for the immediate ■withdrawal of vnur Rifles to the Polii.' "But mv rifles are coming to Djevo, Cheyne. } They would never consent to turn back." " There is just time to do what I ask, Foscani." There-was no doubt in Foscani's mind that he was in the presence of a dangerous lunatic. "Why such a favour?" " Because I have it in my mind that Natalie and her followers shall enter this city with as little opposition as possible." "W e aro agreed. There will be no opposition until they have entered." " Foscani," said Nikko. in a low voice. ** You see these two wires. T have only to make these points meet, and the great dam of-Sarsenova will split like a dropped glass." The Liberator of Sciriel's eyes bulged. " It's a lie." . Shall I prove it?" " But you—but no one has reached Issoi." ; " Did you have a message to-night about the .power lines to the searchlights feeing cut?" " You ?" "Among other things," answered Nikko. " Tss! Even so," he muttered. Then, ■with sudden fierceness: "What is this business to you ?" " Something more than life." " It was you who brought about the escape of the Queen." .""Yes, and supplied Plesna with enough rifles and machine guns to sweep the defences of Djevo into the rubbish heap." ' " T must think," Foscani said. .>.''-No. you must deride. Foscani. at once. T left a jam in the Pass that will take half an hour to clear—but even so." Someone knocked. .von are not to be disturbed." said Nikko. ■'l am not to lie disturbed." he repeated. .--''They are pouring through the city gates hoax the. west," a voice oried in agijfcation*

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" Tell him you are not to be disturbed," was said again. The rat-tat-tat of the machine guns, muffled by walls —sounded faintly. " I give you one minute to make your choice." And, out of his box of tricks, Foscani produced the unexpected. Wringing his hands in despair, he burst into a flood of tears. " 1 won't, 1 can't," ho cried. I can t —oh, God!" "You rat!" said Nikko. I Foscani played his last card. Snatching I from the wall a long, thin' knife, one of J those trophies collected from the dead ! ni en who had tried to assassinate him, he : [lung it with all his force at Nikko. The ! aim was true, but in the second lost '■ tearing the weapon from the cord. Nikko • side-stepped. A foot of glittering steel ! flashed like a beam of light between | Nikko's raised arm and his side, severing | the flexible wire where it lay along the ! floor as though it were a thread of silk. | A fizz, a crackle of sparks, a tiny blue I Neither man spoke, nor moved. The j machine gun had stopped firing. In the \ silence they counted : i One—two—three —four —five—six. i And then a rumble, low at first but, i gathering in volume to a deep-throated I roar, that valleys and rocks, great preci- ! nires and the sullen hills seized on and : flung reverberating over miles of naked ! space. CHAPTER XXXV. • "In God's name what is it ?' i The darkness was split with tongues of i leaping ilame, lighting tor an '"slant I packed thousands of frightened faces, lhe i explosion was terrifying enough tor men | to cower earthward like beaten curs—- ! but it was as nothing compared to the | roar of the water that followed after. ! Forty millions of tons of unchained water I flung itself at the gap in the broken dam, tearing away section after section ol the resisting concrete. Within less than a minute a gap of 50ft. was widened to a hundred yards. And still the tearincr waters gnawed until the whole centie of the dam bulged outward, tottered and was sw r ept away like a castle built of sand. With the world before it the reservoir of Sarsenova sprawled its waters across the Polji of Issoi, and enveloped all that huddled mass of humanity. Smothered, choking, sucked down, upflung, the cheerful assassins who but a few moments before had boasted so loudly of their willingness to kill, were smashed like eggs against the jagged sides of the precipice. Here, at this first check, the great wave licked up in a curve like the tongue of a monstrous .animal, to be hurled back with the roar of an avalanche into the welter that swept in its wake. The Polji of Issoi had become a sea, lashed into creaming foam by the fury of winds a mad nightmare sea in which wave met wave, and currents "tore this way and that across the surfaces, and frenzied whirlpools sucked and gurgled. At the entrance to the pass a pyramid of water, mountains high, hurled itself into the ravine, carrying men, horses, guns, limbers, and transport, upon its gleaming crest. But the narrow gullet was as powerless to waste that gathering influx as an inch pipe to empty a pond. The baffled waters, seeking other outlets, divided along the cliff face and pouied in an irresistible stream toward the swal-low-hole of Issoi. Here the worst terrors of all were enacted. lhe right wing of Foscani's Rifles, borne on a ride of j death, were whirled in diminishing spirals j round the sides of a vortex to disappear into a black ghastliness, through hidden channels and galleries deep in the bowels of the earth, where their bodies were pulped. I Of the five thousand professional slayers who had set out so valiantly to the ! slaughter not a single man survived. | Foscani had said: I "Years hence men will speak in whis- ! pers of how my Rifles came to Djevo." I But he did not guess the manner of their coming—he did not guess how, under a pall of spray, they would be flung through the city gorge by a racing wave a hundred feet tall. He did not guess how their bodies would pop up : thirty-five miles away on Plesna marsh, I where the swallow hole of Issoi gave | up its secret —or lie strewn over vine- ' yards and pastures in the low country ; "beyond the capital. He only knew their coming would be remembered. . .. *•*•** * With that rumble in his ears, telling more surely than words that his work was done, a cord snapped in Nikko's brain. Nothing mattered now. A delicious ease ran through his nerves and set his spirit free. Rocking to and fro upon his heels he abandoned himself to a mental and phvsical relaxation as complete as sleep. The crackle of musketry and machinegun fire, the shouts of men were much nearer. The fighting was in bursts, and in lulls between the attacks he heard vaguely the gathering of onrushing water driving through the gorge. He didn't care. Five thousand men had died, or were dying, that this peace of mind should be his. A great number for one man to have destroyed. Someone had to save the country. So simple it had been! Like the pendulum of that dim clock on the mantelshelf he rocked—this way, that way. Why, they were swaying in rhythm. Nikko Cheyne fumbled for a chair back. Wouldn't do, he thought, to swing too far and topple over. A voice, the strangest voice, said: " Keep still! How can I shoot if you won't keep still." A black sleek figure, with a great white face. ~ Nikko said: " You look just like a cat. Foscani was supporting himself against an open drawer of his writing table. In his right hand a pistol was wavering. " Keep still!" Somewhere outside, men s voices, tenorstricken - rifle shots, rushing feet. " Just like a cat," Nikko repeated. A spurt of flame, and the tinkle of glass. Foscani had fired and missed. He was spitting cat curses, and was using both hands, but he couldn't keep the pistol steady. Nikko wondered why the great cat came no nearer and slowly realised he had no knees, only soft jellies that trembled and collapsed beneath his weight. Twice more the pistol cracked, and with the last shot something that felt like a red hot sledge hammer, struck Nikko's shoulder. No, it didn't hurt, only it started a gradual thought that there was still one duty left undone. Nikko fumbled for his pistol and found it. Over his brain mists had begun to settle. Somewhere in the room was a cat, with nine lives. Li'-e a clockwork figure Nikko began to fire, counting the shots aloud —one for each life. The cat was on all fours now, cravtling, mewing. " Four—five." Now it was down—flat. " Six." Then silence. " Nine lives," said Nikko, and clicked the trigger three times more, but the magazine was empty. The pistol fell from his hand. " Have to do," he muttered, and won dered what all that singing and crashing of glass could mean, and that deafening roar from the gorge. . There was a pain in some part of him, his shoulder perhaps. Ho tried to find it, but he only found blood, that trickled into the palm of his hand. He drifted through the door into a great emptiness of halls and corridors. The palace was deserted. Nikko Cheyne stumbled through the wide open portals of the throne room. At one end, upon a dais, was the carved throne of the Kings of Sciriel and stretched behind it to mask the' armorial bearings of the family, the black and crimson banner of the revolution. (To ba concluded to-morrow.)