Sanderson shouted back, his face mottled, “Run, limey.”
“We’re not running. If you want us, come and get us.”
“I said run.”
“I know what you said. I’m not providing you with a spectacle to gloat over.”
There was a lull in the shouting match and then, after a word with his supporters, Sanderson rode forward and began fumbling at the saddle behind his back. He brought out a long stockwhip and let the leather thong drop to the ground. He came nearer. Then his hand went back and the wrist flicked. Sanderson was good with a stockwhip. The end of the lash flicked around Flame’s navel and she gave a high, long scream. Sanderson flicked the whip back towards him and, as Shaw lunged towards Flame, sent it lashing out again. This time it flayed the two of them, taking the girl round the buttocks, and she broke and ran, screaming.
Shaw went for her.
That was when the riders dug their spurs in. They came on in a long line, horses’ hooves pounding the ground like thunder. Bullets once again smacked into rock and stone and earth. Sanderson flicked his whip again and ripped away the top of Flame’s torn dress. Red weals showed on her skin and she went down. As she struggled to her feet hooves pounded close to her head, so close that Shaw expected to see nothing but a red pulp when the flashing hooves went on past. But nothing like that happened; these men were skilled riders and they were out for fun and they meant to prolong it. Once they had all raced past Shaw and the girl they circled outwards and rode back again to the rear, ready to re-form and do the same all over again. This sort of game evidently made a strong appeal to Sanderson’s sense of humour; he looked really happy. It was while he was looking his happiest that there was a rumble from below and the ground beneath Shaw started to move. One of the Negroes gave a sudden shrill scream of naked terror and his horse began neighing madly, rising on its hind legs and flailing at the air. Horse and rider, the two of them screaming still, disappeared. At the same moment a deep rift drove across the earth, stretching back from the hills to the wooded country through which Shaw and Flame had passed earlier. Trees swayed outwards as the earth opened, then came back together again, locking their branches before falling into the crumbling, open womb of the riven ground.
As Sanderson, his face devilish, spurred his horse for Shaw and Flame, there was a vivid flash of lightning, followed closely by a clap of thunder right overhead. Lightning played along the tops of the hills and more tremors came from below.
Right behind Shaw and the girl another deep gap began to open.
Chapter Twenty
Flame moved back instinctively when she saw Sanderson coming for her, his sadistic lean face thrown into vivid relief by the lightning flashes. On the lip of the gap Shaw made a grab for her, pushed her to safety, stumbled — and stepped into space.
As he went over the edge he heard Flame’s scream.
Sanderson pulled his horse up sharply just a few yards short of the brink and came off in a slide. He ran to the edge. One of the Negro riders joined him and as another seized hold of Flame they stared down into the great rift in the earth. A deep gash yawned, silent, dark except while the lightning flashed. In one of those flashes a narrow, empty ledge was momentarily visible around seven feet below the surface, and beyond this ledge the rift appeared bottomless.
Sanderson said almost in awe but with a distinct trace of fear, “Reckon it must be miles deep. That’s the end for Mister Shaw… or will be, when he hits bottom.” Swinging round, he headed fast away from the edge, calling to his riders.
One of the Negroes asked, “So what do we do now, Mr Sanderson?”
“Why, we go back and report the Britisher’s departed this life, that’s what we do!” He gave the man a searching look. “But just remember this, will you? Neither you nor the others ever say it was anything but a pure accident — get me?”
“Sure I get you, Mr Sanderson.…”
“Then you and I, we’ll get along just fine.” Sanderson swung himself up into the saddle again. “Same applies to you,” he added in a vicious tone to Flame. “If you don’t want to get hurt, in a way you won’t like too, you’ll keep your trap shut tight. And now — we ride to hell out of here before we go the same way.” He ordered Flame up on to one of the Negroes’ horses. “Any funny business from here on out,” he said, “and I’ll have you stripped and I’ll flay all that lovely sun-tan off your skin.”
Lightning was still playing around a lowering sky and every now and again the flashes brought up Shaw’s surroundings sharp and clear and frightening. He had hit the ledge on the way down and had rolled instinctively to safety — and had fetched up in a shallow recess of hard earth. He was bruised and shaken but otherwise intact and, much to his astonishment, safe — at least for the time being. And the conversation from up top had told him that so far as Sanderson and his riding troop were concerned, he was stone cold dead at the bottom.
The space he was in was around four feet in depth and no more than three feet high. Looking outwards he saw the opposite face of the rift, with a corresponding chunk of hard, solid earth sticking out with a gap beneath it where his ledge had fitted.
Playing safe, Shaw gave it ten minutes and then on hands and knees he crawled towards the ledge outside. He looked down. It was a long, long vista into the earth’s black interior. It wasn’t inviting. He looked up. He was not far below the surface; be believed he could make it, and comparatively easily. The face of the rift was sheer — it even had a slight outward incline, like the futtock-shrouds of a sailing ship — but it was by no means smooth.
Very carefully he got to his feet. The ledge was firm enough, though crumbly at the fringes. He slid his body up the earth face to steady himself. He felt dizzy and for a moment everything spun in circles around him. There was a moment of blackness when he felt he was about to crash down the crevasse-like rift, but it passed, leaving him in a cold sweat. Then he took a grip and eased his body away from the wall. He remained on the ledge and he didn’t feel too bad. He felt around in the precipitous side and found a finger-hold. Then he dug a foot into the earth and heaved himself upward. He stayed there, flattened to the side like a fly, inclined backwards over the chasm… hanging on until he felt sure of his balance. Then he repeated the manœuvre. In four careful, skin-crawling movements he had his shoulders level with the top and was dragging himself over the lip.
Nothing moved anywhere but the lightning in the sky — and the rain, which was at last starting to teem down. He was some minutes getting his breath back, then he pulled himself to his feet. There was no time, not a moment now, to waste. For a start, he had a long walk ahead of him — and Flame was going to need help pretty fast.
It took him four hours of back-breaking, weary climbing and descending and trudging through the rain and the mud before he saw the road on the far side of the range of hills. He looked and felt like a bum; he was bruised and bleeding and filthy. There was plenty of traffic but the first vehicle he met when he hit the roadside was a police car and that suited him fine.
The police car braked hard and Shaw walked up to it.
“What’s the trouble, Mac?” the driver asked. “Been in the earthquake?” He looked Shaw up and down.
Shaw nodded. “Too right, I have!”
“We’ve been out to investigate the tremors. Limey, eh? Where you going?”
“Police headquarters — and as fast as you like. This is top priority.”