"Where could the sentry have gone?" whispered Tina uneasily.
Françoise was watching one end of the hut-row which was not far from a side door of the manor. She could have sworn she saw a shadowy figure glide from behind the huts and disappear at the door. Was that the vanished sentry? Why had he left the wall, and why should he steal so subtly into the manor? She did not believe it was the sentry she had seen, and a nameless fear congealed her blood.
"Where is the Count, Tina?" she asked.
"In the great hall, my Lady. He sits alone at the table, wrapped in his cloak and drinking wine, with a face grey as death."
"Go and tell him what we have seen. I will keep watch from this window, lest the Indians climb the unguarded wall."
Tina scampered away. Françoise heard her slippered feet pattering along the corridor, receding down the stair. Then suddenly, terribly, there rang out a scream of such poignant fear that Françoise's heart almost stopped with the shock of it. She was out of the chamber and flying down the corridor before she was aware that her limbs were in motion. She ran down the stair—and halted as if turned to stone.
She did not scream as Tina had screamed. She was incapable of sound or motion. She saw Tina, was aware of the reality of small hands grasping frantically. But these were the only realities in a scene of nightmare, and brain-shattering horror.
Out in the stockade Harston had shaken his head at Vulmea's question.
"I heard nothing."
"I did!" Vulmea's wild instincts were roused. "It came from the south wall, behind those huts!"
Drawing his cutlass he strode toward the palisades. From the compound the south wall and the sentry posted there were not visible, being hidden behind the huts. Harston followed, impressed by Vulmea's manner.
At the mouth of the open lane between the huts and the wall Vulmea halted, swearing. The space was dimly lighted by torches flaring at either corner of the stockade. And midway in that natural corridor a crumpled shape sprawled on the ground.
"The sentry!"
"Hawksby!" swore Harston, running forward and dropping on one knee beside the figure. "By Satan, his throat's cut from ear to ear!"
Vulmea swept the alley with a quick glance, finding it empty save for himself, Harston and the dead man. He peered through a loop-hole. No living man moved within the ring of torch-light outside the fort.
"Who could have done this?" he wondered.
"Villiers!" Harston sprang up, spitting fury like a wildcat. "He has set his dogs to stabbing my men in the back! He plans to destroy me by treachery!"
"Wait, Dick!" Vulmea caught his arm. He had glimpsed the tufted end of a dart jutting from the dead pirate's neck. "I don't believe Villiers—"
But the maddened pirate jerked away and rushed around the end of the but row, breathing blasphemies. Vulmea ran after him, swearing. Harston made straight toward the fire by which Villiers' tall form was visible as the buccaneer chief quaffed a jack of ale.
His amazement was supreme when the jack was dashed violently from his hand, spattering his breastplate with foam, and he was jerked around to confront the convulsed face of the Englishman.
"You murdering dog!" roared Harston. "Will you slay my men behind my back while they fight for your filthy hide as well as for mine'?"
On all sides men ceased eating and drinking to gape in amazement.
"What do you mean?" sputtered Villiers.
"You've set your men to murdering mine at their posts!" bellowed Harston.
"You lie!" Smoldering hate burst into sudden flame.
With a howl Harston heaved up his cutlass and cut at the Frenchman's head. Villiers caught the blow on his armored left arm and sparks flew as he staggered back, ripping out his own sword.
In an instant the captains were fighting like madmen, their blades flaming and flashing in the firelight. Their crews reacted instantly and blindly. A deep roar went up as Englishmen and Frenchmen drew their swords and fell upon one another. The pirates left on the walls abandoned their posts and leaped down into the stockade, blades in hand. In an instant the compound was swarming with battling groups of men. The soldiers at the gate turned and stared down in amazement, forgetful of the enemy lurking outside.
It had all happened so quickly —smoldering passions exploding into sudden battle—that men were fighting all over the compound before Vulmea could reach the maddened captains. Ignoring the swords that flashed about his ears, he tore them apart with such violence that they staggered backward and Villiers tripped and fell headlong.
"You cursed fools, will you throw away all our lives?"
Harston was frothing, and Villiers was bawling for assistance. A buccaneer ran at Vulmea and cut at him from behind. The Irishman half turned and caught his arm, checking the stroke in midair.
"Look, you fools!" he roared, pointing with his sword.
Something in his tone caught the attention of the battle-crazed mob. Men froze in their places, with lifted swords, and twisted their heads to stare. Vulmea was pointing at a soldier on the wall. The man was reeling, clawing the air, choking as he tried to shout. Suddenly he pitched to the ground and all saw the shaft standing up between his shoulders.
A yell of alarm rose from the compound. On the heels of the shout came a clamor of blood-freezing screams, the shattering impact of axes on the gate. Flaming arrows arched over the wall and stuck in logs, and thin wisps of blue smoke curled upward. Then from behind the huts along the south wall dark figures came gliding.
"The Indians are in!" roared Vulmea.
Bedlam followed his yell. The freebooters ceased their feud, some turned to meet the savages already within the stockade, some to spring to the wall. The painted men were pouring from behind the huts and their axes clashed against the cutlasses of the sailors.
Villiers was struggling to his feet when a painted savage rushed upon him from behind and brained him with a waraxe.
Vulmea led the Frenchmen against the Indians inside the stockade, and Harston, with most of his men, climbed on the firing-ledge, slashing at the dark figures already swarming up on the wall. The savages, who had crept up unobserved while the defenders of the fort were fighting among themselves, were attacking from all sides. Henri's soldiers were clustered at the gate, trying to hold it against a howling swarm of blood-mad demons.
More and more savages scaled the undefended south wall and streamed from behind the huts. Harston and his men were beaten back from the north and west walls and in an instant the compound was swarming with naked warriors who came over the palisades in a wave. They dragged down the defenders like wolves dragging down a stag; the battle resolved into swirling whirlpools of painted figures surging about small clumps of desperate white men. Bloodsmeared braves dived into the huts and the shrieks that rose as women and children died beneath the red axes rose above the roar of the battle. The soldiers abandoned the gate when they heard those cries, and in an instant the savages had burst it in and were pouring into the stockade at that point also. Huts began to go up in flames.
"Make for the manor!" roared Vulmea, and a dozen men surged in behind him as he hewed a red way through the snarling pack.
Harston was at his side, wielding his red cutlass like a cleaver.
"We can't hold the manor," grunted the Englishman.
"Why not'?" Vulmea was too busy with his crimson work to spare a glance.
"Because—uh!" A knife in a savage hand sank deep in the pirate's back. "Devil eat you, dog!" Harston turned and split the savage's head, then reeled and fell to his knees, blood starting from his lips.
"The manor's burning!" he croaked, and slumped over in the dust.
Vulmea glared about him. The men who had followed him were all down in their blood. An Indian gasping out his life under his feet was the last of the group which had barred his way. All about him battle swirled and surged, but for the moment he stood alone. A few strides and he could leap to the wall, swing over and be gone through the night. But he remembered the helpless girls in the manor—from which, now, smoke was rolling in billowing masses. He ran toward the manor.