Several men and women stared at us. Hilmi Bey peered from behind a pillar next the courtyard door. He had plainly taken shelter at the crack of Hélène's pistol. Montey Hilyer and Serge Vassilievich stood some distance to the right of us, paralyzed with surprise. Maude Hilyer and Sandra Vassilievna had risen from seats in the apse-like recess at the other end. Apparently they had supposed Toutou was engaged only with Hélène.
He screamed at them, insensate in his fury. His knife still dripped blood. He flung his empty pistol at us.
"Fools!" he shrieked. "We are betrayed!"
The door to the courtyard was jerked open, and he spun on his heel and dodged behind a pillar. Tokalji reeled in.
"Strange Tzigane folk have burst the street-door," he bellowed. "We—"
He gaped at sight of us.
"Quick!" Hugh shouted. "Scatter—before they shoot!"
Watkins and I jumped right and left. Hugh sought the shelter of a pillar.
"Shoot!" yelled Toutou. "Shoot! Fools! Swine! Dogs!"
And he babbled on obscenely, darting catlike from pillar to pillar toward Watty. Hilyer and Serge simultaneously came to life and made for us, guns spurting, throwing pieces of furniture to confuse us. Things happened so fast that it was impossible to keep track of everything, but I found myself involved in a pistol duel with Serge. Hugh and Watkins were blazing away at Hilmi, Hilyer and Tokalji, and Toutou was weaving through the smoke, seeking an opportunity to close with one of us. I paid no attention to the women until a bullet spatted on a pillar by my ear. I knew it could not have come from the front, and startled, I turned to the left in time to see Sandra aiming deliberately at me. I dodged, and thereby opened myself to her brother's attack.
He was an excellent marksman, and I realized there could be only one result for me if I continued exposed in flank. So I tore a lantern from its hook and flung it on the floor. The burning oil vomited forth a cloud of thick black smoke, and under cover of this, I changed my position, gaining the protection of another pillar. Here I was safe from Sandra; but her brother knew where I was and our duel continued. It was no steady stream of bullets, but a pot-shot whenever one of us thought he saw an opportunity. All around us others were doing the same thing, and the vaulted roof rang to the reports, while the acrid fumes of the powder and the smoke from broken lamps stung the eyes. And outside the thunder was pealing and the lightning splitting the heavens and Nikka's men and Tokalji's Gypsies were trying their feeble best to rival nature's forces.
Suddenly, I sensed that our opponents were bracing for a combined effort. There was a rapid-fire exchange of exclamations in the thieves' French and Tzigane dialect they used for confidential communication. I heard an empty cartridge-clip jingle on the floor. But in the shifting light and smoke it was impossible now to tell real men from the shadows. I stuck my head around a pillar, crouched and slipped aside. Then, while I was unprotected, the rush came.
"Go!" called Hilyer's voice.
The shadows were pricked with pistol-flashes. Serge Vassilievich leaped for the pillar behind which I had stood, his gun blazing, knife in hand. He did not see me, on my knees, four feet to the right, and I put my first bullet in his thigh. He stopped as if a giant's hand had been shoved against his breast, tottered and fell backward. As he fell, one of the burning oil-pools ignited a bundle of blankets, and the rising flames sketched us both clearly against the darkness that shrouded the far end of the room.
There was a scream. I recognized Sandra's voice, but I could not see her. Instead, I saw Hilmi Bey sneaking on Watkins, who was holding back Toutou. I drove the Levantine away with my first shot. Then the hammer clicked, and I knew the magazine was empty. I dropped to my knee again, thinking I was concealed by a patch of shadow, and fumbled for a fresh clip. But the treacherous light flared upward, the shadow disappeared and I was left defenseless. I saw a raging figure, hair flying, pistol raised, running at me. I saw the pistol flash, felt a numbing blow on my left shoulder and tumbled in a heap.
For a second my eyes misted, the room danced before me. Then I heard a chatter of Russian and Watkins, mildly disapproving.
"None of that 'ere, miss. If you please, now! I don't want to 'urt you, but—"
I looked up. Sandra, her face contorted with demoniac rage, her empty pistol shaking in her hand, was backing away before Watty's menacing crowbar.
A woman screamed again, horribly, so that it rasped your heart-strings. It was Maude Hilyer. She stood, with hands clutching her cheeks, her gaze fixed on the center of the room where Montey staggered against a pillar, the blood from a punctured lung gurgling in his throat, bravely trying for the last time to raise the smoking muzzle of his automatic.
Hugh, relieved of the Englishman's attack, was taking pot-shots at Toutou and Hilmi. I saw Tokalji slip through the door into the rain, and as Vernon King ran up the stairs from the atrium Hilmi followed the Tzigane and Toutou jumped through a window, squawling like the big cat he was. Behind me Watkins was scientifically roping Sandra, hand and foot, regardless of the curses she spat in three languages. Vassilievich had fainted from the pain of his wound. Maude Hilyer sat on the dirty floor, under the single wobbling lantern that remained intact, and cradled the head of her dying husband. We had swept the House of the Married.
Or had we? As I tried unsuccessfully with one hand to reload my pistol, I felt a pressure on my back. I turned and very nearly impaled myself on a long knife-blade. A tense, willowy figure, bare-footed and tumble-haired, stood over me.
"You are Jakka," said Kara in the Tzigane dialect—I could understand simple phrases after my experience with Nikka's tribespeople. "Where is Nikka?"
Dumbfounded, I pointed to the courtyard. She glided toward the door, but Hugh intervened.
"Not so fast," he said. "Whose friend are you?"
She did not understand him, and raised her knife.
"I'll shoot you, if you are a girl," warned Hugh. "Any one who resists—"
"She's all right, Hugh," I called. "She's trying to find Nikka—must have been asleep upstairs. Let her go."
But she did not wait for him to stand aside. With a single leap, she put one of the pillars between him and herself, and vaulted from the window Toutou had escaped by.
"Nothing slow about that girl," said Hugh. "Everybody whole?"
A pistol cracked in the doorway, and the bullet sang by his ear.
"They're still after us," he commented, dropping beside me. "Have to load my gun."
"Then load mine, too," I said. "My left shoulder's hit—whole arm is no use."
He laid down his automatic.
"We'll carry you inside with Betty. I see Watty has made a prisoner, and Vassilievich had better be watched. You can—"
"I will not," I returned. "We'll need every man before we finish to-night. Hear that!"
The courtyard had become an inferno—yells, screams, howls, shots, the beat of the rain and the din of the storm.
"Tie my arm to my side, and I'll be O.K.," I urged.
Betty crawled between us.
"Did I hear you call me?" she asked.
"My word!" grunted Hugh. "Get back, Bet. This is—"
"Touch and go," she supplemented his sentence. "I have Hélène's gun. You boys had better help Nikka. I can guard this place."
A whistle shrilled in the courtyard.
"Hugh!" It was Nikka's voice. "Jack!"
There was a racket of shots.
"Yes, he must be badly outnumbered," muttered Hugh. "No time to lose. Here, Jack, where's your handkerchief? Right O! Thanks, Bet. Not too tight. Can you stand that?"
"Yes, load my gun, somebody."
Betty took it. King, ensconced behind an adjacent pillar, fired at the door.
"They seem to be waiting for us out there," he observed.
"Yes," said Hugh. "Betty, you lie here in the shadows. Don't let anybody approach you, no matter what they say. Keep an eye on Mrs. Hilyer and the Russian girl—and her brother. See him over there? He's done in, for the time-being, but if he comes to maybe you'd better tie him up."
"Don't you worry about me," answered Betty valiantly. "I can take care of myself. Do hurry!"
"'Ere, your ludship," came a throaty whisper from Watkins. "This way, gentlemen."
He was at the far end of the room, and while we watched, he put his hat on the end of his crowbar—from which he refused to be parted—and stuck it above the sill of a window.
"I've done this twice now, your ludship," he added, "and nothing's 'appened. They ain't watching 'ere."
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