Anstice heard Iris give a faint gasp at his side; but now his blood was up and he had no time to reassure even the one beloved woman. Something strange, unexpected, had happened to him. Suddenly he too was primitive man, even as these desert men were magnificently primitive. Gone was all the veneer of civilization, the humanity which bids a man respect a fellow-creature's life. He was no longer the educated, travelled man of the world, who earned his living in honourable and decorous ways. He was the cave-dweller, the man of another and more barbaric age, who defended his stronghold because it held his woman, the woman for whom he would fight to the very end, and count his life well spent if it were yielded up in her service. But he did not mean to die. He meant to live--and since that implied the death of these savages who clamoured without, then let red death stalk between them, and decide to whom he would award the blood-dripping sword of the victor.
Another fierce face at the window--a pair of hawk-like eyes flashing haughty challenge, a sinewy hand raising a revolver in deliberate aim--and Hassan's shot rang out, so swiftly that this man too fell back, disabled, his face disappearing from the window as one runs a film off a reel of pictures.
But there were others--many others--to take his place. Up and up they came till there was a whole phalanx of enemy faces, eyes flashing, white teeth gleaming in horrid snarls ... shot after shot rang out, but by marvellous luck none touched the defenders, who on their side emptied their revolvers as fast as Iris' fingers could make them ready.
Suddenly a gigantic man half sprang over the sill and without attempting to fire seized Anstice by the wrist in a grip of iron, whose marks disfigured him for weeks to come. His intention was obvious--by holding Anstice a prisoner he hoped to make opportunity for others to force an entrance; and as Anstice had involuntarily dropped the revolver as the steel-like fingers crushed his wrist, the fate of the little garrison hung, for a second, in the balance.
"Iris--shoot--quick!" Quite unconscious of the name he used Anstice raised his voice in a desperate shout; and the girl heard and obeyed in the same breath.
Lifting the revolver she had just loaded she fired once, twice, with fingers which did not even tremble; and the next moment with a loud gurgle the Bedouin released his hold and fell back through the window, dislodging the men who were clambering up the ladder behind him, so that they fell together in a confused mass into the courtyard below.