Arrows whirred out of the bushes, but their flight was hurried and erratic. Only three men fell. Then the wild men of the sea plunged through the fringe of foliage and fell on the naked painted figures that rose out of the gloom before them. There was a murderous instant of panting, hand to hand ferocity, cutlasses beating down war-axes, booted feet trampling naked bodies, and then bare feet were rattling through the bushes in headlong flight as the survivors of that brief carnage quit the field, leaving seven still, painted figures stretched on the bloodstained leaves that littered the earth. Further back in the thickets sounded a thrashing and heaving, and then it ceased and Vulmea strode into view, his hat gone, his coat torn, his cutlass dripping in his hand.
"What now?" panted Villiers. He knew the charge had succeeded only because Vulmea's unexpected attack on the rear of the Indians had demoralized the painted men, and prevented them from melting back before the rush.
"Come on!"
They let their dead lie where they had fallen, and crowded close at his heels as he trotted through the trees. Alone they would have sweated and blundered among the thickets for hours before they found the trail that led to the beach— if they had ever found it. Vulmea led them as unerringly as if he had been following an open road, and the rovers shouted with hysterical relief as they burst suddenly upon the trail that ran westward.
"Fool!" Vulmea clapped a hand on the shoulder of a pirate who started to break into a run, and hurled him back among his companions. "You'd burst your heart within a thousand yards. We're miles from the beach. Take an easy gait. We may have to sprint the last mile. Save some of your wind for it. Come on, now."
He set off down the trail at a steady jog-trot, and the seamen followed him, suiting their pace to his.
The sun was touching the waves of the western ocean. Tina stood at the window from which Françoise had watched the storm.
"The sunset turns the ocean to blood," she said. "The ship's sail is a white fleck on the crimson waters. The woods are already darkening."
"What of the seamen on the beach?" asked Françoise languidly. She reclined on a couch, her eyes closed, her hands clasped behind her head.
"Both camps are preparing their supper," answered Tina. "They are gathering driftwood and building fires. I can hear them shouting to one another—what's that?"
The sudden tenseness in the girl's tone brought Françoise upright on her couch. Tina gripped the window sill and her face was white.
"Listen! A howling, far off, like many wolves!"
"Wolves?" Françoise sprang up, fear clutching her heart. "Wolves do not hunt in packs at this time of the year!"
"Look!" shrilled the girl. "Men are running out of the forest!"
In an instant Françoise was beside her, staring wide-eyed at the figures, small in the distance, streaming out of the woods.
"The sailors!" she gasped. "Empty handed! I see Villiers-Harston
"Where is Vulmea?" whispered the girl.
Françoise shook her head.
"Listen! Oh, listen!" whimpered the child, clinging to her.
All in the fort could hear it now—a vast ululation of mad blood-lust, rising from the depths of the dark forest.
That sound spurred on the panting men reeling toward the stockade.
"They're almost at our heels!" gasped Harston, his face a drawn mask of muscular exhaustion. "My ship—"
"She's too far out for us to reach," panted Villiers. "Make for the fort. See, the men camped on the beach have seen us!" He waved his arms in breathless pantomime, but the men on the strand had already recognized the significance of that wild howling in the forest. They abandoned their fires and cooking-pots and fled for the stockade gate. They were pouring through it as the fugitives from the forest rounded the south angle and reeled into the gate, half dead from exhaustion. The gate was slammed with frenzied haste, and men swarmed up the firing ledge.
Françoise confronted Villiers.
"Where is Black Vulmea"'
The buccaneer jerked a thumb toward the blackening woods. His chest heaved, and sweat poured down his face. "Their scouts were at our heels before we gained the beach. He paused to slay a few and give us time to get away."
He staggered away to take his place on the wall, whither Harston had already mounted. Henri stood there, a somber, cloak-wrapped figure, aloof and silent. He was like a man bewitched.
"Look!" yelped a pirate above the howling of the yet unseen horde.
A man emerged from the forest and raced fleetly toward the fort.
"Vulmea!"
Villiers grinned wolfishly.
"We're safe in the stockade. We know where the treasure is. No reason why we shouldn't put a bullet through him now."
"Wait!" Harston caught his arm. "We'll need his sword! Look!"
