by Wilbur Smith
"Stop, jon gen or I will shoot." There was another shout behind and when Jim looked back, Keyser had drawn the pistol from the holster on the front of his saddle and was leaning out to avoid hitting his own horse. In that swift glance Jim saw that it was a single-barrelled weapon, and there was not a second in the holster. Jim swerved Drumfire to the left without a break in his stride, cutting sharply across the mare's nose. In an instant he had changed Keyser's target from a steady going-away shot to one with a sharp angle of deflection. Even an experienced soldier like the colonel, shooting from a galloping horse, would have difficulty judging the forward allowance.
Jim reached back, seized Louisa round the waist and swung her round on his off-side, tucking her under his armpit and shielding her with his own body. The pistol shot boomed out, and he felt the strike of the heavy ball. It was high in his back across his shoulders, but after the numbing shock his arms were still strong and his senses alert. He knew he was not badly wounded.
Only pricked me, he thought, and then he spoke: That's his one and
only shot." He said it to encourage Louisa, and swung her back into her place behind him.
"Mercy! You're hit," she exclaimed fearfully. Blood was streaming down his back.
"We'll worry about that later," he sang out. "Now Drumfire and I are going to show you a few of our tricks." He was enjoying himself. He had just been half drowned and shot, but he was still cocky. Louisa had found herself an indomitable champion, and her spirits soared.
But they had lost ground with that evasive turn, and close behind they heard Trueheart's hoofs slapping into the sand, and the scraping of steel in the scabbard as Keyser drew his sabre. Louisa glanced back and saw him rise up over her, standing in the stirrups with his blade held high, but the change of his balance wrong-footed the mare and she stumbled. Keyser swayed and grabbed at the pommel of his saddle to regain balance and Drumfire pulled ahead. Jim put him at the slope of the high dune, and here the stallion's great strength came into play. He went up in a series of violent lunges with the sand spurting out from under his hoofs. Trueheart dropped back sharply as she carried the colonel's weight up the slope.
They went over the top and slid down the far side. From the foot of the dune there was open ground and firm going to the edge of the lagoon. Louisa looked back. "They're gaining again," she warned Jim. Trueheart was striding out gracefully. Even though she was carrying the weight of the colonel, and all his weapons and accoutrements, she seemed to flirt with the earth.
"He's reloading his pistol." There was an edge of alarm in her voice. Keyser was ramming a ball into the muzzle.
"Let's see if we can wet his powder for him," Jim said, and they reached the edge of the lagoon and plunged in without a check.
"Swim again," Jim ordered, and Louisa slipped into the water on Drumfire's other flank. They both looked back as Trueheart reached the edge of the lagoon and Keyser pulled her up. He jumped down and primed the pan of his pistol. Then he cocked the hammer, and aimed at them across the open water. There was a puff of white gunsmoke. A fountain of water jumped from the surface an arm's length behind them and, with a hum, the heavy ball ricocheted over their heads.
"Now throw your boots at us." Jim laughed, and Keyser stamped with rage. Jim hoped that he would give up now. Surely, even in his anger, he must consider the fact that Trueheart was so heavily burdened, while they were almost naked and Drumfire's back was bare. Keyser made the decision, and swung up on to the mare's back. He pushed her into the water, just as Drumfire emerged on to the muddy bank on the far side.
Immediately Jim turned him parallel to the shore and, keeping to the soft ground, led him along the shore at a trot.
"We must give Drumfire a chance to breathe," he told Louisa as she ran behind him. "That swim out to the ship would have drowned any other horse." He was watching their pursuers. Trueheart was only halfway across the lagoon. "Keyser wasted time with his pistol practice. One thing is certain, there will be no more of that. His powder is well and truly soaked by now."
The water washed the blood from your wound," she told him, reaching out to touch his back lightly. "I can see now it's a graze, not deep, thank the good Lord."
"It's you we have to worry about," he said. "You're skin and bones, not a pound of meat on you. How long can you run on those skinny legs?"
"As long as you can," she flared at him, and angry red spots appeared on her pale cheeks.
He grinned at her unrepentantly. "You may have to prove that boast before this day is done. Keyser is across."
Far behind them Trueheart came out on to the bank and, streaming water from his tunic, breeches and boots, Keyser mounted her and set out along the bank after them. He urged the mare into a gallop, but heavy clods of mud flew from her hoofs and it was immediately obvious that she was making heavy work of it. Jim had kept to the mud flats for just that reason, to test Trueheart's strength.
"Up you get." Jim seized Louisa, threw her up on to the stallion's back and broke into a run. He kept a firm grip on Drumfire's mane so he was pulled along, keeping pace with horse's easy canter while saving the animal's strength. He kept glancing back to judge their relative speeds. He could afford to let Keyser gain a little ground now. Carrying only Louisa's weight Drumfire was going easily, while the mare was burning up her strength in this reckless pursuit.
Within half a mile Keyser's weight began to tell, and Trueheart slowed to a walk. She was still trailing by a half pistol-shot. Jim slowed to her speed to keep the gap constant.
"Come down, if you please, your ladyship," he told Louisa. "Give Drumfire another breather."
She jumped down lightly, but flashed at him, "Don't call me that." It was a bitter reminder of the taunts she had endured from her fellow convicts.
"Perhaps we should rather call you Hedgehog?" he asked. The Lord knows, you have prickles enough to warrant it."
Keyser must be almost exhausted by now, Jim thought, for he stayed in the saddle, not taking his weight off his mount. They are almost
done in," he told Louisa. He knew that not far ahead and still on the Courtney estate lay a salt pan that they called Groot Wit Big White. That was where he was leading Keyser.
"He's coming on again," Louisa warned him, and he saw that Keyser was pushing the mare into a canter. She was a game little filly, and she was responding to the whip.
"Mount!" he ordered.
"I can run as far as you can." She shook the salt-crusted tangle of her long hair at him defiantly.
"In Jesus's name, woman, must you always argue?"
"Must you always blaspheme?" she riposted, but she allowed him to hoist her on to the stallion's back. They ran on. Within the mile True heart had slowed to a walk, and they could do the same.
"There is the beginning of the salt." Jim pointed ahead and even under the low storm clouds and in the gathering dusk, it shone like a vast mirror.
"It looks flat and hard." She shaded her eyes against the glare.
"It looks that way, but under the crust it's porridge. With that great fat Dutchman and all his equipment up on her back the mare will break through every few paces. It's almost three miles across the pan. They will be completely finished before they reach the other side and..." he looked at the sky "... by then it will be dark."
Although it was hidden by the lowering blanket of cloud the sun must have been close to the horizon and the darkness was coming on apace as Jim led Drumfire, the girl staggering beside him, off the treacherous white plain. He paused at the edge of the forest, and they both looked back.
Like a long string of black pearls Drumfire's hoofprints were deeply scored into the smooth white surface. Even for him the crossing had been a terrible ordeal. Far behind they could just make out the small dark shape of the mare. Two hours earlier, with Keyser on her back, Trueheart had broken through the salt crust and into the quicksand beneath. Jim had stopped and watched Keyser struggle to free her. He had been tempted to turn back and help them. She was such a game,
beautiful animal that he could not bear to watch her bogged down and exhausted. Then he remembered that he was unarmed and almost naked, while Keyser had his sabre and was a swordsman to be reckoned with. Jim had watched him leading his cavalry troop through their evolutions on the parade-ground outside the castle. While he hesitated Keyser had managed, by force, to drag the mare free of the mud and continue plodding in pursuit.
Now he was still following and Jim frowned. "If there were ever a
time to meet Keyser it would be when he comes off the salt. He will be exhausted and in the dark I would have the benefit of surprise. But he has his sabre and I have nothing," he murmured. Louisa looked at him for a moment, then turned her back to him modestly, and reached under the skirt of her shift. She found the horn-handled clasp knife in the pouch she wore strapped round her waist and handed it to him without a word. He stared at it in astonishment, then burst out laughing as he recognized it.
"I withdraw everything I said about you. You look like a Viking maid and, by Jesus, you act like one too."
"Watch your blaspheming tongue, Jim Courtney," she said, but there was no fire in the rebuke. She was too tired to argue further, and the compliment had been a pretty one. As she turned away her head there was a weary half smile on her lips. Jim led Drumfire into the trees, and she followed them. After a few hundred paces, in a spot where the forest was thickest, he tethered the stallion and told Louisa, "Now you can rest a while."
This time she did not protest but sank down on the thick leaf mould on the forest floor, curled up, closed her eyes. In her weakened state she felt that she might never have the strength to stand up again. Hardly had the thought flashed through her mind than she was asleep.
Jim wasted a few moments admiring her suddenly serene features. Until then he had not realized how young she was. Now she looked like a sleeping child. While he watched her he opened the blade of the knife and tested the point on the ball of his thumb. At last he tore himself away, and ran back to the edge of the forest. Keeping well hidden he peered out across the darkening salt pan. Keyser was still coming on doggedly, leading the mare.
Will he never give up? Jim wondered, and felt a twinge of admiration for him. Then he looked around for the best place to hide beside the tracks that Drumfire had left. He picked a patch of dense bush, crept into it and squatted there with the knife in his hand.
Keyser reached the edge of the pan, and staggered out on to the firm footing. By this time it was so dark that, although Jim could hear him panting for breath, he was just a dark shape. He came on slowly, leading the mare, and Jim let him pass his hiding-place. Then he slipped out of the bush and crept up behind him. Any sound he might have made was covered by the hoof-falls of the mare. From behind he locked his left arm around Keyset's throat and, at the same time, pressed the point of the knife into the soft skin under his ear. "I will kill you if you force me to it," he snarled, making his tone ferocious.
Keyser froze with shock. Then he regained his own voice. "You can't
hope to get away with this, Courtney. There is no place for you to run. Give me the woman, and I will settle things with your father and Governor van de Witten."
Jim reached down and drew the sabre from the scabbard on the colonel's belt. Then he released his lock around the man's throat and stepped back, but he held the point of the sabre to Keyser's chest. Take off your clothes," he ordered.
"You are young and stupid, Courtney," Keyser replied coldly. "I will try to make allowances for that."
"Tunic first," Jim ordered. "Then breeches and boots."
Keyser did not move. Jim pricked his chest, and at last, reluctantly, the colonel reached up and began to unbutton his tunic.
"What do you hope to achieve?" he asked, as he shrugged out of it. "Is this some boyish notion of chivalry? The woman is a convicted felon. She is probably a whore and a murderess."
"Say that again, Colonel, and I will spit you like a sucking pig." This time Jim drew blood with the point. Keyser sat down to pull off his boots and his breeches. Jim stuffed them into Trueheart's saddlebags. Then, with the point of the sabre at the man's back, he escorted Keyser, barefoot and wearing only his undershirt, to the edge of the salt pan.
"Follow your own tracks, Colonel," he told him, 'and you should be back at the castle in time for breakfast."
"Listen to me, jon gen Keyser said, in a thin tight voice. "I will come after you. I will see you hanged on the parade, and I promise you it will be slow very slow."
"If you stand here talking, Colonel, you're going to miss your breakfast." Jim smiled at him. "You had far better start walking."
He watched Keyser trudge away across the salt pan. Suddenly the heavy clouds were stripped away by the wind and the full moon burst through to light the pale surface as though it were day. It was bright enough to throw a shadow at Keyser's feet. Jim watched him until he was only a dark blob in the distance, and knew that he was not coming back. Not tonight, at least. But it's not the last we've seen of the gallant colonel, he thought, we can be sure of that. Then he ran back to Trueheart, and led her into the forest. He shook Louisa awake. "Wake up, Hedgehog. We have a long journey ahead of us," he told her. "And by this time tomorrow we are going to have Keyser and a squadron of cavalry in full cry after us."
When she sat up groggily he went to Trueheart. A rolled woollen cavalry cloak was strapped on top of Keyser's saddlebags.
"It will be cold when we get into the mountains," he warned her. She was still half asleep and did not protest as he wrapped the cloak round
her shoulders. Then he found the colonel's food bag. It held a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, a few apples and a flask of wine. The colonel dearly loves his food." He tossed her an apple and she wolfed it down core and all.
"Sweeter than honey," she said, through a mouthful. "I never tasted anything like it before."
"Greedy little Hedgehog," he teased her and this time she gave him an urchin smile. Most people found it hard to be angry with Jim for long. He squatted on his haunches in front of her and, with the clasp knife, cut a hunk of bread and slapped a thick slice of cheese on top of it. She ate with ferocious intensity. He watched her pale face in the moonlight. She looked like a pixie.
"And you?" she asked. "Aren't you eating?" He shook his head. He had decided that there would not be enough for both of them: this girl was starving.
"How did you learn to speak such good English?"
"My mother came from Devon."
"My oath! That's where we're from. My great-great-grandfather was a duke, or something of that ilk."
"So, shall I call you Duke?"
"That will do until I think of something better, Hedgehog." She took another bite of bread and cheese so she could not reply. While she ate he sorted through the rest of Keyser's possessions. He tried on the gold frogged tunic, and held the lapels together.
"Space for two of us in here, but it's warm." The front flaps of the colonel's breeches went half-way again round Jim's middle but he belted them with one of the straps from the saddlebags. Then he tried the boots. "At least these are a good fit."
"In London I saw a play called The Tin Soldier," she said. "That's who you look like now."
"You were in London?" Despite himself he was impressed. London was the centre of the world. "You must tell me about it as soon as we have an opportunity."
Then he led the horses to the well on the edge of the pan where the cattle were watered. He and Mansur had dug it themselves two years ago. The water in it was sweet, and the horses drank thirstily. When he led them back he found Louisa had fallen asleep again under the cloak. He squatted beside her and studied her face in the moonlight, and there was a strange hollow feeling under his ribs. He left her to sleep a little longer and went to feed the horses from the colonel's grain bag.
Then he selected what he needed from Keyser's equipment. The pistol was a lovely weapon, and tucked into the leather holster was a