CHAPTER XXV
THE GOAL, AND THROUGH IT
It all happened in a moment of time, a moment, long--inseeming--as an hour. The girl's revolver crackled, there behind him.Stern saw a little round bluish hole take shape in the obeah's ear,and red drops start.
Then with a ghastly screaming, the Thing was upon him.
Out struck the engineer, with the rifle-barrel. All the force of hissplendid muscles lay behind that blow. The Thing tried to dodge. ButStern had been too quick.
Even as it sprang, with talons clutching for the man's throat, thesteel barrel drove home on the jaw.
An unearthly, piercing yell split the forest air. Then Stern saw theobeah, his jaw hanging oddly awry, all loose and shattered, fallheadlong in the path.
But before he could strike again, could batter in the base of thetough skull, a moan from Beatrice sent him to her aid.
"Oh, God!" he cried, and sank beside her on his knees.
On her forehead, as she lay gasping among the bushes, he saw an uglywelt.
"A stone? They've hit her with a stone! Killed her, perhaps?"
Kneeling there, up he snatched the revolver, and in a deadly fire hepoured out the last spitting shots, pointblank in the faces of thecrowding rabble.
Up he leaped. The rifle barrel flashed and glittered as he whirled it.Like a reaper, laying a clean swath behind him, the engineer moweddown a dozen of the beast-men.
Shrieks, grunts, snarls, mingled with his execrations.
Then fair into a jabbering ape-face he flung the bloodstained barrel.The face fell, faded, vanished, as hideous illusions fade in a dream.
And Stern, with a strength he never dreamed was his, caught up thefainting girl in his left arm, as easily as though she had been achild.
Still dragging the spear which pierced his right--his right that yetprotected her a little--he ran.
Stones, darts, spears, clattered in about him. He heard the swish andtang of them; heard the leaves flutter as the missiles whirledthrough.
Struck? Was he struck again?
He knew not, nor cared. Only he thought of shielding Beatrice. Nothingbut that, just that!
"The gate--oh, let me reach the gate! God! The gate--"
And all of a sudden, though how he could not tell, there he seemed tosee the gate before him. Could it be? Or was that, too, a dream? Acruel, vicious mockery of his disordered mind?
Yes--the gate! It must be! He recognized the giant pine, in a momentof lucidity. Then everything began to dance again, to quiver in themocking sunlight.
"The gate!" he gasped once more, and staggered on. Behind him, alittle trail of blood-drops from his wounded arm fell on the trampledleaves.
Something struck his bent head. Through it a blinding pain darted.Thousands of beautiful and tiny lights of every color began to quiver,to leap and whirl.
"They've--set the building on fire!" thought he; yet all the while heknew it was impossible, he understood it was only an illusion.
He heard the rustle of the wind through the forest. It blent andmingled with a horrid tumult of grunts, of clicking cries, of gnashingteeth and little bestial cries.
"The--gate!" sobbed Stern, between hard-set teeth, and stumbledforward, ever forward, through the Horde.
To him, protectingly, he clasped the beautiful body in the tiger-skin.
Living? Was she living yet? A great, aching wonder filled him. Couldhe reach the stair with her, and bear her up it? Hurl back thesedevils? Save her, after all?
The pain had grown exquisite, in his head. Something seemed hammeringthere, with regular strokes--a red-hot sledge upon an anvil ofwhite-hot steel.
To him it looked as though a hundred, a thousand of the little bluefiends were leaping, shrieking, circling there in front of him. Tenthousand! And he must break through.
Break through!
Where had he heard those words? Ah--Yes--
To him instantly recurred a distant echo of a song, a Harvardfootball-song. He remembered. Now he was back again. Yale, 0; Harvard,17--New Haven, 1898. And see the thousands of cheering spectators! Thehats flying through the air--flags waving--red, most of them!Crimson--like blood!
Came the crash and boom of the old Harvard Band, with big Joe Foleybanging the drum till it was fit to burst, with Marsh blowing hislungs out on the cornet, and all the other fellows raising Cain.
Uproar! Cheering! And again the music. Everybody was singing now,everybody roaring out that brave old fighting chorus:
".....Now--all to-geth-er, Smash them--_and_--break--_through!_"
And see! Look there! The goal!
The scene shifted, all at once, in a quiteunaccountable and puzzling manner.
Somehow, victory wasn't quite won, after all. Not quite yet. What wasthe matter, then? What was wrong? Where _was_ he?
Ah, the Goal!
Yes, there through the rack and mass of the Blues, he saw it, again,quite clearly. He was sure of _that_, anyhow.
The goal-posts seemed a trifle near together, and they were certainlymade of crumbling stone, instead of straight wooden beams. Odd, that!
He wondered, too, why the management allowed trees to grow on thefield, trees and bushes--why a huge pine should be standing rightthere by the left-hand post. That was certainly a matter to beinvestigated and complained of, later. But now was no time for kicks.
"Probably some Blue trick," thought Stern. "No matter, it won't do 'emany good, this time!"
Ah! An opening! Stern's head went lower still.He braced himself for a leap.
"Come on, come on!" he yelled defiance.
Again he heard the cheering, once wind like a chorus of mad devils.
An opening? No, he was mistaken. Instead, the Blues were massing thereby the Goal.
Bitterly he swore. Under his arm he tightened the ball. He ran!
What?
They were trying to tackle?
"Damn you!" he cried, in boiling anger. "I'll--I'll show you a trickor two--yet!"
He stopped, circled, dodged the clutching hands, feinted with a tacticlong unthought of, and broke into a straight, resistless dash for theposts.
As he ran, he yelled:
"_Smash_ them--and--break _through!_ . ....."
All his waning strength upgathered for that run. Yet how strangelytired he felt--how heavy the ball was growing!
What was the matter with his head? With his right arm? They both achedhideously. He must have got hurt, some way, in one of the "downs."Some dirty work, somewhere. Rotten sport!
He ran. Never in all his many games had he seen such peculiargridiron, all tangled and overgrown. Never, such host of tackles.Hundreds of them! Where were the Crimsons? What? No support, nointerference? Hell!
Yet the Goal was surely just there, now right ahead. He ran.
"Foul!" he shouted savagely, as a Blue struck at him, then another andanother, and many more. The taste of blood came to his tongue. Hespat. "Foul!"
Right and left he dashed them, with a giant's strength. They scatteredin panic, with strange and unintelligible cries.
"The goal!"
He reached it. And, as he crossed the line, he fell.
"_Down_, down!" sobbed he.
Darkness and Dawn Page 25
