He prayed wildly for a sudden blindness
--to faint as Thorne had fainted. But he was transfixed to the spot
with eyes that pierced the red light.
Mercedes was growing weaker, seemed about to collapse.
"Oh, Jim Lash, are you dead?" cried Gale. "Oh, Laddy!...Oh, Yaqui!"
Suddenly a dark form literally fell down the wall behind the ledge
where Rojas fought the girl. It sank in a heap, then bounded erect.
"Yaqui!" screamed Gale, and he waved his bleeding hands till the
blood bespattered his face. Then he choked. Utterance became
impossible.
The Indian bent over Rojas and flung him against the wall.
Mercedes, sinking back, lay still. When Rojas got up the Indian
stood between him and escape from the ledge. Rojas backed
the other way along the narrowing shelf of lava. His manner
was abject, stupefied. Slowly he stepped backward.
It was then that Gale caught the white gleam of a knife in Yaqui's
hand. Rojas turned and ran. He rounded a corner of wall where the
footing was precarious. Yaqui followed slowly. His figure was dark
and menacing. But he was not in a hurry. When he passed off the
ledge Rojas was edging farther and farther along the wall. He
was clinging now to the lava, creeping inch by inch. Perhaps he
had thought to work around the buttress or climb over it. Evidently
he went as far as possible, and there he clung, an unscalable wall
above, the abyss beneath.
The approach of the Yaqui was like a slow dark shadow of gloom.
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