The Everlasting Whisper

Benny had circled to the far side; Brodie had caught up a great thick limb of wood. They were coming at King from two sides at once.... Gloria tried to aim, pulled the trigger, tugging frantically. Only then she remembered to draw the hammer back; it was Brodie's ancient rifle and she struggled to get it cocked. She shuddered at the report. The bullet sang in front of Benny, and he stopped dead in his tracks. He was near the cave's mouth. Gloria pointed, forgot the hammer remembered, got the gun cocked and fired again. Benny plunged wildly forward; she did not know if she had hit him. He hurled himself headlong toward the narrow exit and through.

She had forgotten Brodie and King! She turned toward them. She did not dare shoot now; King was in the way. He moved aside as if he understood her trouble; Brodie, grown unthinkably quick of foot, moved with him. Brodie, too, understood. She saw him leap in and strike. The blow landed, a glancing blow. King seemed to have grown tired; he moved so slowly. But he did move and toward Brodie; he swung his clubbed rifle-barrel and beat at Brodie's great face with it. Beat and missed and almost fell forward.

Again Brodie struck; again King beat at him. They moved up and down, back and forth; Brodie was cursing under his breath, and at last jeering. King was moving more and more slowly; his left arm swung as if it were useless; Brodie swept up his club in both hands, grunting audibly with every blow.... Oh, if she could only shoot ... if she only dared shoot! But Brodie, nimble on his feet that had been so patiently slow just now, kept King always in front of him, between him and Gloria's rifle.

"I'll get you, King. I'll get you," shouted Brodie, his voice exulting. "I always wanted to get you--right!"

There was a crash, the splintering of wood against steel. Both men had struck together; Brodie's club had broken to splinters. And the rifle-barrel in King's hands flew out of his grip and across the cave, ringing out as it struck. The two men, their hands empty, stood a moment staring at each other. Then Brodie shouted, a great shout of triumph, and sprang forward. And Mark King, steadying himself, ignoring the hot trickle of blood down his side where Benny's second bullet had torn his flesh, met him with a cry that was like Brodie's own. In his hot brain there was no thought of handicap, of odds, of Brodie's advantage.

There was only the mad rage which had hurled him here, one man against five in a girl's defence, that and a raving, unleashed blood lust, the desire, overshadowing all else, to have Brodie's brute throat in his hands, to batter Brodie's brute face into the rocks. They met in their onrush like two bodies hurled from catapults; they struck and grappled and fell and rolled together, one now as they strove, locked in the embrace of death. An embrace in which Brodie's was the greater weight, the greater girth, the greater strength--and Mark King's the greater sheer, clean manhood.