Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗

Suddenly the Governor burst hatless and in his shirt sleeves through the double doors at the head of the staircase and came down at an ungainly lurching run.

"What is it, Mevrouw?" he called urgently to his wife, when he was half-way down. "They say you sent for me, and it's a matter of life and death."

"Hurry!" Katinka cried plaintively. "I am in the most terrible predicament."

He arrived at the door of the carriage, panting wildly. "Tell me what ails you, Mevrouw!" he gasped.

Aboli stepped up behind him and hooked one great arm around his neck, pinning him helplessly. Van de Velde began to struggle. For all his obesity he was a powerful man and even Aboli had difficulty in holding him.

"What in the devil's name are you doing?" he roared in outrage. Aboli placed the blade of the knife at his throat. When van de Velde felt the cold touch of steel and the sting of the razor edge, his struggles ceased.

"I will slit your throat like the great hog you are," Aboli whispered in his ear, "and Sukeena has a dagger at your wife's heart. Tell your soldiers to stay where they are and throw down their arms."

The subaltern had started forward at van de Velde's cry, and his sword was half-way out of its scabbard as he rushed down the stairs.

St opP van de Velde shouted at him in terror. "Don't move, you fool. You will have me killed." The subaltern halted and dithered uncertainly.

Aboli tightened his lock around the Governor's throat. "Tell him to throw down his sword."

"Throw down your sword!" van de Velde whinnied. "Do as he says. Can't you see he has a knife at my throat?" The subaltern dropped his sword, which clattered down the steps.

Fifty feet above the courtyard, Hal sprang out from the scaffold, hanging on the rope from the gantry, and Big Daniel belayed the other end, braking the speed of his fall. The sheave squealed as he plummeted down and landed in balance on the cobbles. He leaped to the rear of the carriage and seized one of the jewelled scimitars. With the next leap he was half-way up the steps where he stooped and swept up the subaltern's sword in his left hand. He placed the point under the officer's chin and said, "Order your men to throw down their weapons!"

"Lay down your arms, all of you!" the subaltern yelled. "If any man among you brings harm to the Governor or his lady, he will pay for it with his own life." The sentries obeyed with alacrity, dropping their muskets and sidearms to the paving stones.

"You too!" van de Velde howled at the overseers, and with reluctance they obeyed. However, at that moment Hugo Barnard was screened by a pile of masonry blocks. He stepped quietly into the doorway to the kitchens, dragging his two hounds with him, and crouched there, waiting his opportunity.

Down from the scaffold scrambled the other seamen. Sparrow and Finch from the lower tier were first to reach the courtyard but Ned, Big Daniel and Billy Rogers were seconds behind them.

"Come on, Althuda!" Hal called, and Althuda dropped his mallet and chisel and ran to join him. "Catch!" Hal lobbed the jewelled scimitar in a high, glinting parabola, and Althuda reached up and caught it by the hilt, plucking it neatly out of the air. Hal wondered what class of swordsman he was. As a fisherman it was unlikely that he would have had much practice.

I shall have to shield him if it comes to a fight, he thought, and looked around quickly. He saw Daniel pulling the other weapons out of the pannier at the back of the carriage. The twin scimitars looked like toys in his huge fist. He tossed one to Ned Tyler and kept the other for himself as he ran to join Hal.

Hal picked up a sword that a sentry had dropped and threw it to Big Daniel. "This one is more your style, Master Danny," he yelled, and Daniel grinned, showing his broken black teeth, as he caught the heavy infantry weapon and made it hiss in the air as he cut left and right.

"Sweet Jesus, it's good to have a re all blade in my hand again!" he exulted, and tossed the light scimitar to Wally Finch. "A tool for a man, but a toy for a boy."

"Aboli, keep a firm hold on that great hog. Cut his ears off if he tries to be crafty," Hal shouted. "The rest of you follow me!" He dropped down the staircase and raced towards the doors of the armoury with Big Daniel and the others on his heels. Althuda began to follow him also, but Hal stopped him. "Not you. You look after Sukeena!" As Althuda turned back and they ran on across the courtyard, Hal snapped at Daniel, "Where's Barnard?"

"The murdering bastard was here not a moment past, but I don't see him now."

"Keep a good lookout for his top sails. We'll have trouble with that swine yet."

Hal burst into the armoury. The three men in the guard room were slumped on the bench. two were asleep and the third scrambled to his feet in bewilderment. Before he could recover his wits, Hal's point was pressed to his chest. "Stay where you are, or I'll look at the colour of your liver." The man dropped back into his seat. "Here, Ned!" Hal called to him as Ned rushed in.. "Play wet-nurse to these infants," and left them in his charge as he ran after Daniel and the other seamen.

Daniel charged the heavy teak door at the end of the passage and it burst open before his rush. They had never before had a chance to look into the armoury, but now at a glance Hal saw that it was all laid out in a neat and orderly fashion. The weapons were in racks along the walls, and the powder kegs stacked to the ceiling at the far end.

"Pick your weapons and bring a keg of powder each," he ordered, and they ran to the long racks of infantry swords, polished, gleaming and sharpened to a bright edge. Further back were the racks of muskets and pistols. Hal thrust a pair of pistols into the rope that served him as a belt. "Remember, you'll have to carry everything you take with you up the mountains, so don't be greedy," he warned them, and picked up a fifty-pound keg of gunpowder from the pyramid at the far end of the armoury, which he hoisted to his shoulder. Then he turned for the door. "That's enough, lads. Get out! Daniel, lay a powder trail as you go! Daniel used the butt of a musket to stove in the bungs of two of the powder kegs. At the foot of the pyramid of barrels he poured a mound of black gunpowder. "That lot will go off with an almighty bang!" He grinned, as he backed towards the door, the other keg under his arm spilling a long dark trail behind him.