reamed. Even the men below
hesitated and their hearts jumped with a new sensation as the terrible
cry of a woman rang between the rock walls of the chasm. And following
the cry a voice came down to them.

"John Graham, I'm going to kill you--_kill you_--"

And snatching up the fallen rifle Mary Standish set herself to the task
of vengeance.

CHAPTER XXVII

She waited. The ferocity of a mother defending her young filled her
soul, and she moaned in her grief and despair as the seconds passed. But
she did not fire blindly, for she knew she must kill John Graham. The
troublesome thing was a strange film that persisted in gathering before
her eyes, something she tried to brush away, but which obstinately
refused to go. She did not know she was sobbing as she looked over the
rifle barrel. The figures came swiftly, but she had lost sight of John
Graham. They reached the upheaval of shattered rock and began climbing
it, and in her desire to make out the man she hated she stood above the
rampart that had sheltered her. The men looked alike, jumping and
dodging like so many big tundra hares as they came nearer, and suddenly
it occurred to her that _all_ of them were John Grahams, and that she
must kill swiftly and accurately. Only the hiding fairies might have
guessed how her reason trembled and almost fell in those moments when
she began firing. Certainly John Graham and his men did not, for her
first shot was a lucky one, and a man slipped down among the rocks at
the crack of it. After that she continued to fire until the responseless
click of the hammer told her the gun was empty. The explosions and the
shock against her slight shoulder cleared her vision and her brain. She
saw the men still coming, and they were so near she could see their
faces clearly. And again her soul cried out in its desire to kill
John Graham.

She turned, and for an instant fell upon her knees beside Alan. His face
was hidden in his arm. Swiftly she tore his automatic from its holster,
and sprang back to her rock. There was no time to wait or choose now,
for his murderers were almost upon her. With all her strength she tried
to fire accurately, but Alan's big gun leaped and twisted in her hand as
she poured its fire wildly down among the rocks until it was empty. Her
own smaller weapon she had lost somewhere in the race to the kloof, and
now when she found she had fired her last shot she waited through
another instant of horror, until she wa