Страница 91 из 110
He pulled a revolver from his belt and pointed it at the back of Trounce's neck.
“No!” Swinburne shrieked.
Burton looked on, his face mask-like.
Zeppelin noticed the explorer's expression and gri
He received no response.
“You are wrong, Herr Burton. Observe!”
The Prussian sliced the weapon upward into the bony side of Speke's head. The lieutenant slumped, and the count let him slip senselessly to the ground.
“Effective, do you not think?”
Zeppelin reversed the weapon and held it in his left hand like a club. He stepped closer to Trounce, pressed his knee between the detective's shoulder blades, and, with his right hand, reached down over the Yard man's face. He curled his fingers under the bearded chin and levered Trounce's head back until his spine was agonisingly arched and the Prussian's claws were pressed dangerously into the skin of his neck.
“Now, Herr Burton, you too will kneel and your assistant will tie you. If you do not do this, I will break this man's back.”
“You gave your word!” Swinburne shrilled.
“I gave my word that I would leave him here alive. I did not say anything about the condition of his spine.”
“Damn the man!” Burton muttered. He knelt, facing away from Zeppelin.
“As before, little assistant. None of your tricks!”
Swinburne bent over Burton and began to bind his wrists.
“What's the plan, then, Richard?” he whispered eagerly.
“I was hoping you'd tell me, Algy.”
“Be quiet!” Zeppelin commanded.
Swinburne finished the job and stood back.
The count released Trounce. “Das war einfach!”he said. “It is more convenient to kill a man when he is on his knees, nein?”
He raised the revolver over Trounce, still holding it like a club, looked at Swinburne, and asked, “Do you wish to say goodbye to your friends?”
The poet's mouth fell open.
“Your word, Zeppelin!” Burton yelled.
The count laughed. “Who heard it except the men who will die here today? I will leave this place, by myself, with the Eye of Naga in my hand and my honour intact! I will be a hero to the Germanic people!”
He swung the pistol up and back.
Swinburne let loose a scream of rage and flung himself forward. The Prussian turned and swiped at him, but the poet, with astonishing speed, ducked and rolled through Zeppelin's widespread legs. Snatching up a lump of quartz, he bounded to his feet and threw it with all his might into the side of his opponent's head.
Zeppelin staggered and groaned. He turned and hit out, blindly. Swinburne was already scampering clear and scooping up a fist-sized stone. He threw it and it cracked off the bigger man's kneecap, causing him to scream with pain.
“Bravo, lad!” Trounce cheered.
“Your aim is improving, Algy!” Burton called.
“I was trying to hit his nose!”
“Oh!”
“Come here!” Zeppelin roared, hopping on one leg.
“Not bloody likely!” Swinburne answered. Maintaining his distance, he picked up more crystals and rocks and started pelting the count with them.
“Gott im Himmel!”Zeppelin cried out. He backed away, coming perilously close to the lip of the sinkhole.
“Send him over the edge, lad!” Trounce urged.
In desperation, the Prussian hurled his revolver at Swinburne. It flew wide of the mark.
“Ha!” the poet squealed. He aimed at Zeppelin's uninjured knee, and, putting all his strength behind it, launched another stone. It caught the count in the middle of his forehead. The big man groaned and sat down hard, his eyes glazing over. Blood poured down his face.
Swinburne bent and lifted a large serrated lump of amethyst, heaved it over his head, and staggered toward the Prussian, intending to crack it down onto the man's skull.
“Algy!” Burton yelled. “Stay away from him!”
His assistant, oblivious to all but revenge, ignored the command and reached his opponent's side. He swung the amethyst higher.
Zeppelin's fist lashed out and caught him in the stomach. The crystal shattered on the rocky ground as Swinburne dropped it and doubled over. The count grabbed him by the neck and dug his claws in. He pushed himself to his feet and, standing behind the poet, yanked him around to face Burton and lifted him into the air.
Swinburne's eyes bulged. His face began to turn blue. He jerked and kicked in Zeppelin's grip. Black lines of venom crawled under his skin as the talons sank in.
“Don't!” Burton screamed.
“He is very irritating to me, Herr Burton!” Zeppelin explained, shaking his victim.
Swinburne's tongue protruded. His eyes started to roll up into his head.
“Let him go!” Trounce bellowed.
“I will be certain to do so, Herr Policeman-when he is dead! But see! He has a little life left in him still! How he kicks!”
With his last vestiges of strength, the poet reached into his jacket and pulled from it Apollo's gold-tipped arrow of Eros. He jerked it upward and backward over his shoulder. The point sank into Zeppelin's right eye.
With an agonised shriek, the Prussian reeled back, teetered on the edge of the sinkhole, and plunged into it, dragging Swinburne with him.
Suddenly: silence.
Burton and Trounce knelt, staring, unable to comprehend that their companion was gone. An incalculable interval passed; perhaps a moment, maybe an hour; to the two men, it felt as though time wasn't moving at all; then John Speke moaned and shifted and everything snapped back into focus.
“I say, chaps!” came Swinburne's voice. “Culver Cliff!”
Burton loosed a bark of laughter. On a previous occasion, when his assistant had been dangling over a precipice and holding on by his fingertips, he'd referred to that youthful escapade of his, when he'd climbed Culver Cliff on the Isle of Wight. It had become a symbol of his apparent indestructibility.
“Hold on!” Burton called. He struggled to his feet, his wrists still bound behind him, paced over to the lip of the well, and knelt beside it. Swinburne was just below, hanging on to a narrow shelf with both hands. His neck was bruised purple, and blood flowed from the puncture marks in it.
“William!” Burton snapped. “Get over here, put your back to me, and untie these confounded knots. Can you hang on there for a little longer, Algy?”
“Yes, Richard. But I feel jolly peculiar.”
It was no wonder: the capillaries of the poet's face were black and appeared to be writhing beneath the skin. Small white buds were pushing through at the corners of his nose, and, even as Burton watched, leaves started to open amid his friend's long hair, like a laurel wreath.
“Hurry, William!” he hissed as he felt Trounce's fingers getting to work.
The whites of Swinburne's eyes suddenly turned green.
“I'm thirsty,” he said.
“Almost there!” Trounce grunted.
“And my arms are aching,” the poet added.
“Got it!” the Scotland Yard man a
“Grab hold!”
Hanging on to the ledge with just his left hand, Swinburne stretched the right up toward Burton.
“My hat!” he exclaimed and drew his hand back a little, for a bright-red flower had suddenly bloomed from the back of it. “It's-it's a poppy, Richard!”
His fingers slipped from their hold.
Swinburne dropped into darkness.
“Have you got him?” Trounce asked.
Burton didn't reply.
“Richard?”
The Yard man crawled around on his knees to face the explorer.
“Richard? Richard? Do you have him?”
The king's agent remained still, his tears dripping into the void beneath his face.
“Oh no,” Trounce whispered huskily. “Oh no.”
Burton untied Trounce.
John Speke stirred and sat up.