"Run! Run! They're coming! They're coming out!"

They turned, panic-stricken; the torches fell flaring to the ground, to lie there in pools of flame; the brigands ran for the nearest shelter, the dark bulk of the ranch house close by. They ran, fear tingling their spines, in their ears the sound of the maddened phantis.

* * * * *

From his vantage point on the roof of the ranch house, the Hawk confirmed his quick decision that this was the only way.

Rapidly, as was his custom, he had reckoned the problem out minutely and carefully; had considered and checked every possibility. He had to shoot the fence, not the brigands. For he couldn't hope to get more than a couple of them: a pirate toppling over dead would jar the others into instant action; they would scatter in the darkness, leaving the odds too great. And leaving, besides, small chance of wiping out every one of the pirates.

As for Friday, he had to take his chance. There was, this way, a good chance, if he used his brain. For, to the left, as close as the ranch house to the corral, were the grave-pits he himself had dug some hours before, and one was still empty, waiting to be filled. It offered shelter, a good chance—if he used his brain. He, Carse, would do all he could to protect him from the stampeding beasts while he ran.

Some of the pirates would be snared by the rush of phantis. Four or five would probably reach the ranch house. That was what he wanted.

And that was what he got. His fifth shot fired, straight and true from the ray-gun of the most accurate marksman of space, the Hawk lowered the weapon and gazed at the scene resulting, a ghost of a smile on his lips.

He saw the mob of creatures, in a bedlam of noise, sweep under the fence that had for so long kept them back. Bellowing their hatred, their cruel spurs eager for blood, they charged. Before them fled the thin fringe of men, Friday on one flank. A man went down with a scream; a half-grown horn knifed into him; he was trampled, gored, spurred, and left a bloody welter of death in seconds. Another, hearing the loud thud of feet just behind, turned with desperate eyes, dodged, tripped, shrieked and was caught and ripped. Another and another. In the dancing, flickering half-light of the flames of fire and torches, a hellish scene of devastation and death spun out.

* * * * *

Carse was shooting again, with the cold mechanical precision of a machine. There was Friday to be guarded. He was now separated from the other men—cut off and edging to one side—to the side where was the grave-pit! Dodging, wildly twisting and turning, he several times barely escaped three or four phantis that thundered after him. The leader took perhaps ten steps: then its body quivered and it tumbled over and flopped on the ground, a little wisp of smoke curling from its body. The other two went down in swift succession. But there were many, and even as Friday melted into the shadows, a group of several beasts detached themselves and roared after him. The deadly ray-gun on the roof wrought swift slaughter amongst them, but some got into the darkness beyond vision of the icy gray eyes.

Carse lowered his weapon. His face was very hard and very set. Would they catch the negro? Tumble down on him if he made the pit? Well, there was no helping it....

But the reckoning would soon be finished; the time was at hand. Cold as the deeps of space despite the awful havoc he had just created, totally without visible emotion, he drew the last unused ray-gun from his belt and put it in the shabby holster. One would be enough.

Shadow-like, noiseless and swift, he moved towards the far end of the roof.



CHAPTER IX

The Hawk Strikes

His face red, his breath coming in hoarse gasps, Judd the Kite stumbled through the house's door on the heels of four of his men. He swung rapidly and flung his weight against the door: locked and double-locked it. A second later fists pounded on the outer panel, and a voice, racked with fear and terror, screamed:

"Let me in! Let me in! Oh, God, let me in! Judd!"

Then there was the thud of drumming feet, and one awful shriek from the man who had found the door locked against him.

But the Kite was not listening. A measure of courage returning to him with the building's protection, he snapped:

"Get those other doors locked quick! And lights. Then search the house."

The lighting tubes glowed, filling the room with soft radiance. Judd survey his position.

He saw that it could have been far worse. But his men needed courage.

The rapid change from orgy to deadly peril had sobered them completely. And they were frightened; nor was it fear of the beasts. They came treading silently back from their inspection of the house, reporting it empty; but their eyes kept shifting, their ray-guns ready in hand. Each one knew, deep within him, who had fired the shots that collapsed the fence. They had taken two captives; Friday had been under their eyes; there was only one other, and he was—the Hawk.

Hawk Carse! The four men were nervous. More than a few lonely spots in the countless leagues of space had seen his vengeance: and they—they had killed his guards and his overseer, his radio-man, and, with the fungus, his ship's crew; they had tortured Friday. They were now marks for the fatal left hand: fugitives from gray, icy eyes. The Hawk was loose!

* * * * *

Judd saw the fear gnawing at their vitals. He felt it too. But there seemed no immediate danger, so, with a ray-gun in each hand, he summoned a blustering courage and said to the others, harshly:

"Yes, it was that damned Carse! He must have got loose in some way. But pull yourselves together: we're safe here. He's somewhere outside."

He reasoned it out for them.

"He couldn't have done that shooting from the Star Devil; it's too far away. And he's not in it now or he'd be using it to try and find that black of his—if the black's still alive. No, he's not in the ship, and he's not in this house. He's somewhere outside, and he can't reach us here while the phantis have the place surrounded. We can shoot them down from the attic, and they'll soon beat it for the jungle. When that happens we'll rush to the ships, and before Carse knows what it's all about we'll be up and away and he'll be marooned. Then we'll get him later."

His words brought a return of confidence. It was true, the others thought: the Hawk could not reach them as long as the phantis were around the house; and when they were driven away, the ships were near at hand and empty. All they had to do was get to the ships before Carse. The adventurer certainly was not then in one of the craft, or he would be wasting no time hunting for Friday—and raying their stronghold. No doubt he was up a tree somewhere; perhaps gored and dead.

One of the men snickered, and Judd smiled at the sound. Their confidence in him was encouraging.

"Get to the windows of the attic," he ordered. "Some of those crazy brutes are horning at the house. We've got to shoot them and get out of here, quick!"

* * * * *

There were two rooms in the attic; the large one, used as a storeroom for staple foods, had five windows, long, sloping affairs, three in front and one in each side wall. The second room was small and at the rear, and was used to store tools and spare technical apparatus. It had one little window, set high up, and connected with the larger room by a door set in the middle of the partition.

Judd placed one of his pirates at each of the windows of the large room, taking himself the center one.

Around the house milled dozens of animal bodies, snorting, bellowing and roaring, their little red eyes flashing, claws tearing the soil in futile rage at the men they knew to be safely within. A babel of brutish sounds rose from them. Two of the bulls fell foul of each other and fought in fury, to suddenly turn and hurl their weight against a ground floor door, quivering it. But their rashness was answered by a streak of light from an attic window, and as one toppled back, its body burnt through, the sights of the destroying ray-gun were already on its fellow.

The huge fire the brigands had laid was dying, and night was seeping ever thickening darkness over the scene. Glinting very slightly in the starlight were the black shapes of the two silent space ships.

Then Judd the Kite, as he aimed and shot and aimed and shot again, was suddenly struck by a disturbing idea. From where had Carse fired at the corral fence? What was the logical vantage point for him?

A shiver trembled down his spine. He saw suddenly with terrible clearness where that vantage point was—and it had not been searched. The roof!

He turned swiftly, his lips opening to give orders.

And there, standing on the threshold of the door to the smaller adjoining room, stood the figure of a man whose eyes were cold with the absolute cold of space, and whose left hand held a steady-leveled ray-gun that pointed as straight as his eyes at Judd!

"Hawk—Carse!"

"Judd," said the quiet, icy voice.

* * * * *

The Kite went white as a sheet. His men turned slowly as one. One of them gasped at what he saw; another cursed; the other two simply stared with fear-flooded eyes; only one thing flamed in every mind—the never-failing vengeance of the Hawk.

"Carse!" repeated Judd stupidly. "You—again!"

"Yes," whispered the trader. "And for the last time. We settle now. There are a few debts—a few lives—a few blows and kicks—and a matter of some torture to be paid for. The accounts must be squared, Judd."

And slowly he raised his right hand to the queer bangs of flaxen hair which hung down over his forehead. He stroked them gently. Judd's eyes, dry, hot, held fascinated on the hand. He shuddered.

"It's not pleasant," came the whisper, "to always have to wear my hair like this. That's another debt—the largest of all—I have to settle. Sheathe your guns!"

The voice cracked like a whip. They obeyed without sound, though they read death in the frigid gray eyes. As their guns went into holsters, Carse's followed suit; he stood then with both hands hanging at his sides. And he said, in the whisper that carried more weight to them than the trumpets of a host:

"Once before we were interrupted. This time we won't be. This time we will see certainly for whom the number five brings death. Count, Judd."

With a jerk, the Kite regained some control over himself. The odds were five to one. Five guns to one gun. Carse was a great shot, but such odds were surely too great. Perhaps—perhaps there might be a chance. He said in a strained voice to his men:

"Shoot when I reach five."

Then he swallowed and counted:

"One."

Aside from the tiny flickering of the left eyelid, the Hawk was graven, motionless, apparently without feeling. Judd, he knew, was just fairly fast; as for the others—

"Two."

—they were unknown quantities, except for one, the man called Jake. He had the reputation of possessing a lightning draw; his eyes were narrowed, his hands steady, and the body crouched, a sure sign of—

"Three."

—a gunman who knew his business, who was fast. His hip holsters were not really worn on the hips, but in front, very close together; that meant—

"Four."

—that he would probably draw both guns. So Judd must wait; the other three, being unknowns, disposed of in the order in which they were standing; but Jake must be—

"Five!"

—first!

* * * * *

One second there was nothing; the next, wicked pencils of orange light were snaking across the attic! And then two guns clanged on the floor, unfired, and the man called Jake staggered forward, crumpled and fell, a puzzled look on his face and accurately between his eyes a little round neat hole that had come as if by magic. Two others, similarly stricken, toppled down, their fingers still tensed on ray-gun triggers; the fourth pirate, his heart drilled, went back from the force of it and crashed into the wall, slithering down slowly into a limp heap. But Judd the Kite was still on his feet.

His lips were twisted in a snarl; his hands seemed locked. His eyes met the two cold gray ones across the room—and then his coarse face contorted, and he croaked:

"Damn you, Carse! Damn you—"

His body spun around and flattened out on the floor with arms and legs flung wide. A tiny black hole was visible through his shirt. He had been last, and the Hawk had struck him less accurately than his fellows.

The trader was unwounded. He stood there for several minutes, surveying what lay before him. He looked at each body in turn, and his eyes were calm and clear and mild, his face devoid of expression. Silence hung over the attic, for the bellowings and snortings of the beasts outside had died into faint murmurings as they straggled off for their jungle home. The single living man of the six who had lived and breathed there minutes before holstered his still warm ray-gun; and then the sound of a step on the stairs leading from the rooms below made him look up.

A man stood in the doorway of the attic.

* * * * *

He was big and brawny; but, though his arms and bare torso were streaked with blood, and his trousers torn into shreds, and his legs crisscrossed with cuts, there was broad grin on his face—a grin that widened as his rolling white eyes took in what lay on the attic floor.

Neither said anything for a moment. Then the Hawk smiled, and there was all friendliness and affection in his face.

"You made the pit, Eclipse?" he asked, softly.

Friday nodded, and chuckled. "Yes, suh! But only just. If Ah'd bin a leap an' a skip slower Ah'd bin a tee-total eclipse!"

Dancing lights of laughter came to the Hawk's eyes.

"Still feeling chipper," he said, "—in spite of your burns. Well, good for you. But I guess you've had enough of Ku Sui for a little while!"

The negro grunted indignantly. "You surely don't imply Ah'm sca'ed of that yellow Chink? Hell, no! Why—"

Carse chuckled and cut him off.

"I see. Well, then, drag these carrion out to your pit. And then—"

There was something in the air, something big. Friday listened eagerly. "Yes, suh?" he reminded his master after a pause.

"Judd," said Hawk Carse softly, "was to have had a rendezvous with Dr. Ku Sui in seven days. The place of the rendezvous is entered in the log of his ship. I've got the last of Judd's crew a captive on the Star Devil...."

The adventurer paused a moment in thought, and when he resumed his words came clipped and decisive.

"I myself am going to keep that rendezvous with Ku Sui. I want to see him very badly."

Friday looked at the man's gray eyes, his icy graven face, the bangs of flaxen hair which obscured his forehead. He understood.

* * * * *

THE END