Supping With Panthers by Tom Holland Page B

carrying Eliot and the ammunition box, and the Professor – who was too fat to run – accompanying him. Meanwhile I held to my position, giving the brutes opposite us all I had, but it was desperate now, for I might as well have been a mosquito attempting to halt an elephant’s charge. There was a mighty crashing as a second tree thudded on to our side of the abyss. I watched as countless numbers of the brutes began to crawl across the trunk. ‘Time to head off,’ I thought to myself.
    I retreated in good order up to the tower. Behind me, a mob of the creatures had crossed the abyss and were howling and baying in the most blood-curdling manner. Just outside the tower I was met by Sergeant-Major Cuff, who led me through a courtyard and into the tower itself. We found ourselves in a long, low room with the appearance of a temple sanctuary; it was dominated, as the palace had been, by an empty throne. Doors behind it led away into the dark; but one on the side of the room had a faint glow of light, and it was towards that exit that we turned. We ran up steps, as the passageway grew ever more narrow and close; as we ran I heard our footsteps answered by those of our pursuers, who must have seen where we had gone and who were now below us, sealing us in. The light though was getting stronger, and at length I saw it to be a torch held by Professor Jyoti, who was waiting crouched in the passageway.
    ‘A most extraordinary find, this,’ he said, beaming at us. ‘Have you seen these carvings? They must be centuries old,’ He swept his torch along the wall, and I had a vague glimpse of yet more obscene images – women in assorted states of undress, feeding on what seemed to be human remains. Apt enough, you may think, in view of our own plight; and I confess that for a moment the images quite took away my breath, so vivid they were. But this was scarcely the time to be studying them – the footsteps behind us were drawing ever nearer, and when I turned I could see the gleam of pallid eyes.
    ‘Where’s Eliot?’ I shouted.
    The Professor pointed. ‘Just up ahead. That’s where we must make our stand.’
    ‘Good,’ I answered, for I could smell the reek of our pursuers now, and I knew they must sink us if we had too far to go.
    Ahead of us the steps grew suddenly steep. I peered up them and felt fresh air against my face, and caught the gleam of stars. ‘Hello?’ I heard Eliot’s voice call down. ‘Who’s there?’
    ‘Only us, sir,’ answered the Sergeant-Major. ‘Bit of company behind us though.’ He stood aside as the Professor climbed the steps. Our pursuers were almost on to us now; ‘Quick, sir!’ shouted Cuff, but having lost so many of my men so terribly, I was damned if I was going to risk another one’s life. Nor was this mere idle heroism; the Sergeant-Major had the ammunition box with him, and I knew that if that were lost then we would all be done for.
    ‘Go on, man!’ I shouted. Still the Sergeant-Major wouldn’t budge. ‘Dammit, I’m giving you an order!’ I bellowed, and only then did he begin to climb. As I tried to follow him, however, I felt cold fingers clasping round my leg, and when I tried to kick them away I lost my balance and fell back into the dark. I felt myself crash into someone, and then I was hitting the stone floor. I opened my eyes … I saw a face. It seemed without lips, for the flesh round the mouth had rotted away, but it still had teeth, and they were open, and the stench of its breath as it pressed down towards my throat was like that of a sewer or an opened tomb. This was all the matter of a second, you must understand; before I had time even to put up a struggle, I heard a great bellow of rage and the thud of feet landing next to my head, and the creature by my throat was rising up again.
    ‘You bastards!’ I heard the Sergeant-Major roar. ‘You bastards, you bastards, you bastards!’
    The creatures were making for him; he was finished, I thought, for he