He swallowed and turned again to the Martians. “Again, let me extend my sincerest apologies for my intemperate action. I … I did not realize the significance of the egg, and I pray that you will forgive me. And all of us.” He looked out over the Martians for a time, as though hoping for an enthusiastic response. Finding none, he simply stepped down from the box. “It is done,” he said.
“You have carried that off creditably,” Arabella replied, and not entirely out of politeness. “Now we must wait. Once they have found the egg, I expect that they will send an emissary.”
*
All the rest of that day they waited. The catapults ceased their hammering of the house, but a brief essay out the gate resulted in a rain of arrows—though the Martians were no longer attempting to destroy the house, they nonetheless insisted that the Englishmen remain within it.
During this respite from the catapults’ pounding, the captain directed the men in inspecting and repairing the house. The destruction was frightening—in several places bearing walls, some quite deep in the house, had been demolished by the stones, and sections of the roof had collapsed. Worse, the base of the tower from which they were observing and defending the house had taken serious damage.
They did what they could to shore up the damaged sections, but it was plain that even their redoubt at the back of the manor would not survive long if the Martians resumed their assault. Either the walls and tower would fall, allowing armed Martians to enter, or the house would simply be brought down on top of them.
While the captain and most of the men worked at reinforcing the house, Arabella sat with Michael in his bedchamber, spooning soup into his mouth as she had once done for the captain. But where the captain in his stupor had licked the soup off his lips when it was placed there, Michael seemed to actively fight it, spitting out soup and spoon and all as he thrashed in his fever.
“He’s growing weaker, isn’t he?” she asked Dr. Fellowes in the kitchen.
“I have seen men recover from more serious infections,” the doctor replied, but his expression was grave.
Simon, too, continued to spend time at Michael’s bedside. “I am so very sorry, my dear cousin,” he said, though Michael showed no sign of understanding. “I hope that you can somehow find it in your heart to forgive me my trespasses. If there were any thing, any thing whatsoever, I could do to atone for my errors, please rest assured that I would do so.”
Despite her deep-seated suspicions, Arabella wondered if Simon’s contrition might be more than mere pretense. She longed to denounce him as a worthless, foolish wastrel who had dissipated what little fortune he’d had, squandered what remained on a fantastical and murderous scheme to wrest the estate from Arabella’s branch of the family, and cost her brother his leg, his health, and possibly his life. But she could not condemn him, not entirely at least. For though he had begun the insurrection that had injured her brother and so many others, he had also saved her brother’s life. And now, at least, he seemed repentant, and had shown himself willing to take action, quite serious action, in an attempt to make amends.
“My brother has a very gentle heart,” Arabella told Simon. Perhaps too gentle, she thought. “I am sure that if he could see how truly sorry you are, he would harbor no grudge against you.”
At that Simon smiled, the first apparently genuine smile she could recall having seen from him since long before her father’s death. He opened his mouth to speak.
But before any words could emerge, their conversation was interrupted by a horrific ululation from without—a great moaning, clattering cry from hundreds of Martian throats like nothing Arabella had ever heard before. And that dreadful wail was only the beginning; it grew and grew in depth and volume of sound until it seemed the entire planet Mars was crying out in anguish.
Then the rising lament crescendoed with a tremendous crash, which was immediately echoed by another and another.
The rain of catapult stones had resumed, with even greater ferocity.
24
THE LAST REDOUBT
Arabella peered over the parapet, struggling to make some sense of what she saw and heard. The captain stood beside her, outwardly calm as ever, though she knew him well enough by now to tell his current rigid stance from his usual upright one.