Elzevir saw it too, and then all shouted at once.

'Yield at the King's command: you are our prisoners!' calls the voice of one of those black silhouettes, far up on the cliff-top.
'We are lost,' cries Elzevir; 'it is the Posse; but if we die, this traitor shall go before us,' and he makes towards Maskew to brain him with the pistol.
'Shoot, shoot, in the Devil's name,' screams Maskew, 'or I am a dead man.' Then there came a flash of fire along the black line of silhouettes, with a crackle like a near peal of thunder, and a fut, fut, fut, of bullets in the turf.

And before Elzevir could get at him, Maskew had fallen over on the sward with a groan, and with a little red hole in the middle of his forehead.
'Run for the cliff-side,' cried Elzevir to me; 'get close in, and they cannot touch thee,' and he made for the chalk wall.

But I had fallen on my knees like a bullock felled by a pole-axe, and had a scorching pain in my left foot.

Elzevir looked back.