"Stalking, by George!" he said to himself.
His first instinct was to seize his rifle; his second to look around for some way of escape. It was possible that the Kalmucks had not yet discovered him, though the aeroplane was full in their view; and if he could only creep among the shrubs into some deep fissure he might yet elude them. He might even make a dash for it, gain the clump of trees to the south, and push on to meet Major Endicott. The enemy would probably waste some time in searching for him--enough to give him a good start. But he saw at a glance that he could not reach the trees without crossing the open ground in sight of the enemy, and partially crippled as he was he could not hope to outstrip them, even if they did not use in the pursuit the horses which they had had when they slipped past the mine. His only course was to stay where he was, hoping with good luck to remain undiscovered. In the last resort he could do some execution among them with his weapons, though the odds of numbers against him precluded any idea of his being able to keep them off permanently.
At that moment he was more concerned about the fate of the aeroplane than about his own. It would be of no use to the enemy; they would probably destroy it, and that prospect enraged him. For the first time he felt a real desire to fight and slay, and wondered whether, when the enemy came into the open, he might not pick them off one by one. After all, he thought, his position in the hollow gave him some advantage. They could not take good aim at him, whereas if they attempted to rush him across the open space, he could mark them down almost at his leisure.
His reflections were suddenly cut short by a rifle-shot. A bullet struck the ground unpleasantly near him, and sent up a spurt of earth, some of which struck him. He crouched still lower in the hollow. Escape was now out of the question: he must simply wait and take what opening of defending himself offered.
The shot had been fired from the clump of wood. Immediately afterwards the man on the hill-side stood erect in the attitude of taking aim. Lawrence hastily levelled his rifle and took a rough shot at him, with what effect he could not tell, for his attention was at once called off by a rush of the man in the wood, who dashed forward over several yards towards a patch of bush nearer to the hollow. Lawrence felt that his position was even worse than he had supposed. The enemy had scattered with a definite plan. They meant to work their way gradually towards him under cover, distracting him by firing in turn, until they thought it possible to overwhelm him with a final rush from several sides. He wished he had acted on his first impulse to sprint towards the wood on the south. Was it possible even now to do it? A sudden twinge in his ankle gave him the answer. They had him in a trap.