Anstice stood on the deck of the P. and O. boatMoldavia, looking out over the blue seas to where Port Said lay white and shining in the rays of the March sun.
He had seen the port before, on his way to and from India, but he had never landed there, and looked forward with some keenness of anticipation to setting foot in the place which enjoys, rightly or wrongly, one of the most unsavoury reputations in the world.
Not that his stay would be long—a night at most—for he purposed journeying on to Cairo without loss of time, and as the boat drew nearer and nearer to the quay, whereon a crowd of gesticulating natives raised the unholy din which every traveller associates with this particular landing, Anstice turned about and swung down the companion to take a last look round his dismantled cabin.
It was now nearly eight weeks since he had quitted Littlefield. Having disposed of his practice in the nick of time to a college friend who wished to settle in the country, and having also received an unexpected windfall in the shape of a small legacy from a distant relation, he had decided, after a short stay in London, to take a holiday before starting to work once more.
His choice of a destination had not been unaffected by the fact of Iris Cheniston's residence in the land of Egypt. Although he had no expectation of meeting her—for she and her husband were still somewhere in the desert, a couple of days' journey from Cairo—there was an odd fascination in the bare idea of inhabiting, even for a few weeks, the land which held the girl he still loved. For although he had long since determined that he must avoid Bruce Cheniston's wife if he wished to keep his secret inviolate, and incidentally attempt, by starving his passion of its natural food, to keep his love unsullied by any hint of envy, any emotion of desire—well, all men are sophists at heart, and in spite of all his self-assurances that he could visit Egypt without seeking to gain even a glimpse of Iris, ever in the background of his thoughts lay a delicious, barely formulated hope that possibly Fate might vouchsafe to him one fleeting vision on which his hungry heart might feed in the empty days which must needs ensue.
There had been changes in Littlefield since that November evening on which the truth concerning the anonymous letters had come to light. After Tochatti's death it had naturally proved impossible altogether to hush up the tragedy and its immediate results, and although Anstice had done his best to mitigate the position for Major Carstairs and his wife, the inquest had proved a trying affair for all of them.
Since the woman was dead there was no need to keep the authorship of those letters a secret, and before he left Littlefield Anstice had the satisfaction of knowing that Mrs. Carstairs' name had been effectually cleared from the slur placed upon it by a censorious and ignorant world.
When once this was accomplished Major Carstairs insisted on carrying off his wife and Cherry for a long holiday in the south of France, and although Cherry wept bitterly at the thought of parting from her beloved Anstice, he was able to console her by a recital of the wonderful things she would behold by the shores of the azure Mediterranean.
He was surprised to find, when the real parting came, how hard it was to say good-bye to his friends. Although he considered himself unsociable, independent of the claims of friendship, forced, so to speak, into misanthropy by the circumstances of his life, he had grown to have a real esteem for Chloe Carstairs, and the spectacle of her new-born vitality, her radiant happiness, was one which gave him a very deep and genuine pleasure. As for Cherry, that quaint child had long since twined herself round his heart-strings, and although Major Carstairs was, comparatively speaking, a new acquaintance, Anstice respected the soldier as an honest man and a gentleman.
A week after their departure another blow befell Anstice in the sudden death of his friend Fraser Carey, and when at last he was summoned in haste to Carey's aid he found that the latter had suffered for years from a painful internal disease.
"But why not have submitted to an operation years ago?" Anstice asked him gently as he sat, impotent to help, by his friend's side in the light of the dying day. "It might have been successful"—he dare not say more—"and you would have been spared years of agonizing suffering."
The other man smiled, and his eyes for a moment lost their look of pain.
"Quite so," he said gently, "but at the same time I might—probably should—have died. I took the best advice, nearly ruined myself with visiting specialists"—he smiled very faintly—"and none could give me any assurance that I should live through it. And I could not afford—then—to die."
"Not afford?" Anstice stared at him in amazement.
"No. You see"—his voice was a mere thread—"you see I had a wife, Anstice—oh, no one knows, and my secret is safe with you—and although I could not live with her ... she was not what the world calls a good woman, and her ideal of life was not one which I, as a clergyman, could assist her to realize—well, I could not let her sink altogether for want of money to keep some sort of home together."
"You sent her money?"
"Yes. I sent what I could from my stipend—it wasn't much—God's ministers are supposed to be content with the promises of treasure in heaven," said Carey, with a hint of humour in his weak tone. "I made a little, too, by writing for the reviews. But it was precarious, Anstice, precarious; and I dared not risk dying, and leaving her in want."
"And now?" Anstice had noted the tense in which he spoke of his wife, and he guessed the answer before the other spoke.
"She is dead—she died three weeks ago," said Carey quietly. "And now I can give up the struggle myself——"
"I wish to God you had told me earlier," said Anstice vehemently. "At least I might have done something for you——"
"Oh, I had alleviations," said Carey slowly. "When the pain grew unendurable I had remedies which gave me some relief. But I knew that if I told you you would seek to persuade me to a course I really could not have adopted. You mustn't mind me saying it, Anstice. Perhaps I have been wrong all through." His voice was wistful. "But I did what I thought was right—and luckily for us poor men God judges us by our intentions, so to speak, and not by the results."
The words returned to Anstice's mind three days later as he stood by the graveside of his friend, and in his heart he wondered whether it were indeed true that what men called failure might, in the eyes of God, spell a great and glorious success.
The next person to leave Littlefield was Sir Richard Wayne. For since his daughter's wedding he had been finding life without her almost unbearable, and at length he avowed that the English climate in winter was altogether more than any sensible man could be expected to endure—a somewhat surprising statement from a former M.F.H.—and declared his intention of paying a visit to Iris and her husband in Egypt forthwith.
It was of Sir Richard Wayne that Anstice was thinking half an hour later when theMoldaviahad come to her berth at the quay and he was about to leave the ship on which the short and prosperous voyage had been made.
However much the theory of the astral body of man may be denied or ridiculed, there is no doubt that an unusually vivid thought-presentment of a friend frequently precedes the appearance of that friend in the flesh, and it is certain that the mental image of Sir Richard Wayne had been, for some reason, so strongly before Anstice's mind that in a tall, grey-clad figure pushing his way vigorously through the crowd of natives he was inclined to see a striking resemblance to the object of his thoughts.
He told himself, rather impatiently, that the notion was absurd. He had been dwelling for so long on the vision of Sir Richard's daughter that he had lost, for the moment, his sense of reality, and he turned aside to reclaim his baggage from the vociferous Arabs who wished, so it appeared, to appropriate both it and him, without casting another glance in the direction of Sir Richard's double.
Yet the hallucination persisted. He could have sworn he heard Sir Richard's voice raised in protest as the crowding natives impeded his progress towards the gangway of the boat; and at last Anstice turned fully round, with half-ashamed curiosity, to see what manner of man this was who wore the semblance and spoke in the tongue of Sir Richard Wayne.
As his black eyes roved over the intervening faces they were caught and held by another pair of eyes—grey eyes these, in whose clear and frank depths was a strong resemblance to those other wide grey eyes he loved, and in the next moment Anstice realized that a miracle had happened, and that the first person to give him greeting in this land of mystery was none other than Sir Richard Wayne himself.
About the gladness of the other's greeting there could be no two opinions. Utterly disregarding the touts and porters who swarmed round him Sir Richard came forward with outstretched hand, and his eyes fairly shone with joy and with something that looked like relief.
"Anstice! By all that's wonderful!" He wrung the younger man's hand heartily as he spoke. "How came you here—and are you landing for good, or just taking a look round this God-forsaken old iniquity of a town?"
"I'm leaving the ship for good. Want to have a look at Cairo ... interesting place, I've always heard." For a second Anstice faltered, feeling as though his friend must see through his pretence, and guess that it was because this land enshrined the one woman in the world that he was here. But Sir Richard gave no sign of disbelief, and Anstice was emboldened to proceed. "But you—what are you doing here? I thought you were somewhere in the desert with—your daughter."
"So I was, so I was." Sir Richard hesitated, then spoke rapidly. "Anstice, are you alone—and disengaged? I mean—could your stay in Cairo be postponed for a few days? I want—I came down here to look for a doctor—never thinking I'd have the luck to find you——"
"A doctor?" Beneath the spur of his quick mind Anstice grew pale. "Is someone ill? Not—not your daughter?"
"No, not Iris." Unconsciously Anstice breathed a sigh of relief and the older man glanced at him curiously. "It is Bruce—my son-in-law—who's ill; and I've come down here to find a doctor. Couldn't get one in Cairo—it seems the pilgrims have just returned from Mecca bringing their pet cholera along with them, and the city's got a scare—so I came down here to meet the boat, meaning to bribe the ship's surgeon to come back into the desert with me. If he wouldn't respond tobakshishI should have tried kidnapping," finished Sir Richard grimly, and Anstice smiled.
"No need to do that, sir. I'm here, and I'm ready and willing to do all you require. But first, hadn't I better put in a claim to my belongings? It seems to me these rascals would think precious little of making off with all the lot!"
"Yes—better let me see to it for you," said Sir Richard quickly. "We've not too much time for the train to Cairo as it is. If you will go and bespeak anarabeahI'll get your baggage."
And as Anstice moved to obey, a very tumult in his heart, Sir Richard turned back to the wildly-shouting crowd and succeeded in reclaiming Anstice's portmanteau and Gladstone bag from the clutches of the blue-robed fiends who fought one another for its possession.
When they were clear of the quay, driving behind the two long-tailed little horses along the glaring streets, beneath the thinly-leaved and dusty trees, Anstice turned to Sir Richard interrogatively.
"Now, sir, can you tell me what's wrong? Mr. Cheniston is ill, you say. Do you know the nature of his illness?"
"Enteric, I'm afraid," Sir Richard informed him gravely. "He went on a shooting expedition a week or two ago with the rich Egyptian for whom he has been carrying through a big irrigation job, and one day, when, through a miscalculation, the wine and provisions did not turn up, the party lunched at a mud-village on eggs and coffee. Being particularly thirsty Bruce indulged in a small glass of water with slices of citron, and although the host's servants swore by the Beard of the Prophet and so on through all their most sacred oaths that they had boiled the water first, the odds are that they had not, and that it came straight from the river or some indescribably polluted well. It seems that the pilgrims had passed that way, and owing to their pleasing habit of dropping a little of their precious 'holy' water into the wells they meet, some of those wells are absolute hotbeds of infection, so to speak."
"Whew!" Anstice whistled to express his consternation. "And then, of course, Mr. Cheniston came home and sickened for this illness."
"Yes. At first he made light of it, said the expedition had been fatiguing, he had a touch of the sun, and so on. But at last the disease manifested itself unmistakably, and three days ago I set out for Cairo to try to get some medical help."
"There is no doctor out there?"
"No. You see it is only a tiny village—hardly that—a settlement in the midst of a little colony of Bedouins. Iris was first persuaded to go there by a woman she met in Cairo, a Padre's wife who had gone out—at least the Padre had—to try the effect of the climate on weak lungs. They have one kiddie, a child of seven or eight, and they were so pleased with the place that they stayed on, and were the only white people in the village, with the exception of a young Australian who had lost his money and went out there to try to grow vegetables, and a rather eccentric French artist who set up his studio in a sort of disused fort built on a high rocky plateau about a mile above the little settlement. He has gone back to France now, taking with him some really marvellous studies of the desert, so they say."
"How far is the place from Cairo?"
"About a day and a half's journey on horseback. Of course, if it had been possible to bring Bruce in to Cairo that would have been the best thing. But we daren't take the risk. Mrs. Wood, the Padre's wife, is a first-class nurse, and she and Iris are doing their very best for the poor fellow. But still"—Sir Richard shook his head—"there's no doubt the illness has got a fast grip of him, and I'm afraid of the result, Anstice, I confess I am afraid."
He broke off for a moment, then resumed in a brisker tone:
"Well, here is the station, and now we may expect another uproar over your precious baggage. The best thing to do is to single out one fellow and promise him goodbakshishif he gets rid of the others; and here is Mahomed, who is a first-class fellow for the job!"
He beckoned to a tall, pock-marked Arab in a dusty fez and faded blue djibbeh, and by dint of lavish promises secured his noisy but efficient services, with the result that in an incredibly short space of time the luggage was safely tumbled into the train and Anstice and Sir Richard faced each other, exhausted but triumphant, in an otherwise empty carriage.
"By Jove, but those beggars make me hot!" Anstice threw himself back into his corner and drew a long breath. "It's always a mystery to me how people who live in hot climates are so beastly energetic! They seem to have quicksilver in their veins, not blood."
"Yet they are lethargic enough at times," returned Sir Richard, pointing to a recumbent form lying unconcernedly on the platform a few feet from their open window. "Look at that fellow sleeping there—he doesn't care in the least what goes on around him—and many times in the street one has to move off the pavement to avoid stepping on some idle beggar who's drawn the hood of his garment over his head and gone to sleep, literally among the feet of the passers-by!"
As the train proceeded on its way Sir Richard outlined the situation a little more fully to his keenly-interested companion.
"When I left, Mrs. Wood had pretty well taken up her abode with Iris," he said. "Their servants—native, of course—behaved badly, as those mongrel Arabs often do, and promptly deserted us soon as they found there was likely to be trouble ahead. All but one, a very decent chap called Hassan, who is really fond of Iris and would do a lot for her."
"The other people in the village—Bedouins, I think you said?—how do they get on with their white neighbours?"
Sir Richard's forehead suddenly puckered into a worried frown.
"Not too well," he said slowly. "The fact is, I believe they resented the European people settling there at all. As I told you, it is a tiny settlement—just thirty or so Bedouins who cultivate the land and grow vegetables, which they hawk to other villages a day's march away. They daren't openly complain, of course, but I believe they would like to drive the white folks out; especially young Garnett, who is really beating them at their own game as a clever agriculturist."
"There is never any trouble, I suppose?" Somehow Anstice felt a vague uneasiness at the thought of Iris Cheniston shut up in a desert colony among sullenly hostile neighbours.
"Oh, no, the Bedouins know the English Government won't allow any hanky-panky." Sir Richard voiced the assertion so emphatically that a tiny seed of doubt sprang up in his hearer's heart. "I confess I should rather like to see Iris and Bruce settle down to civilized life again, but this is only a holiday, and they won't be there long. Unless——" He paused and Anstice guessed only too surely the ominous nature of the pause.
With an instinctive desire to reassure the other man he spoke quickly.
"Perhaps when Cheniston is better they will fall in with your advice. No doubt he will require a change after this illness, and very often, you know, a man who has been ill takes a dislike to his surroundings, and is only too ready to exchange them for others."
"Quite so." Sir Richard spoke absently, looking out of the window the while, and since he was apparently disinclined for conversation, Anstice followed his example, seeing plenty to interest him in the panorama spread before his eyes in this strange and fascinating land, this living frieze of pictures which might have been transplanted bodily from the pages of the Old Testament itself.
Once, when the train came to a standstill at Ismailia, Sir Richard roused himself to speech.
"Of course, should the Bedouins ever rise against the strangers in their midst," he said, repelling with a gesture the attentions of a tall water-seller who thrust a brass saucer containing a doubtful-looking liquid through the carriage window, "things might be serious. True, there are not more than a couple of score of them, and so far, with the exception of afracaswith Garnett over some vegetables they stole from him, they have been peaceable enough."
"I see. And, as you say, they know quite well that the British Government is behind this handful of English people, and knowing that reprisals would be certain to follow any lawlessness, I should say they are too wise to put themselves in the wrong. After all, too, these people are not doing them any harm by living in their midst."
"You are right, Anstice, and I'm a silly old fool for letting my imagination run riot in this way." Sir Richard sat upright and gazed out at the world of sun and sand through which they were passing. "As you say, they would not dare—and in any case as soon as Bruce can travel we will bring them back to civilization."
"By the way, how soon can we start?" The bare thought of meeting Iris sent the blood humming wildly through Anstice's veins; and he awaited Sir Richard's reply with barely-concealed impatience.
"Well, we shall reach Cairo—if this confounded train doesn't break downen route—about dinner-time. It would be no use attempting to start to-night—the horses must be ordered for to-morrow morning, as early as you like. And no doubt you will want to take one or two things with you."
Anstice nodded.
"Yes—but they won't take long to procure. As for baggage—we travel light?"
"Yes—just what we can carry. I have plenty of things out there—can give you all you need," said Sir Richard more briskly. "And if all goes well we need not anticipate a long stay. Now, how about a cup of tea? This beastly sand has gone down my throat in bushels."
He called the Soudanese attendant and gave him an order, and over the indifferent tea and Huntley and Palmer biscuits which were presently brought to them, he and Anstice discussed Littlefield and other matters widely removed from the subject of their former conversation.
It was seven o'clock when the train finally ran into the station at Cairo, humming like a beehive with its crowded native life, and ten minutes later the two men were driving through the busy streets beneath the clear green evening sky on the way to the hotel chosen by Sir Richard.
"The Angleterre—it's quieter than Shepheard's," he said, "and anyhow it is only for one night. After dinner we'll go and make arrangements for an early start. That will suit you all right?"
"The earlier the better," returned Anstice promptly, and as their carriage drew up before the hotel he sprang out with an eagerness which seemed to betoken a readiness to start forthwith.
By ten o'clock that night all arrangements were made, horses bespoken, baggage packed, and all necessaries purchased, and shortly afterwards the two men exchanged cordial good-nights and retired to their respective rooms to seek the refreshment of sleep in preparation for the morrow's early start.
But though Sir Richard, his mind relieved by his meeting with Anstice, fell into a sound slumber ten minutes after he laid his head down on his pillow, Anstice lay awake all night between the white walls of his mosquito curtains.
For there was that in his thoughts which effectually banished sleep.
Anstice never forgot that first day's ride over the desert sand. They had started early, very shortly, indeed, after daybreak, and by the time the sun was fully risen they were already some miles on their way.
It was a heavenly morning, the dry and glittering air full of that peculiar, crisp sparkle which mounts to one's head like champagne. The sand shone and twinkled in the yellow sunshine with an almost dazzling effect, and the pale blue sky had not yet taken on the pitiless ultramarine hue which comes with the brazen noon.
The horses, too, seemed alive to the exhilarating quality of the air. They curvetted and danced over the sand, tossing their arched necks and lifting their feet daintily as though they were conscious of the beauty and fitness of their own motion.
"By Jove, Sir Richard, life is worth living on a morning like this!" Anstice threw back his head and inhaled large draughts of the intoxicating, sun-warmed air. "Why on earth do we herd in cities when there are glorious tracts of desert land where one might pitch one's tent! I declare I wish I were a nomad myself!"
"You feel like that?" Sir Richard looked a trifle wistfully at the younger man, envying him his superior youth and more robust physique. "For my part I confess to a distrust of the desert. It seems to me as though there were a blight on these huge tracts of sand, as though the Creator had regretted their creation, yet was too perfect a Worker to try, by altering the original purpose of His handiwork, to turn them into something for which they were not intended."
He paused, pulling up his horse and turning in his saddle to survey the yellow and brown waste over which they had come.
"I suppose, as an Englishman whose forbears have always clung to the soil, I find more pleasure in beholding an English landscape," he said, with a smile which was half apologetic. "The ideal of making two blades of grass spring where there was but one before may not be a very exalted one, but I confess I see more beauty in a field of grain waving under the August sun, than in these acres of yellow sand, and the thought of a perpetual summer, with never the soft grey tones of an autumn sky or the crisp frostiness of a winter's morning—well, it doesn't appeal to my John Bull soul!"
He laughed, ashamed of his vehemence, and the horses sprang gaily forward, glad to be moving again after even so brief a halt.
All through the morning they rode, resting for an hour or two at noon; and in the late afternoon they remounted their horses and fared forth once more in search of the camping-place Sir Richard had in mind.
By dint of compasses and an unusually accurate sense of location, the older man had staked their course with admirable directness, and as the moon rose they drew rein at the appointed destination, a wild and rocky valley whose caves offered a natural protection from the chill night breeze which blew with disconcerting freshness over the loose, salt-impregnated sand.
Here, thanks to the ever-useful thermos flask, they enjoyed a sufficient meal of hot soup, followed by a multitude of sandwiches of divers kinds; and when, after a pull at their respective flasks, the two lit their pipes and stretched their limbs, cramped by the day's exertions, Anstice, at least, felt more at peace with the world than he had felt for years.
To be hastening towards Iris Cheniston, to be sure of meeting her within twenty-four hours, sure of seeing the kind friendliness of her wide grey eyes, of hearing the soft cooing notes of her voice, was enough to make a man content with his lot; and the fact that he was journeying towards her in order to do his best to save the life of the one human being who stood between him and his happiness lost all its irony when he remembered that it was in reality Iris herself for whom this service was undertaken.
The next morning found them early astir; and as their horses danced over the sand, literally throwing the miles behind them, Sir Richard's spirits, which had been somewhat fluctuating, rose with a bound. He whistled gaily as they rode, ever and anon breaking off to conjecture on the nature of the welcome they might reasonably expect to receive; and when he spoke, as he did frequently, of his son-in-law, his prognostications, in striking contrast with his former pessimism, were couched in the most hopeful language.
Strange to say, as his spirits rose, so did those of Anstice sink. An odd foreboding, a premonition for which he could not account, displaced the gladness from his heart; and as they rode on and ever onwards he told himself that they were surely riding towards tragedy.
Possibly it was the Celtic strain in him which rendered him liable to these strange and perverse forebodings of evil. On sundry other occasions in his earlier youth he had fallen with appalling swiftness from the heights of glad anticipation to the depths of a certain and most unwelcome gloom; and now, quite suddenly, he found himself involved in a black and rayless melancholy which seemed to fortell some catastrophic happening at hand.
It was with more and more difficulty that he replied to Sir Richard's hopeful prophecies; and so strong upon him was the premonition of disaster that when he learned at last that they were within an hour or two's ride of their destination he spurred on his still willing steed in a sudden desire to know the worst which was to befall.
As he stared ahead of him, his eyes beginning to adjust themselves now to the peculiar conditions of the desert atmosphere, he caught sight of a speck upon the sand which, unlike the majority of desert objects, the scanty tamarisk bushes, the low humpbacked hills which here and there formed an apparently endless chain, appeared to move, to grow almost imperceptibly larger as the distance between them diminished.
During their ride over the desert they had met no other human beings. Once or twice they had seen, to right or left of their track, a collection of mud huts, overshadowed by the plumy tufts of tall date-palms, betokening the presence of a handful offellaheenscratching a livelihood from the unfriendly sand. Again they had twice beheld in the far distance a caravan winding its leisurely way upon some mysterious errand to an unknown destination; but these last had been too far away for their component parts of horses, camels, merchandise, to be distinguished; and after a brief glance towards the long snaky lines as they wound their way through the sand, Sir Richard and Anstice had wisely refused to strain their eyesight further.
But this solitary unit on the vast face of the desert was a different matter; and Anstice gazed steadily ahead in an as yet fruitless attempt to make out what this thing which appeared to move towards them might be.
At first he said nothing, thinking that his eyes might quite conceivably be playing him tricks, that this apparently moving figure might possibly be a figment of his brain, or one of those delusive sprites which are said to haunt the unwary traveller in the desert; but at length, as the distance between the object and himself diminished more and more rapidly, until he could have sworn he caught the flutter of a blue robe, Anstice felt it time to point out the vision or whatever it might be to his as yet unseeing companion.
"Sir Richard," he said, so suddenly that Sir Richard, who had been jogging along sunk in reverie, started in surprise. "Do you see anyone coming towards us over the sand?"
Sir Richard, thus appealed to, sat up more erectly in his saddle; and gazed with his keen old eyes in the direction of Anstice's pointing hand; and Anstice watched him with an anxiety which was surely out of place.
After a moment's fruitless search Sir Richard unslung the field-glasses which he carried, and applied them to his eyes; and in another moment, having adjusted the focus, he uttered an exclamation.
"By Gad, Anstice, you're right! It's a native of sorts, and he is coming directly towards us. He is too far off for me to distinguish his features—you look and see what you can make of him."
He handed the glasses to Anstice, who raised them to his eyes; and after adjusting the lenses to suit his younger, keener sight, he swept them round in an attempt to focus the distant object.
First an apparently illimitable expanse of sky and sand swam slowly into view, each insignificant landmark in the desert magnified almost incredibly by the powerful glasses; and at last the blue-robed native appeared suddenly as though only a stone's throw away from the man who searched for him.
The glass revealed him as an Arab of an ordinary type clad in a faded blue djibbeh, over which he wore the short grey coat so inexplicably beloved of the native. On his head was a scarlet fez; and his blue robe was gathered up in such a way as to leave bare his brown and sinewy legs as he paddled ruthlessly and unhesitatingly over the burning sand.
As he lowered the glasses Anstice gave a short description of the advancing native to Sir Richard, adding:
"He seems to be in something of a hurry—he's covering the ground in a most energetic fashion—and he really does appear to be making straight for us!"
All at once Sir Richard's lately-born optimism fell from him like an ill-fitting garment. Taking the glasses back he adjusted them once more with fingers that absolutely trembled; and when after a long and steady stare he lowered them and turned to his companion his face was very serious.
"Anstice, I hope to God I'm mistaken, but that fellow looks uncommonly like Hassan—and from the haste he's making I should say he had been sent out to meet us. And that can only mean disaster—either Bruce is worse, or——" He broke off suddenly, his fine old face suddenly grey.
"Oh, it won't be so bad as that, sir!" Unconsciously Anstice replied to the unspoken suggestion. "Possibly your daughter has sent this chap to relieve your mind—Cheniston may have taken a turn for the better—heaps of things may have happened."
"Quite so." Sir Richard was replacing his glasses in their case with oddly fumbling movements. "But I wish to God we were safely back ... we can't even see the village for these confounded palm trees!"
As though the horses understood and sympathized with the mental tension of their riders they sprang forward with renewed energy; and some hard riding brought the two men within hailing distance of the approaching native.
"It is Hassan all right," said Sir Richard with a rather painful attempt at composure. "Let us hurry on and find out what is amiss at the village."
As the native drew nearer it was easy to see that he was the bearer of important news. His coffee-coloured face was shining with drops of perspiration, and his breath came in pitiful gasps as he hurried up to Sir Richard and began pouring out his story in a flood of mixed Arabic and English which was quite unintelligible to Anstice.
"Speak slower, man, slower!" Sir Richard spoke emphatically, and for a space the native obeyed; but it was evident from the look of mingled consternation and rage in his hearer's face that the story was one of dire import.
When, presently, the Arab ceased, his tongue positively lolling out of his mouth like that of a thirsty dog, Sir Richard turned to Anstice with an air of determination.
"Things have been moving, with a vengeance, in our absence," he said grimly. "It seems that yesterday morning early young Garnett found a couple of Bedouins prowling about his place and helping themselves to his choicest produce; and being a hotheaded young fool he let fly at them with his revolver, the result being that by a most unlucky chance he winged one of the rascals and the other assisted him off, vowing vengeance on the whole little English colony of eight souls. It was not an empty threat either; for when Hassan, feeling uneasy at the idea of harm coming to Iris, slunk into the village to find out, if possible, what mischief was afoot, he ran slick into a conclave of the brutes, and hiding behind a rock heard their plans."
"They were pretty deadly, I suppose?"
"They merely embraced the wholesale massacre, under cover of night, of the English men and women who had been fools enough to trust their good faith," returned Sir Richard shortly. "Well, Hassan, whose wits are as sharp as his ears are long, lost no time in going back to his mistress with the information; and between them they evolved a plan which might, with the most marvellous luck, be successful."
"And that plan, sir?" Anstice's tone was tense.
"Aided by Hassan, at the approach of night the whole little group of white people crept safely into the Fort of which I told you; and when, a couple of hours later, the Bedouins came forth intent on reprisals, they found the houses of the English empty, and realized, too late, that the Fort was quite a different nut to crack."
"It is a fairly safe building?"
"Well, it has certain natural advantages, I grant." Sir Richard spoke rather dubiously. "We went over it one day, in a spirit of curiosity; and I have a pretty clear recollection of the place. To begin with, as I told you the Bedouin encampment is a sort of oasis in a valley at the foot of some quite respectably high rocks. You know the desert is not, as some people imagine, merely a flat expanse of sand. Here and there are ranges of hills, limestone, and so on—and now and then one comes across quite a chain of rocky places which in another country would be looked upon as precipices."
He paused; and Anstice waited eagerly for him to continue.
"Well, this Fort is, very luckily, built on a plateau overlooking the valley. On one side the ground slopes gently down to the little colony, but on the other the Fort overlooks a high precipice of rock which of course affords no means of transit from the ground below; so that on that side the place is absolutely impregnable."
"I see." Anstice's tone held a note of relief. "Well, that sounds fairly promising—as I suppose it means there are only three sides to defend instead of four."
"Well, it is a circular building," Sir Richard explained, "and there are only slits in the walls on two sides; and also, fortunately for us, only one means of entrance or exit, in the shape of a massive door which could hardly be forced without a charge of dynamite. It was the stronghold, so I gather, of a kind of robber chief in the old days, and doubtless was built to resist possible assaults from lawless tribesmen. But there is one weak spot in the building—one or rather two places which are a decided menace to any defence."
"And those——"
"Well, it seems this French artist, Massenet by name, sought and obtained permission from the authorities who leased him the building to throw out a couple of windows in the upper floor which enabled him to convert the place into a very passable studio. He was a rich man—son of a well-known Paris banker, and the cost did not intimidate him. But the result is that those two big windows, which only boast the flimsiest of sand-shutters, are, without a doubt, capable of being made into means of entry, provided, of course, that the defenders within are short of ammunition or are unable to construct efficient barricades."
"I see. I suppose they are a fair height from the ground?"
"Yes—but there are such things as ladders," said Sir Richard dryly. "Of course a mere handful of men, given a sufficiency of ammunition, might keep an attacking party at bay almost indefinitely. But I'm afraid our supply of munitions is somewhat scanty, and with women—and children—to defend——" He broke off suddenly as the native began to speak.
"You go a-back, bring help, bring many gentlemens. Me and the Effendi take care of ladees ... but you go quick—bring the soldiermans...." He stopped, as though at the end of his suggestions.
"Yes." Sir Richard's face lighted up. "I see what he means. Anstice, you or I must make all speed back to Cairo and fetch out some soldiers. The barracks swarm with them, and if I know them they'll jump at the chance of a little scrap like this. With luck you'd be back in three days—less, if you pushed your horses—and by God I believe we could hold the Fort till then!"
As he finished the native nodded his head as though in approval of the plan; but suddenly his expressive features lengthened, and he said something in a lower tone to Sir Richard in which the words "El Hakim" occurred more than once.
Sir Richard listened restively, and uttered an exclamation of annoyance.
"Well, well, there's no need to repeat it so often! Anstice, this fellow points out that after all I had better be the one to go for help, as he says your aid is urgently required at the Fort. Besides Cheniston, who seems, from what I can gather, to be in about the same state as before, Garnett got wounded last night when the besiegers tried to force an entrance, and I suppose the sooner you get to them the better."
"Well, there's something in that," conceded Anstice, reluctant to deepen the disappointment in Sir Richard's face. "You see, sir, the sooner I fix up Cheniston the better—but why shouldn't this fellow go and fetch help instead of you?"
Sir Richard's eyes brightened, but after another colloquy with the Arab his former air of dejection returned.
"He says—confound him—that the authorities in Cairo would pay more attention to me than to him—and I suppose he's not far wrong. Also he points out that with his knowledge of the land and of the language he would be of more use to the garrison"—he used the word half ashamedly—"than I, who know little of either. His plan is for me to return immediately with all possible speed to fetch help, while you and he seek, under cover of night, to enter the Fort, a task which I gather," said Sir Richard grimly, "is not altogether devoid of risk."
Anstice said nothing, but his mouth was set in a hard line which betokened ill for anyone who attempted to bar his way into that same Fort, and with a half-strangled sigh Sir Richard continued his speech.
"It seems on the whole the best plan, though God knows it's hard to turn round and leave my only daughter in this damned hole. Still, I see the logic of the thing, and if you are willing to go forward, why, there's nothing left for me but to turn back."
"I'll go forward all right," replied Anstice quietly. "And if you will trust me, I will do my best to carry on until you arrive with reinforcements."
"In that case I'll go at once," said Sir Richard more briskly. "Which is the better horse? Yours, I think—and if so I'll take it and hurry back to Cairo. But first let's have a look at the provisions—I'm a tough old fellow and can do without a lot of stuff, but I daren't risk failing on the way. Luckily we are lavishly provided."
Hearing this speech the Arab smiled gleefully and produced from some mysterious recess in his robe a square package, tied with string, and handed it, still smiling, to Sir Richard, who took it with a rather mystified expression.
"It's food—what you call grub," explained Hassan proudly. "The ladees make it—say it carry the Effendi back tole Caire"—in common with many Arabs he gave the city its French name—"and itgoodgrub too!"
Sir Richard slipped the packet into his pocket with a rather uncertain smile, and turned to the matter of transit without loss of time.
Anstice's horse was the fresher of the two, and it was decided that Sir Richard should start at once, and when at a safe distance dismount and rest until moonrise, after which the night hours might profitably be spent in journeying onwards, since night-riding in the desert is infinitely preferable to riding by day.
"With luck you should make Cairo very early on the day after to-morrow," said Anstice, who had been making a calculation. "And if you could get started again without loss of time you could be here in just under three days. But that would mean hard riding, I'm afraid——"
"I'm pretty tough," said Sir Richard again. "And after all you'll have the harder part. I suppose"—he turned to Hassan—"I suppose there is no possibility of getting help nearer than Cairo—no village or settlement to which I might apply?"
No, Hassan opined, it was of no use seeking help elsewhere. The one or two native villages within call were quite inadequate to render assistance, and to apply to them would be a loss of time which would have no practical result.
When once Sir Richard was assured of the impossibility of procuring help nearer than Cairo he wasted no further time in discussion, but mounted his horse with a businesslike air and proceeded to take leave of Anstice with a heartiness which but thinly disguised his real and gnawing anxiety.
"I will make all possible speed," he said, as he settled himself sturdily in his saddle. "And with luck three days should see me back. In the meantime"—for a moment his voice faltered, but he pulled himself together pluckily—"I leave my girl in your care. And I know"—Sir Richard spoke very slowly—"I know you will guard her, if need be, with your life...."
"Thank you for your trust, Sir Richard." In Anstice's hand-grip Sir Richard read the measure of his resolve. "I will not fail you—nor your daughter—so long as I am alive."
Sir Richard wrung his hand, tried to speak, and failed, utterly, to articulate a syllable. But the look which the two men exchanged spoke more eloquently than words, and Sir Richard, as he rode away on his mission, knew that so far as mortal man might compass success his daughter's safety was assured at this man's hands.
When Sir Richard had ridden away, sitting squarely in his saddle, with never a backward look, Anstice turned to Hassan.
"Now," he said, "how do we proceed? I mean"—he remembered that the man understood little English—"do we go straight back to the village—and what do we do with this horse?"
Hassan's explanation was necessarily somewhat unintelligible, being couched in a polyglot mixture of French and English, with a few words of Arabic thrown in, but by dint of patient inquiry Anstice presently made out the drift of his involved speech. Briefly, his plan was as follows.
It would be useless, so Hassan asserted, to attempt to return to the village and enter the Fort until darkness covered the land. The Bedouins, it seemed, already surrounded the place so that Hassan's escape had been a matter of some difficulty, and it would be necessary to proceed cautiously, with careful strategy, in order to re-enter the place in safety.
When once it was comparatively dark—if possible before the moon rose—the attempt must be made; and in the meantime Hassan considered the wisest thing to do was to shelter somewhere and rest in preparation for the evening's adventures.
The horse, he decided, must be turned loose outside the village. The Bedouins, as he pointed out, would be likely to snap up readily a horse of such good appearance, and in any case Hassan was plainly of the opinion that a horse's existence was of very little importance when graver matters were at stake.
Although, as an Englishman, Anstice was inclined to rate the horse's value as a living creature more highly than the Arab was disposed to do, he saw the reason of the plan, and agreed to follow Hassan's advice in every particular.
Having come to this wise resolve, he invited Hassan to choose a place where the time of waiting might be passed, and the native deciding on a little sandy hollow between two low, round-backed hills, he proceeded to ensconce himself more or less comfortably on the loose and drifting sand, and prepared to endure the waiting-time with what patience he might.
"Dr. Anstice! Is it really—you?"
Iris stood opposite to him with an expression of wondering surprise in her wide grey eyes, and as he held her hand in his Anstice noted the beating of a little blue vein in her temple—a sure sign, with this girl, of some inward agitation which could not be altogether concealed.
"Yes. It is really I." Although he spoke calmly he was to the full as agitated as she, and he could not keep his eager eyes from studying her face, in which he found a dozen new beauties for which their separation had not prepared him. She was a little thinner than he remembered her, but the African sun had kissed her fine skin so warmly that any pallor which might well distinguish her in these troublous days was effectually disguised.
With an effort he relinquished her hand and spoke with well-simulated indifference.
"It was by the merest chance that Sir Richard and I met in Port Said," he said. "I was taking a holiday—the first I've had for years"—he smiled—"and was only too glad to see a familiar face in a strange land."
"And you have given up your holiday to come to our help," she said in a low voice. "You don't know how thankful I am to see you—but for your own sake I wish you had not come."
"That's rather unkind," he said, with a smile. "Here have I been flattering myself that you would welcome me—well, warmly—and you as good as tell me I am not wanted!"
"Indeed I did not mean that." She too smiled, but quickly grew grave again. "If you only knewhowglad I am to see you. We—we are in rather a bad way here, you know, Dr. Anstice, and—and your help will be valuable in more ways than one."
"I hope it may prove so," he said. Anstice and Hassan had made a perilous, but successful, entry into the little Fort, pursued, it is true, by a shower of bullets, for the Bedouins were armed with a strange collection of weapons, ranging from antique long-barrelled guns to modern rifles. "May I see him at once? The sooner the better, as I am here at last."
"Yes. I want you to see him as soon as possible." Iris hesitated, and in her eyes was the shadow of a haunting dread. "You will find him very ill, I am afraid. We have done what we could—Mrs. Wood has been splendid—but he doesn't seem to get any better. Of course in ordinary circumstances we should not have dared to move him, but we had to do it, and I am sure it has been very bad for him."
"Well, we must see what we can do now," said Anstice in as reassuring a tone as he could muster. "Where is he? On this floor, I suppose?"
"Yes. Next door. One of the rooms which the artist used is furnished, more or less, as a bedroom, and it is fairly comfortable. The other rooms—this and the ones downstairs—are almost empty except for a few chairs and a kind of bench we use for a table."
"I see." Anstice looked round the room, noting the rough stone walls, the ancient, uneven floor, uncovered by so much as a piece of matting; and then his glance returned to the large modern window which looked so incongruous in its mediæval setting.
The room into which a moment later Iris showed him was of the same shape and size as the one they had just quitted; and boasted the second of the windows which might, were help too long delayed, prove the undoing of the little garrison. It was, however, roughly furnished, though it was evident that the Frenchman, for all his reputed wealth, had been no Sybarite by inclination. The bed was of a common pattern, and the few other things scattered about on the scantily matted floor were of the most primitive description.
As a room for an invalid the apartment certainly left much to be desired; but Anstice did not waste time over his surroundings. He moved quickly towards the bed; and stood looking down upon the man who lay thereon in silence.
And as he looked at the wreck of the once gallant Bruce Cheniston, his heart sank within him; for if ever Death had printed his sign-manual on a living man's face, it was written here too legibly for even an untrained eye to miss its significance.
Cheniston was wasted to a shadow by fever and suffering. From his haggard face his sunken eyes looked out with an expression of anguish which was surely mental as well as physical; and though he evidently recognized his visitor, he was too weak to do more than move one fleshless hand an inch or two towards Anstice by way of greeting.
Hiding the shock Cheniston's appearance had given him as well as he might, Anstice sat down beside the bed and took the painfully thin hand in his own.
"Cheniston, I'm sorry to see you in such a bad way." He spoke very gently, his eyes on the other's face the while. "It was hard luck falling ill out here—but I've brought up several things from Cairo that will give you relief in no time."
Over Cheniston's face flitted the ghost of a smile; and his voice, when he replied, gave Anstice a fresh shock, so thready and devoid of all tone was it.
"Thanks—very much—Anstice." He spoke slowly, with spaces between the words. "I'm very ill—I know—I think I'm going—to peg out—but I can't bear—to think—of Iris."
He stopped, quite exhausted by the effort of speech; and Anstice, more moved than he cared to show, laid the thin hand back on the bed, and took his patient's temperature, his heart sinking still lower as he read the thermometer's unimpeachable testimony.
Strive as he might, he could not rid himself of a fear that Bruce Cheniston's earthly race was ran; and catching sight of Iris' face as she stood on the opposite side of the bed, he felt, with a quick certainty, that she too realized that only by a miracle could her husband be restored to the health and vigour to which his young manhood surely entitled him.
"Come, Cheniston," he said presently, in answer to Bruce's last words, "you mustn't talk of pegging out. You have been bad, I can see that, but you know dozens of travellers in Egypt enjoy a taste of enteric and come through it as good as new. You got this through drinking polluted water, I understand?"
"Yes." Bruce smiled, haggardly, once more. "Too bad, wasn't it, that after playing with water ever since I came out here it should turn on me in the end. Serves me right—for—trusting an Arab—I suppose."
His voice died weakly away; and Anstice gently bade him keep quiet for a while.
"No use talking and exciting yourself," he said, for he could see the other's stock of strength was lamentably small. "Lie still and allow me to talk over affairs with Mrs. Cheniston—we will put our heads together and evolve some plan for your benefit." He hardly knew what he said, so filled was his heart with a pity in which now there was no faintest tinge of resentment for the unfair bargain which this man had once driven with him.
With a sigh Cheniston closed his eyes, and appeared to relapse once more into a kind of stupor; and when, in obedience to a silent gesture, Iris withdrew to the window, Anstice joined her there immediately.
Such remedies as yet remained to be tried Anstice determined to employ; but though he told himself fiercely that if mortal man could save Bruce Cheniston from the grave he should assuredly be saved, he experienced that hopeless feeling which all who gaze in the very face of death know only too well; and he did not dare to meet Iris' eyes as he conversed with her in a carefully-lowered tone.
"I'll sit up to-night, Mrs. Cheniston, and you must try to get some sleep. I suppose"—he broke off suddenly, remembering the position in which they stood—"I suppose some of you watch—for the enemy"—he laughed with something of an effort—"every night?"
"Yes. I don't think we any of us slept last night," said Iris quietly. "You see we are so short-handed—only Mr. Wood and Mr. Garnett and Hassan know anything about fire-arms; and Mrs. Wood and I, and Rosa, Mrs. Wood's nurse, have been busy looking after Bruce and little Molly Wood."
"Of course. Well, I think the first thing to do, after I have given Mr. Cheniston this"—he had been mixing something in a little glass as he spoke—"is to meet and hold a council of war, with a view to the most useful disposition of our forces. After all"—he spoke more lightly, so keen was his desire to see her look less anxious—"we are not by any means a force to be despised. We have four able-bodied men among us; and this place, from what I can gather, looks pretty impregnable, on one side at least."
"Yes. Even Mr. Garnett admits that the Bedouins could hardly swarm up that rocky wall," said Iris, with a slightly more cheerful air. "And of course, too, we have not got to hold out indefinitely; for if my father reaches Cairo in good time we may have the relieving force here in less than three days."
"Of course we may!" His tone was resolutely optimistic. "Now, as soon as Mr. Cheniston drinks this we'll set to work."
He approached the bed, and having with some difficulty roused Cheniston from his stupor, administered the dose deftly; after which he turned to Iris once more.
"You spoke of a nurse just now. Who is she?"
"Oh, she is only a children's nurse, and rather a broken reed at the best of times," said Iris ruefully. "She had hysterics all last night, but she's a bit more sensible to-day."
"Hysterics or no, she can keep watch for half an hour," said Anstice rather grimly. "Suppose you find her and send her to me. Would you mind?"
"I'll go at once." Iris turned towards the door, and Anstice noted with a pang at his heart that she was certainly thinner and moved with less buoyancy than of old. "You—you won't be too severe with her, Dr. Anstice? After all, she is only a young girl, and she has gone through quite a lot since yesterday morning!"
"Oh, I won't bite her head off," said Anstice, with a short laugh of genuine amusement. "But we have no use for hysterical young women here; and no doubt when she understands that she will amend her ways."
"Very well. I will go and find her." With a last look towards the bed Iris vanished; and for a brief moment Anstice was left alone, to wonder at the strange and unexpected situation in which he now found himself, shut up in this lonely building in the heart of the desert with a handful of souls for whose safety he could not but feel himself largely responsible.
He did not attempt to disguise from himself that the outlook was decidedly unpromising. Even though Sir Richard reached Cairo without mishap, some time must necessarily elapse before he could gather together what Iris had called the relieving force; and although Anstice had no reason to doubt the staunchness and courage of his fellow-defenders, he could not fail to realize that as a fighting unit they were altogether outmatched by the two or three score of enemies who were by now, apparently, thirsting savagely for their blood.
Then, too, the shadow of death already hovered over the little garrison; and as Anstice turned once more to survey the pale and wasted features of the man who had supplanted him in the one supreme desire of his life, he told himself that it would be a miracle if Bruce Cheniston lived long enough to see the arrival of the help on which so much depended.
"If I had got here a week—three days ago, I might have done something," he told himself rather hopelessly. "But now I'm very much afraid it is too late. He is going to die, I'm pretty sure of that, though I hope to God I may be mistaken; and heaven only knows what will happen in the course of the next three days."
As he reached this point in his meditations a voice in his ear made him start; and turning, he beheld a pale and distraught-looking young woman who might in happier circumstances have laid claim to a certain uninspired prettiness. At this moment, however, her eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep, her ashy-coloured hair limp and dishevelled round her unintellectual forehead, she was rather a piteous object; and in spite of his resolve to speak bracingly to her Anstice's voice was quite gentle as he replied to her murmured question.
"Yes, I am Dr. Anstice, and I want you to be good enough to sit here and look after Mr. Cheniston while I talk over matters with the other gentlemen."
"Yes, sir." She cast a swift look at the bed, and then hastily averted her pale-brown eyes. "Mr. Cheniston—he—he won't die, will he, sir? I mean, not immediate, like?"
"No, he will not die immediately," said Anstice reassuringly. "All you have to do is to sit here, beside the bed"—he had noticed how she kept her distance from the aforesaid bed, and placed her in the chair he had vacated with a firm pressure there was no resisting—"and watch Mr. Cheniston carefully. If he shows signs of waking come for me. But don't disturb him in any way. You understand?"
The girl said, rather whimperingly, that she did; and with a last glance at Cheniston, who still lay sunk in a dreary stupor, Anstice went quietly from the room in search of his comrades in misfortune.
He found them in the room in which he had first seen Iris; and he joined the conclave without loss of time.
"Oh, here you are!" Iris broke off in the middle of a sentence and came forward. "Mrs. Wood, this is Dr. Anstice; and this"—she turned to a tall, clean-shaven man dressed, rather unconventionally, in the clothes of a clergyman—"is Mr. Wood. Here is Mr. Garnett, and that is all, with the exception of Molly."
She drew forward a child of about Cherry Carstairs' age, a pale, fragile child in whose face Anstice read plainly the querulousness of an inherited delicacy of constitution.
"She ought really to be asleep," said Mrs. Wood, a short, rather good-looking woman of a florid type, whose subdued voice and air were at variance with the cheerful outline of her features. "But somehow night and day have got mixed up at present—in fact, my watch has stopped, and I don't know what time it is."
"It is just ten o'clock, Mrs. Wood." It was Roger Garnett who volunteered the information; and as Anstice turned to discover what manner of man the speaker might be he was relieved to find that the young Australian wore an unmistakably militant air. He was of average height, with powerful shoulders; and in his blue eyes burned a lust for battle which was in no way diminished by the fact that his left arm was bound up just below the elbow.
"Brute dotted me one there," he explained casually as he saw Anstice's glance fall on the bandage. "Thought at first he'd broken a bone, but he hadn't. It was only a flesh wound, and Mrs. Wood did it up in the most approved St. John style!"
"I'll look at it for you presently, if you like," said Anstice, "though it appears to be most scientifically bandaged. Now, what I should like to know is this. Did these fellows attack you last night? They did? At what time—and in what force did they come?"
"It was just before dawn—the recognized time for a night attack, eh?" Garnett's blue eyes twinkled. "They thought it was going to be a soft job, I believe; but they had apparently forgotten that the door was pretty well impregnable, thanks to the jolly old bandit, or whatever he was, who used to retire here with his doubtless ill-gotten gains! And as they had forgotten to provide themselves with any means of reaching these windows the attack failed, so to speak."
"I gather you were looking out? Any casualties?" Anstice put the question coolly; and young Garnett grinned.
"Yes, siree—one for which by the grace of God I may consider myself responsible. They were all arguing in the courtyard below when I gave them a kind of salute from up here, and by gosh, you should have seen the beggars scatter! One of them got it in the thigh, at least so I deduce from the fact that he had to be assisted away, groaning!"
"They didn't return?"
"No. Clambered over the wall and made tracks for home, sweet home instanter."
"To tell you the truth, Dr. Anstice"—it was Mr. Wood who spoke, and Anstice turned quickly towards him—"I do not myself believe that they will attack us again at present. They have now found it impossible to force an entrance unseen; and I should not be surprised if their plan of campaign included waiting, and trying to starve us out. A policy of masterly inaction, so to speak."
"Do you know, I rather agree with the Padre," said Garnett thoughtfully. "Of course they have not a notion that we have sent for help; and though they saw Dr. Anstice arrive with Hassan, it is quite possible that in the dusk they thought it was one of us who had made a futile sortie with the Arab."
"I daresay you are right," said Anstice thoughtfully. "But I suppose you do not propose we should relax our vigilance on that account?"
"No." Mr. Wood looked keenly at the speaker, and appeared reassured by something he read in the other's face. "Last night we watched both this window and that of the other room—the one where Mr. Cheniston is lying——"
"It is unfortunate that he should be in one of the rooms where there is a possibility of trouble," said Anstice, rather worried by the notion. "I suppose the others are really uninhabitable?"
"Well, there is no possibility of admitting sufficient air," said Mrs. Wood practically. "There is a little hole where we snatch a moment's rest now and then, but for a man with fever——"
"No, I suppose he must stay where he is." Anstice genuinely regretted the necessity. "The only thing to do is to try to draw the enemy's fire to the other window, if occasion arises. Now, how do we divide our forces? Mrs. Cheniston"—he spoke the name firmly now—"you, I suppose, will watch your husband, and if I may suggest that I take the window in that room under my charge—Hassan might be at hand to take my place when I'm occupied with Mr. Cheniston——"
"Then Mr. Garnett and I will be responsible for the watch in this room," said the clergyman quietly. "The others—my wife and Rosa—can take it in turn to relieve Mrs. Cheniston. How does that plan strike you, Dr. Anstice?" By common consent they began to look on Anstice as their leader.
"A very sensible plan," said Mrs. Wood quickly, "But I positively insist upon Mrs. Cheniston having some sleep. She was up all night and has not rested a moment to-day."
"What about me, Mummy?" A rather fretful little voice interrupted the speaker, as Molly pressed closely to her side. "What's me and Rosa going to do? There isn't any beds and the bench is so hard!"
"Poor kiddie!" Anstice's heart was touched by this lamentable wail. "Suppose you let me see what I can do to make you a bed, Molly! I'm a doctor, you know, and doctors know more about making beds than ordinary people!"
The child regarded him with lack-lustre eyes which were quite devoid of any childish gaiety; and for a moment she appeared to revolve the question in her mind. Finally she decided that he was to be trusted, for she nodded her weary little head and put her thin, hot hand into the one he extended to her.
"The room opposite to this is our bedroom," said Iris, with a faint smile. "Shall I come too, Molly, and show Dr. Anstice where to find the things?"
"Yes. You come too." The other moist hand sought Iris' cooler one; and between them they led the poor child into the room Iris indicated.
Here, with a little ingenuity, a bed was made up of chairs and cushions, which Molly was too worn out to resist; and having seen her sink at once into an uneasy slumber, the two returned to the larger room, where the others still held whispered conclave.
"Dr. Anstice"—Iris laid her hand on his arm, her voice full of the sweetest contrition—"you have had nothing to eat and you must be famished."
"I'm not hungry," he assured her truthfully; but she refused to listen to his protests; and calling Mrs. Wood to her assistance she soon had a meal ready for him. Although the resources of the establishment were limited to tinned food and coffee boiled over a little spirit stove, Anstice was in no mood to criticize anything which Iris set before him. Indeed he could hardly take his eyes from her as she ministered to him; and the food he ate might have been manna for anything he knew to the contrary.
Having finished his hasty meal and assured his kind hostesses that he felt a hundred per cent better thereby, Anstice turned to Mr. Wood with a new seriousness.
"It is nearly eleven o'clock," he said, "and I suppose we should be thinking of taking up our positions? If you and Mr. Garnett are ready, I'll call Hassan to take charge of the other window for a little while, and have a look at my patient yonder."
The other men agreed; and Anstice left them stationing themselves at their posts while he entered the next room and relieved the frightened Rosa from her task of watching the invalid.
As he approached Cheniston's side he saw that as yet no fatal change had occurred. Bruce still lay in a kind of stupor, half-sleep, half-unconsciousness; but his pulse was not perceptibly weaker, and for a wild moment Anstice considered the possibility of his patient's recovery—a possibility which, however, he dared hardly entertain as he looked at the haggard face, the sunken eyes, the peeling lips.
When Iris entered a minute or two later Anstice gave her a few directions, bidding her call him immediately should Bruce awaken; and as she acquiesced and sat down on the hard chair lately vacated by the maid, Anstice looked at her with a feeling of rather helpless compassion.
"Mrs. Cheniston, I'm so awfully sorry to have to ask you to sit up. You're worn out, I know, and I wish you could get some sleep."
"Oh, don't bother about me!" She smiled up at him, and his heart contracted within him at the look of fatigue in her face. "I'm immensely strong, you know—and I can sleep to-morrow. Only"—the smile faded out of her eyes, leaving them very sad—"do you think there is any possibility of Bruce being better in the morning?"
"Yes—he is no worse than when I saw him an hour or two ago," Anstice assured her. "And in a bad case like this even a negative boon of that kind is something to be thankful for."
She looked at him again, rather wistfully this time; but he did not meet her eyes; and presently he withdrew, leaving her to her lonely watch; while he went to take up his vigil at the window in preparation for any possible attack.
But that night passed without adventure of any kind.