"Heard it!" echoed Vincent, wildly. "Yes! I heard it. Go on! What then?"
"I don"t know--I know nothing in this infernal nightmare that"s got hold of us all!" cried Lance. "I only know that if we don"t get to the gaol before they do--they"ve gone to set the prisoners free--there will be the devil of a row. So you must come at once, Vincent--you must come at once!"
Captain Dering gave an irresolute look at the dying girl. She had saved his life--he loved her--could he leave her? Was anything worth that sacrifice?
"You _must_ go!" said a stern voice. It was Father Ninian"s, who had taken Vincent"s place and was now holding Laila in his arms. "You must go, Captain Dering, and prevent worse from befalling; if you can--if you can!" There was almost a triumph in his voice.
Lance looked from one to the other in sheer despair. "Well! if you won"t come, I"m off--oh! come along, Vincent, and don"t be a fool!
It--it isn"t worth it; it never is!"
Vincent Dering stood still irresolute. "You"ll stay, sir," he said, "and--and look after--"
Father Ninian drew the unconscious girl closer to him. "I will look after--_Margherita_."
The last word came in a half whisper to himself and his eyes met Vincent"s with a curious dazed defiance. The latter gave the defiance back, as their owner stooped for a second over Laila"s indifferent face, and kissed it.
"Good-by, _Juliet_," he said; and the last word came also in a half whisper to himself.
The next moment he was following Lance down the dim pa.s.sage, full of a vague relief, and realizing for the first time that the mist, which for the last half hour had dimmed the reality of all things, was due, not to any aberration of his brain, but to the simple fact that an electrical dust-storm was in full blast.
He realized it with relief. That was at least real, tangible.
Almost too much so; and as the hot wind, charged with those aspiring atoms of earth, met him fiercely, he realized also that the storm would fight against him in his efforts to prevent worse from happening. If, indeed, anything could be worse than what had happened; worse than Laila"s--
He broke off in his thought, incredulous. It could not be true. He would come back to find her better--well!--
But that other dream was true. His men had risen. The one thing necessary, therefore, was to get to the gaol before any decided action took place; and this he realised still more clearly from Lance"s curt explanation as they ran down the river steps. Once there, the sight of the canoe he had left suggested the feasibility of getting to the gaol in it. His personal influence might avail. If that failed, he would at least be able to save time by choosing a suitable place for the raft to come ash.o.r.e. The great thing was to be on the spot, to be within reach of action at once; to wait for the raft meant needless delay.
So, a minute after, the faint splash of his paddle was lost in the rising hum of the storm, and Lance was left looking anxiously for sound or sight of the raft, which, if all had gone well, should by now have started.
But neither came, so, seeing from the light he had s.n.a.t.c.hed up as he pa.s.sed through the balcony that the air was growing darker, more impenetrable than ever, he shoved off his strange craft, to wait further out in the stream where there was less chance of the raft pa.s.sing him unseen, unheard.
For this reason also, he paddled up along the wall a bit into the faint glow of light which showed still from the arches of the chapel. And as he lay in it, his ears and eyes strained for the least sound, he could hear as a kind of background to that m.u.f.fled drumming of the storm, the sound of the pilgrims chanting as they waited for the dawn. The dawn which would bring--what? Who could tell?
The sound of other prayers, echoing from the chapel, made him shake his head, feeling that it was hopeless to look forward--or backward for that matter! Why had Roshan shot the girl--if he had! And why had Pidar Narayan called her Margherita, and Vincent called her Juliet?
The whole thing was exactly as he had said--an infernal nightmare!
Then a faint sound in front of him made his strong arms sweep the paddle through the stream as he shot into the darkness in search of the raft; in search of Erda.
Not that she needed him, really. The memory of her in that red-and-gold mess jacket above her wedding dress, giving orders to the men squarely, came back to make him smile.
G.o.d bless her! She could do well enough without him. That was one comfort. And Dillon could hold his own too, without much help, for a time--that was another; for what with this and that, help was bound to be over-long in coming.
CHAPTER XXII
A MONOPOLY
Lance Carlyon was right in trusting Dr. Dillon"s power of doing without help until Providence chose to send some. This was the easier task, in that he had made up his mind deliberately beforehand as to what his best course of action would be should an alarm of this sort occur.
Therefore that imperative _kling-kling_ of the telegraph bell which roused him in a second from his bed, where, ready dressed for any such emergency, he was sleeping the sleep of the just, found him alert, prepared for anything and everything.
So it has come, he thought, as he hastily wired back the comprehensive reply, "_All right, await you_." He felt as a doctor does when a dangerous symptom which he has foreseen as a possibility, shows itself.
He had been on the lookout for this for days, but as the dawn would end the period during which it might be expected, he had, as in the outbreak of the cholera, had hopes that danger was over. His last thought, as he slept, had been this; he woke to find that the complication must be faced. Woke with a strong regret, but a stronger instinct of fight. So he slipped his feet into his shoes, jammed his big mushroom hat on his head out of pure habit, and so, armed _cap-a-pie_, with a brain quick to work, and a body ready to follow and obey, he ran across the sandy road to the Smiths" bungalow, realizing as he did so that a dust-storm was just beginning. That would delay both attack and relief. On the whole, this would be an advantage, since, once things were secure, half an hour or so would make no difference in the latter; whereas, he wanted every minute he could get now for preparation.
He had not warned Eugene Smith of his fears. There was never any use alarming people by mere probabilities, unless by so doing you could forearm them. And this was not the case here; since the safest--in fact the only--place of refuge for Mrs. Smith and the child, should trouble arise, was the semi-fortified roof above the gate of the gaol; and that he knew to be ready for use. He had, therefore, only to wake them, as quietly as might be, so as not to give the alarm to the servants.
Fortune favoured him in this; for, just outside the verandah, he ran full tilt upon Eugene himself, tall, gaunt, in his sleeping-suit, carrying a roll of bedding on his back like a snail"s sh.e.l.l. The heat of the evening had enticed him to sleep outside, as he preferred, _a la_ Robinson Crusoe, and the dust-storm was sending him in.
"h.e.l.lo, Dillon!" he cried, "what"s up?--nothing wrong with my wife or the child--I hope--No!--" he gave a sigh of relief, "then it"s the beastly dust-storm disturbed you, I suppose. Isn"t it sickening to think how many times in the next six months we shall have to take up our beds and walk."
"H"m! Hope I shall have the chance," replied the doctor, dryly, recovering his breath. "No, it isn"t the storm. They"re going to try a row, Smith. Just had a wire from the Fort. There"s a plot on, to come here and set the prisoners free, and that"s dangerous. So, till the troops come, I think you"d better bring Mrs. Smith and Gladys to the gate--it"s the safest place, and I"ve got everything ready. It mayn"t be much; but the devils, whoever they are, might turn and rend you--especially if they fail with me."
Eugene Smith had dropped his snail-sh.e.l.l and sat down on it, aghast, in surprise; but he was up again before the doctor finished.
"By Jove!" he said rapidly, calmly as the doctor himself. "That"s a taking up one"s bed with a vengeance. I"ll have "em both ready in a jiffy--anything else?"
"No. I"ll rummage round till you return--one forgets things to the last, sometimes. And I shall want your Remington and such like--I know where to find "em."
A moment after he was striking a match to light the tall floor-lamp in Mrs. Smith"s drawing-room. She had turned it out herself a few hours before, thinking, as she looked round the room, full of soft rose-shaded light, how pretty, how cosey it was. It had the same air of refined security now. Everything, down to a copy of the last "_Queen_"
lying on an inlaid table by her favourite chair, was so exactly what one would have expected to find in her room; the room of a delicate, cultivated, civilized, society woman.
And now?
Now the delicacy, the culture, the civilization, the society, and the security belonging to them, had been invaded in an instant. By what?
The dust--you could almost see it springing into the air in these sandy stretches--had already settled thick over the dainty furniture, and as Dr. Dillon, standing by the table in the pink glow of the lamp, asked himself the question, he yielded to the imperious fascination which a smooth sand-surface has for humanity. But he did not write his name upon it; only the idle answer to the question.
"G.o.d knows."
The writing lay upon the table beside the latest fashions, staring up into the pink paper shade, after George Dillon had pa.s.sed rapidly to Eugene"s office to choose this, that, and the other, and make them into a bundle with a table-cloth.
When he returned to the drawing-room, Muriel Smith was standing by that writing in the sand: a fragile figure in a blue dressing-gown, all frilled and embroidered like the pictures in the paper. She looked more forlorn than frightened; forlorn and pathetic.
"Is it warm enough?" said the doctor, as he entered. "Your dress, I mean. There"s a storm on, and it generally brings rain."
"It is flannel," she answered, and he nodded.
There was no excitement, no heroics. Only that. That, and the writing on the sand, and her forlornness--the forlornness of a delicate Dresden shepherdess set to drive a flock of real sheep to the shambles. But the needlessness, the pity of it, made Dr. Dillon set his teeth.
"Eugene will be here directly with Gladys," she said. "We thought it best not to wake her, and he said we had better start at once; for you see I can"t walk nearly so fast as he does."
There was no trace of fear in her voice, but there was none of resistance either, and she turned at the door to look back with an almost reproachful acquiescence.
"Poor room," she said softly, "it seems so strange--such a pity; but I suppose it can"t be helped." She turned to the darkness again with a little shiver, and went on, "Vincent sent the wire, I suppose."