"Do, for Heaven's sake, listen to reason——" he began, irately.
"Don't waste time," she interrupted. "I know what you want me to hear, but I can't wait for your words of wisdom. I must make haste to pack and run away as fast as I can!"
She darted towards Miss Abigail's tent, throwing him a glance of derisive revolt over her shoulder. He was helpless. Anyway he had but done what seemed to him his duty, and he had been given no chance of emphasising the fact that in leaving the camp she would be sparing him and Miss Abigail additional responsibility.... Yet he doubted if any argument under the sun would prevail with her now. To remain and risk death would, of course, enhance the feeling of superiority and benevolence that on her own admission she found so pleasant!
He rode back to the works determined to put her out of his mind. He had more to think of, he told himself, than a tiresome, pig-headed girl; but later in the day, when he caught sight of her with Miss Abigail and the Bible-teacher herding a flock of women and children into a new-made enclosure, his conscience murmured reproaches. At least Dorothy Baker's pluck was undeniable, even though it might be the pluck of ignorance and self-will....
That was a dreadful night. At times the hot, still air rang with the weeping and wailing of mourners, piteous cries that rose and fell; the silences that intervened seemed even worse—while the fight with death went on. Now and then it appeared as if the fatal scourge had been checked in its merciless progress; then again, as though leaping the barriers, it would break out in some quarter hitherto free. Luckily remedies held out, and more were expected in answer to urgent telegrams. By dawn further medical help had arrived, and as the sun rose, fierce and cruel, Flint felt justified in snatching a rest. He was roused from heavy sleep by a message, a message scribbled in obvious haste and agitation by Miss Baker from the Mission camp.
"Please come quickly; it's Miss Abigail."
An ominous summons! Fearing its import, he obeyed it without delay, ordered a horse to be saddled, threw on his clothes, and rode rapidly. Arrived, he found, within a sagging little sleeping tent, Miss Baker seated beside a narrow camp-bed on which, as he perceived at first glance, lay a dying woman. The once round, tanned face of the lady missionary was wet and grey, so strangely altered; the sturdy form was twisted and shrunken. A horrible odour pervaded the atmosphere, mingled with the smell of drugs and straw and canvas. At the foot of the bed a dishevelled ayah crouched terrified, weeping. On the rough, uneven drugget was scattered a confusion of clothes, a couple of tin basins, a shabby Bible, a notebook. The solitary camp table was covered with bottles and coarse crockery.
Dorothy Baker turned to Philip Flint; she was pale, trembling a little, yet wonderfully self-controlled.
"It was so sudden!" she faltered, biting her white lips. "This morning she was quite well, full of energy and plans. We had come back for some breakfast, and she was taken ill. Laban fetched the doctor. He stayed as long as he could, and she got better. He said he thought she would pull through. I did everything he told me. But now, see! I have sent for him again——"
Flint laid his finger on a cold wrist. Clearly it was a case of sudden collapse, beyond hope; even as he felt the faint, racing pulse it grew feebler, fluttered spasmodically.... He heard the girl's voice in his ear, a choking whisper: "Is she going? Is it the end?"