“I cannot go?” she said, making it almost a question.
I threw the door wider open, and pointed to the rain that was coming down in sheets—just like a tropical downpour.
“Quite impossible—you can see.”
She rose and looked out, shuddered, and then went back to the bed with a sigh of disappointment. Some moments passed then. The storm raged furiously: the lightning flaring and flashing with intense brilliance, filling the sordid little dingy room almost continuously with its vivid blue light; the thunder pealing and crashing and roaring as though the very heavens would split; and the rain sweeping and swirling down like a flood.
And within there was silence between us: she sitting dead still on the low pallet, the dog haunched by her side; and I standing, very ill at ease, near the door, not knowing what to say or do next, and feeling very much of an awkward fool. I wanted to know that she trusted me, and would have given anything for a word from her to show she did; while at the same time I felt I would have bitten my tongue out rather than have asked for such a word.
Yet out it came, nevertheless.
“You feel better and—and safe?” I asked.
The lightning showed me that she moved slightly, turned her head and glanced toward me just for an instant, but said nothing.
“I’ll get you something to eat,” I murmured fatuously, and went out and pelted through the rain to the tent.
I had got some biscuits and a tin of milk, when a thought occurred to me. The men had not returned, and their guns piled in a corner of the tent caught my eye as I was leaving. I made a bundle of them and carried them away. I could trust my men just as well if they had no firearms.