Verna looked at the fallen man, and her bitter resentment left her, but not her grief.
“I am going back to look for him,” she said. “Who’ll volunteer?”
“You shan’t go,” said her father decisively; “but I will. How many men can you spare me, Bray?”
Inspector Bray was not pleased. Here he had brought off this expedition with success, even with brilliancy, and now the kudos he would gain would be utterly marred. For to allow any of his men to go on this insane quest would mean to send them to their death. There was not a chance of the missing man being found, except cut into small pieces. Still, if it had been any other than Ben Halse—and, besides, that white face, those eyes, gleaming in the starlight!
“You can have ten,” he said gruffly, “if you can get as many to volunteer.”
Ten? The whole troop wanted to volunteer on the spot. But the ten were chosen.
“I’ll be somethinged if I follow up this investigation any further,” said Sergeant Dickinson, who was one of those chosen, to himself, as they set out. “He may have killed a hundred blanked ‘Sheenies’ for all I care. I’m not going to hunt down a chap like that. I’d rather chuck the Force.”
It may be said that the search party utterly failed in its object. It was met by overwhelming numbers, and there was nothing for it but a precipitate retreat upon the column again.
Then and for all the days to come Verna Halse realised that for her the light of the world had gone out.