“Well?”
“Promise you won’t leave me—or I shan’t be able to sleep a wink.”
“Why, I thought you were fairly off. It’s twelve o’clock.”
“No—I’m not—Promise!”
“All right—I won’t budge.”
“Thanks;” and in a few moments her regular breathing told that she had forgotten her troubles in sleep.
Claverton piled some more wood on to the fire and drew in closer, shivering slightly, the fact being that he was nearly wet through—having given up his cloak as we have seen. Then he proceeded to fill his pipe.
“Poor little thing,” he mused, contemplating the slumbering form of his companion in adversity. “What a fright she was in—and small blame to her. Wonder what the beast could have been,” and getting up, he went and examined the soft ground by the door to see if it had left any spoor. “Yes—I thought so: a wolf, and a damned big wolf, too.” (Note 1.)
He returned to his seat by the fire and sat dreamily smoking. “What a pretty picture she makes,” he thought; and in good truth she did, as the long lashes lay in a dark semicircle on the rounded cheek, while the full red lips were parted ever so lightly, and the firelight danced and flickered with a ruddy glow on the golden head of the sleeper.
“Very good fun now, no doubt, that is if it were not so infernally cold,” he went on, “but the situation may begin to look awkward in the morning, when we are besieged by the kind inquiries of friends. However, the gentle sex knows devilish well how to take care of itself, that’s one comfort. ‘Self-preservation is the first law of woman,’ I truly believe to have been the original rendering of the proverb—the reason of its alteration is but too obvious. But assuredly the child would have been dead, or deuced near it, by morning if we hadn’t found this place, whereas now, in half-a-dozen hours’ time she’ll wake up fresh as paint, and probably abuse me like the prince of pickpockets, and swear it would have been much better to have slept out in the veldt all night. That’s the way of them.”