Down poured more plaster, and put out the last candle. Though a faint dawn-light stole through the holes in door and window, the room was dim, almost dark, and with the smell of gunpowder mingled the stench of hot tallow.
"Go now, dearest, to your sister," Stephen said to the girl, in a low voice that was for her alone.
"You will come?"
"Yes. Soon. But the door and window must be guarded. We can't have them breaking in two ways at once."
"Give me your hand," she said.
He took one of hers, instead, but she raised his to her lips and kissed it. Then she went back to her sister, and the two clung together in silence, listening to the patter of broken adobe on the floor. At first it was but as a heavy shower of rain; then it increased in violence like the rattle of hail. They could hear men speaking on the roof, and a gleam of daylight silvered a crack, as Stephen looked up, a finger on the trigger of his revolver.
"Five minutes more," were the words which repeated themselves in his mind, like the ticking of a watch. "Four minutes. Three. Can I keep my promise to her, when the time comes!"
A shout broke the question short, like a snapped thread.
He remembered the voice of the marabout, and knew that the sisters must recognize it also.
"What does he say?" Stephen called across the room to Victoria, speaking loudly to be heard over voices which answered the summons, whatever it might be.