THE AFTERMATH
In the early morning, Joyce realised that she was both hungry and thirsty. Her lips were parched, her throat dry, nothing having passed them since early tea the previous afternoon, and she was at the lowest ebb of despondency and depression. Her surroundings helped to increase her misery, for the ground was a mixture of puddle and slush, and there seemed no chance of help anywhere. She seemed to have fallen into a deep crater, and but for a projection of roof that still held firm owing to a network of pipal roots, she would have been as drenched as the bricks and mortar with which she was surrounded.
To add to her alarm, she was all alone. Captain Dalton was nowhere to be seen.
Though he had behaved horribly the evening before, he had not troubled her since; the tramp of his feet as he paced up and down the circumscribed space that was left to them of the chamber, being the only evidence she had till she dropped off to sleep that she was not without company. But with the daylight he was gone, and feeling almost panic-stricken with ghostly fears and loneliness, she called aloud to him.
"Captain Dalton!"
"I'm here," his voice cheerily announced as he emerged from the inner room which had suffered an equal amount of damage. "See what the gods have sent you!" and he handed her a pipal-leaf cup, full of water to drink.
It was eagerly seized and gratefully drunk. "Where did you get it from?"
"That other room is full of branches torn from the roof when it fell in," he returned. "I discovered them by the light of a match and amused myself making cups out of the leaves by the light of a few more. They don't hold much, but I managed to set a good few to catch the rain drops as they fell, and that's better than nothing."
"Have you had any?" she asked politely.
"I was waiting for you, but I'll take a drink now." He retired and did not return till she called him again.