“The sacrifice is his own. The proposal comes from himself.”
“And you mean to let him?”
“Not if I could do it myself,” was the quiet answer.
“I don’t want you to do it. Is there nobody else?”
“No one except Keith, Raymond, and myself. Raymond is too tall, and I am not tall enough. Keith and Angus are just of a height.”
“And if Colonel Keith cannot escape, what will become of him?”
Silence answered me,—a silence which said far more than words.
“Ephraim, Colonel Keith is worth fifty of Angus.”
“I have not spent these weeks at his bedside, Cary, without finding that out.”
“And is the worse to be bought with the better?”