It was about noon that young Travers raced in, hot and breathless, but he stopped short in evident dismay when he saw Audrey. He would have withdrawn as precipitately as he had entered, but she sprang after him and caught him by the arms.
"You have news!" she cried wildly. "What is it? Oh, what is it? Tell me quickly!"
He hesitated and glanced nervously at Mrs. Raleigh.
"Yes, tell her," the latter said. "It is better than suspense."
And so briefly, jerkily, the boy blurted on his news:
"Phil's back again; but they haven't got the major. The fort was deserted, except for one old man, and they have brought him along. They are over at the colonel's bungalow now."
He paused, shocked by the awful look his tidings had brought into Audrey's eyes.
The next instant she had sprung past him to the open door and was gone, bareheaded and distraught, into the blazing sunshine.
How she covered the distance of the long, white road to the colonel's bungalow, Audrey never remembered afterwards. Her agony of mind was too great for her brain to register any impression of physical stress. She only knew that she ran and ran as one runs in a nightmare, till suddenly she was on the veranda of the colonel's bungalow, stumbling, breathless, crying hoarsely for "Phil! Phil!"
He came to her instantly.