"That man—" she faltered. "Don't—don't let him go!"
"Certainly not," said Bobby promptly. "Here, you old scarecrow, come and lend a hand!"
But the old scarecrow apparently had other plans for himself, for he had already vanished from the scene as swiftly and noiselessly as a shadow from a sheet.
"He is gone!" wailed Muriel. "He is gone! Oh, why did you let him go?"
"He'll turn up again," said Bobby consolingly. "That sort of chap always does. I say, how ghastly you look! Take my arm! You are not going to faint, are you? Ah, here is Colonel Cathcart! Miss Roscoe isn't hurt, sir—only upset. Can't we get her back to the palace?"
They bore her back between them, and left her to be tended by the women. She was not unconscious, but the shock had utterly unstrung her. She lay with closed eyes, listening vaguely to the buzz of excited comment about her, and wondering, wondering with an aching heart, why he had gone.
No one seemed to know exactly what had taken place, and she was too exhausted to tell. Possibly she would hot have told in any case. It was known only that an attempt had been made upon the life of the British Resident, Sir Reginald Bassett, and it was surmised that Muriel had realised the murderous intention in time to frustrate it. Certainly a native had tried to help her, but since the native had disappeared, his share in the conflict was not regarded as very great. As a matter of fact, the light had been too uncertain and the struggle too confused for even the eye-witnesses to know with any certainty what had taken place. Theories and speculations were many and various, but not one of them went near to the truth.
"Dear Muriel will tell us presently just how it happened," Lady
Bassett said in her soft voice.
But Muriel was as one who heard not. She would not even open her eyes till Sir Reginald came to her, pillowed her head against him, kissed her white face, and called her his brave little girl.
That moved her at last, awaking in her the old piteous hunger, never wholly stifled, for her father. She turned and clung to him convulsively with an inarticulate murmuring that ended in passionate tears.