"To-morrow? Then—then we've very little time; I must go and see to your things; and we'll keep your birthday to-night, dear, instead of ... and Omar shall have his blue ribbon."
"Lucy, for God's sake listen to me before we decide. I have a feeling about this. I know somehow I ought not to go, that if I do, it will be an irrevocable step. Oh, I can't explain, but—but I feel that—that this is my last chance. Something is dragging me, Lucy, I am being driven, God knows where! I have felt it before, I felt it only this morning on my way to those cursed Offices, and I know too that you and the baby alone can save me. Oh, Lucy, if you love me, tell me to stay."
"It's because I love you, Hector, that I now ask you to go. It's everything to me your wanting to remain; but, dearest, I cannot let you—I should be wickedly selfish if I did; and what you say about that feeling is wrong too, dear; it is morbid and unhealthy. Fight it down, Hector; it is nothing, and—and soon you will come back to me, and there will be the baby, and we—we shall be so happy, and we couldn't be if we were to shirk our duty when it's come. But I must leave you now, no, you stay here, dear; you—you would only hinder me," and she went.
* * * * *
Next morning, with the rain pouring down upon him, Hector rode away, and, as he reached the gate opening on to the main road, he stopped and looked back at the still figure watching him from the dripping verandah. For a moment he stood fighting the strange, wild impulse to return, and then, mastering it once and for ever, galloped away through the downpour.
BOOK II
CHAPTER X
Many thousands of miles away from high-perched fir-clad Chillata—now no longer rain-drenched and sad, but a white fairy-land of glistening ice and snow—a large column of mounted men was slowly toiling its way through a waste of rocky mountains. A weary-looking column it was, the men silent and sullen-faced; the animals dull-eyed, with their ribs showing through tightly-stretched coats. On they crawled, mile after mile, now breasting the side of some stony mountain, now sinking into the airless depths of gloomy gorge or desolate valley. Lower and lower dropped the sun, and then, with one last blinding flash of light, was gone, leaving the western sky aflame with specks of burning cloud.
Rapidly the light began to fade, a veil of hazy blue blurred the mountains, a few stars twinkled feebly overhead; and then at last came the welcome order to halt. The men clambered wearily down, and led the horses away to where a staff officer was standing, looking dubiously down at a few pools of muddy water, the remains of a sometime rushing torrent. Directing and objurgating the sullen men, he remained till the last beast had drunk and gone; and then he too turned away in search of such cheer as he might hope to find in the Headquarter Mess.
For weeks past the present day's work had been but a repetition of its predecessor: the rise before the dawn; the eventless trek through veldt and mountain; the bivouac in some hot valley, where alone water could be hoped for; the dreamless sleep, hard upon the unappetising meal; and then once more the awakening and profitless resumption of the march. For profitless it seemed, this pursuit of the elusive Dutchman, Van der Tann, rebel and murderer, whose capture many had attempted, but all, so far, failed to achieve.