He stared at her for a second, and then his hand went out and closed on hers firmly. "Mrs. Erlton! I'm going to save you if I can. Come. I don't know what you're talking about, and there is no time for talk. Come."
So, hand in hand, they passed into the side veranda, through which he had entered, and so, since the nearest way to the city lay down that flight of steps, to the front one.
"Take care," he cried, half-stumbling himself, and forcing her to avoid something that lay huddled up against the wall. It was a dead man. And there, upon the steps which showed white as marble in the moonlight, were two others in a heap. A third lower down, ghastlier still, lying amid dark stains marring the whiteness, and with a gaping cut clearly visible on the shoulder.
But that still further down! Jim Douglas gave a quick cry, dropped Kate's hand, and was on his knees beside the tall young figure--coatless, its white shirt stiff with blood, which lay head downward on the last steps as if it had pitched forward in some mad pursuit. As he turned it over on its back gently, the young face showed in the moonlight stern, yet still exultant, and the sword, still clenched in the stiff right hand, rattled on the steps.
"Mainwaring! I don't understand," he said, looking up bewildered into Kate's face. The puzzle had gone from it; she seemed roused to life again.
"I understand now," she said softly, and as she spoke she stooped and raised the boy's head tenderly in her hands. "Don't let us leave him here," she went on eagerly, hastily. "Leave him there, beside--beside--her."
Jim Douglas made no reply. He understood also dimly, and he only signed to her to take the feet instead. So together they managed to place that dead weight within the threshold and close the door.
Then Jim Douglas held out his hand again, but there was a new friendliness in its grip. "Come!" he said, and there was a new ring in his voice, "the night is far spent, the day is at hand."
It was true. As they stepped from the now waning moonlight into the shadow of the trees, the birds, beginning to dream of dawn, shifted and twittered faintly among the branches. And once, startling them both, there was a louder rustling from a taller tree, a flutter of broad white wings to a perch nearer the city, a half-sleepy cry of:
"Deen! Deen! Futteh Mohammed!"