Jim Douglas, who, profiting by the dusk and confusion, had lingered by the group after recognizing Soma's voice, turned away with a savage chuckle; not that the tale amused him, but that he was glad to think six of the devils had gone to their account. For those long days of peace and enforced inaction had sunk him lower and lower into sheer animal hatred of those he dare not rebuke. He knew it himself, he felt that his very courage was becoming ferocity, and the thought that others, biding their time as he was, must be sinking into it also, filled him with fierce joy at the thought of future revenge. And yet, so far as he personally was concerned, those long days had passed quietly, securely, peacefully, and he could at any time climb out of all sight and sound of turmoil to a slip of sunlit roof where a woman waited for him with confidence and welcome in her eyes. With something obtrusively English also for his refreshment, since tragedy, even the fear of death, cannot claim a whole life, and Kate took to amusing herself once more by making her corner of the East as much like the West as she dare. That was not much, but Jim Douglas' eye noted the indescribable difference which the position of a reed stool, the presence of a poor bunch of flowers, the little row of books in a niche, made in the familiar surroundings. For there were books and to spare in Delhi; for the price of a few pennies Jim Douglas might have brought her a cartload of such loot had he deemed it safe; but he did not, and so the library consisted of grammars and vocabularies from which Kate learned with a rapidity which surprised and interested her teacher. In truth she had nothing else to do. Yet when he came, as he often did, to find her absorbed in her work, her eyes dreamy with the puzzle of tense, he resented it inwardly, telling himself once more that women were trivial creatures, and life seemed trivial too, for in truth his nerves were all jangled and out of tune with the desire to get away from this strange shadow of a past idyll; to leave all womanhood behind and fall to fighting manfully. So that often as he sat beside her, patient outwardly, inwardly fretting to be gone even in the nightmare of the city, his eye would fall on the circlet of gold he had slipped, out of sheer arrogance and imperious temper, round that slender wrist, and feel that somehow he had fettered himself hopelessly when, more than a year past, he had given that promise. His chance and hers! Was this all? One woman's safety. And she, following his eyes to the bangle, would feel the thrill of its first touch once more, and think how strange it was that his chance and hers were so linked together. But, being a woman, her heart would soften instinctively to the man who sat beside her, and whose face grew sterner and more haggard day by day; while hers?--she could see enough of it in the little looking-glass on her thumb to recognize that she was positively getting fat! She tried to amuse him by telling him so, by telling him many of the little humorous touches which come even into tragic life, and he was quite ready to smile at them. But only to please her. So day by day a silence grew between them as they sat on the inner roof, while Tara spun outside, or watched them furtively from some corner. And the flare of the sunset, unseen behind the parapeted wall, would lie on the swelling dome and spiked minarets of the mosque and make the paper kites, flown in this month of May by half the town, look like drifting jewels; fit canopy for the City of Dreams and for this strangest of dreams upon the housetop.
"Has--has anything gone wrong?" she asked in desperation one day, when he had sat moodily silent for a longer time than usual. "I would rather you told me, Mr. Greyman."
He looked at her, vaguely surprised at the name; for he had almost forgotten it. Forgotten utterly that she could not know any other. And why should she? He had made the promise under that name; let them stick to it so long as Fate had linked their chances together.
"Nothing; not for us at least," he said, and then a sudden remorse at his own unfriendliness came over him. "There was another poor chap discovered to-day," he added in a softer tone. "I believe that you and I, Mrs. Erlton, must be the only two left now."
"I dare say," she echoed a little wearily, "they--they killed him I suppose."
He nodded. "I saw his body in the bazaar afterward. I used to know him a bit--a clever sort----"
"Yes----"
"Mixed blood, of course, or he could not have passed muster so long as a greengrocer's assistant."
"Well--I would rather hear if you don't mind."
His dark eyes met hers with a sudden eagerness, a sudden passion in them.