Lance looked from one to the other in sheer despair. "Well! if you won't come, I'm off--oh! come along, Vincent, and don't be a fool! It--it isn't worth it; it never is!"
Vincent Dering stood still irresolute. "You'll stay, sir," he said, "and--and look after--"
Father Ninian drew the unconscious girl closer to him. "I will look after--Margherita."
The last word came in a half whisper to himself and his eyes met Vincent's with a curious dazed defiance. The latter gave the defiance back, as their owner stooped for a second over Laila's indifferent face, and kissed it.
"Good-by, Juliet," he said; and the last word came also in a half whisper to himself.
The next moment he was following Lance down the dim passage, full of a vague relief, and realizing for the first time that the mist, which for the last half hour had dimmed the reality of all things, was due, not to any aberration of his brain, but to the simple fact that an electrical dust-storm was in full blast.
He realized it with relief. That was at least real, tangible.
Almost too much so; and as the hot wind, charged with those aspiring atoms of earth, met him fiercely, he realized also that the storm would fight against him in his efforts to prevent worse from happening. If, indeed, anything could be worse than what had happened; worse than Laila's--
He broke off in his thought, incredulous. It could not be true. He would come back to find her better--well!--
But that other dream was true. His men had risen. The one thing necessary, therefore, was to get to the gaol before any decided action took place; and this he realised still more clearly from Lance's curt explanation as they ran down the river steps. Once there, the sight of the canoe he had left suggested the feasibility of getting to the gaol in it. His personal influence might avail. If that failed, he would at least be able to save time by choosing a suitable place for the raft to come ashore. The great thing was to be on the spot, to be within reach of action at once; to wait for the raft meant needless delay.