So the three men, haggard, anxious, drank their tea in silence, hastily; yet with a curious insistence, as if the triviality gave them a hold on things familiar, things beyond this midsummer-night's dream of madness. But the child chattered as she munched a biscuit; chattered of the charms of this strange picnic on the "woof, in the dark with oo's nighty an' s'ippers only."
The unconscious little voice struck a chill to the men's hearts, but the woman smiled, as mothers can do when they wish to guard that blessed unconsciousness to the last; the unconsciousness of which they are guardians by right.
"We are doing as well as could be expected," remarked Dr. Dillon, suddenly, with a quaint professional reminiscence; then added, "I wish to God, though, I knew what my prisoners were up to--those solitary cellers are on my mind--I believe the convalescents could dig them out with the cook-room platters and ladles. I ought to have thought of that. But, as I say, we are doing very fairly well--your light, Dering, was a godsend."
Eugene Smith looked up sharply, almost as if he meant a disclaimer; then he gave a brief assent. "Yes! but that will be more of a godsend still--it is the dawn!"
He pointed to that faint promise of light in the east, and Vincent Dering's eyes followed his hand with the doubtful look of one sick to death, as he watches the long weary night merge once more into another long weary day of certain pain. There was an utter hopelessness in it.
"Yes," he echoed slowly, "that is the dawn."
"Carlyon said the attack was planned for dawn, didn't he?" asked the doctor, deliberately helping himself to another lump of sugar, deliberately trying to keep the pulse beats of those around him as near normal as might be--and there had been something beyond it in Vincent's voice. "They must have meant to use the keys that brute Kishen Rao made off with. I wonder what it was that started the show prematurely?"
"Do you think it was premature? Why?" put in Eugene Smith.
"We should have had some of the townspeople, some of the pilgrims otherwise."
"Perhaps the storm"--began Vincent.