“Ah, brave!” he said. “A mother of soldiers! Such women make of us a fighting race.”
Myra laid her hand on his sleeve. “My friend,” she said, “it was never given me to be a mother. But I am a soldier’s daughter, and a soldier’s widow; and—I am not afraid to die. Oh, I do beg of you—give me one handclasp and go!”
Jim Airth took the hand held out, but he kept it firmly in his own.
“You shall not die,” he said, between his teeth. “Do you suppose I would leave any woman to die alone? And you—you, of all women!—By heaven,” he repeated, doggedly; “you shall not die. Do you think I could go; and leave—” he broke off abruptly.
Myra smiled. His hand was very strong, and her heart felt strangely restful. And had he not said: “You, of all women?” But, even in what seemed likely to be her last moments, Lady Ingleby’s unfailing instinct was to be tactful.
“I am sure you would leave no woman in danger,” she said; “and some, alas! might have been easier to save than I. Plump little Miss Susie would have floated.”
Jim Airth’s big laugh rang out. “And Miss Murgatroyd could have sailed away in her cameo,” he said.
Then, as if that laugh had broken the spell which held him inactive: “Come,” he cried, and drew her to the foot of the cliff; “we have not a moment to lose! Look! Do you see the way I came down? See that long slide in the sand? I tobogganed down there on my back. Pretty steep, and nothing to hold to, I admit; but not so very far up, after all. And, where my slide begins, is a blessed ledge four foot by six.” He pulled out a huge clasp-knife, opened the largest blade, and commenced hacking steps in the face of the cliff. “We must climb,” said Jim Airth.
“I have never climbed,” whispered Myra’s voice behind him.
“You must climb to-day,” said Jim Airth.