“He says the poor boy is as good as dead,” said Mr Riggs,
“Ain't got a chance in a million,” said Mr Dawes.
They were surprised to see Brood wince. He hadn't been so thin-skinned in the olden days. His nerve was going back on him, that's what it was; poor Jim! Twenty years ago he would have stiffened his back and taken it like a man. It did not occur to them that they might have broken the news to him with tact and consideration.
“But you can depend on us, Jim, to pull him through,” said Mr Riggs quickly. “Remember how we saved you back there in Calcutta when all the fool doctors said you hadn't a chance? Well, sir, we're still———”
“If any feller can get well with a bullet through his——” began Mr Dawes encouragingly, but stopped abruptly when he saw Brood put his hands over his eyes and sink dejectedly into a chair, a deep groan on his lips.
“I guess we'd better go,” whispered Mr Riggs, after a moment of indecision, and then, inspired by a certain fear for his friend, struck the gong resoundingly. Silently they made their way out of the room, encountering Ranjab just outside the door.
“You must stick to it, Ranjab,” said Mr Riggs sternly.
“With your dying breath,” added Mr Dawes, and the Hindu, understanding, gravely nodded his head.
“Well?” said Brood, long afterward, raising his haggard face to meet the gaze of the motionless brown man who had been standing in his presence for many minutes.
“She ask permission of sahib to be near him until the end,” said the Hindu. “She will not go away. I have heard the words she say to the sahibah, and the sahibah is silent as the tomb. She say no word for herself, just sit and look at the floor and never move. Then she accuse the sahibah of being the cause of the young master's death, and the sahibah only nod her head to that and go out of the room and up to the place where the young master is, and they cannot keep her from going in. She just look at the woman in the white cap and the woman step aside. The sahibah is now with the young master and the doctors. She is not of this world, sahib, but of another.”