"Is it your ... arms I feel, Barbara? Or ... is it...."
That was all. The wheels whirred on a little longer, a click and—silence. Only the rush of the wind outside and the passionate sobbing of the girl who knelt in the dark room, her face buried in her hand, her heart tossed on the cross-tides of anguish and of joy.
A long time she knelt there. She was recalled by a confusion on the deck above her—shouts and a hastening of feet. She lifted her face. The dawn had come—its pale, faint radiance sifted through the heavy glass ports and dimly lit the room. The shouts and running multiplied.
She sprang to her feet, opened the door and hurried up the companion-way.
CHAPTER LIII
A RACE WITH DAWN
In that furious pace toward Aoyama, Daunt had been consumed by one thought: that upon his single effort hung the saving of human lives—the covering of a shame to his own nation—the turning away of a foul allegation from the repute of a friendly Empire. He knew that minutes were valuable.
On the long, dimly-lighted roadways where the flying hoofs beat their furious tattoo, few carts were astir, and the trolleys had not yet appeared on the wider thoroughfares. The rain had washed the air clean, the wind was dustless and sweet, and the stars were palely bright. Once a policeman signaled and the driver momentarily slackened speed—then on as before. The horses were white with foam when they reached the parade-ground. Here Daunt leaped down and wrenched both lamps from the carriage. "Go home," he said to the betto, and running through a clump of trees, struck across the waste.
The Japanese stared after him mystified, then with a philosophic objurgation, turned and drove the sweating horses home at a walk.