Day was commencing to break; there was sufficient light in the sky to enable her to see across the compound. Not a soul was in sight. Without a moment’s delay, she sped towards the clump of trees. The bullock-shed indicated by Zeemit was soon reached. It was a very dilapidated structure, built of bamboo and mud. She entered through the doorway, and advanced cautiously for some paces; then listened, for there was scarcely sufficient light in the hut to distinguish anything plainly. The sound of heavy breathing fell upon her ears. It came from the extreme end, where she could make out a heap of straw. She went a little farther, and stood again.
“Walter!” she called softly; “Walter!” she repeated, a little louder.
But there was no reply. The sleeper slept, and the heavy breathing was her only answer. She went nearer. The rustling of her own dress alarmed her, for her nerves were unstrung.
“Walter!” she whispered again, as she reached the straw. Still no reply. “He is worn and weary, and he sleeps heavily,” she murmured to herself.
The light had considerably increased, for the day breaks in India as suddenly as the night closes in. She was close to the sleeping form. She stooped down until she knelt on the straw. She stretched forward to waken the sleeper, but instinctively drew back as she noticed the muslin garments of a native. She rose to her feet again, advanced a little, bent down and peered into the face, the dusky face of, as she thought, a Hindoo. She had come expecting to find her lover—in his place was a native. She uttered an involuntary cry of alarm, and, turning round, sped quickly away.
The cry penetrated to the sleeper’s brain. He turned uneasily, then assumed a sitting posture, and, as Walter Gordon rubbed his eyes, he muttered—
“Bless my life, how soundly I have been sleeping. I could have sworn, though, I heard a woman’s cry. It must have been fancy.”
He stretched himself out once more on the straw; for many weary miles had he travelled, without being able to obtain a moment’s rest, and nature was thoroughly exhausted.
“Poor Flo,” he thought, as sleep commenced to steal over him again, “I hope she will come soon. Zeemit is a faithful creature, and I have no doubt will succeed. God grant it.”
Walter Gordon slept once more, and she for whom he sighed was speeding from him on the wings of terror, into the very jaws of death.