"You know where your missie's gone to. Why don't you help us, instead of lying there growling?" She stood scowling at him, then suddenly walked across to where he lay. "I wonder if she put it inside that book," she muttered; then gave a little cry as she caught sight of the paper twisted in the steel ring of the spiked collar. "I've got it!" she cried. "I've got it!"
The duchess, who was quite near her, put her hand on her arm.
"Take care, Coop. The dog is really angry. Let me get it."
"Not you, your grace. No, not ever so, bless you."
Wellington was standing on the book, great tusks gleaming, eyes glaring, a hideous picture of rage; but love casts out fear, even the just fear of a dog who would never let go until you or he were dead, once he got his teeth into any part of yon.
There was no haste about Jane Coop as she knelt beside him. "Missie wants you," she said. "D'you hear?" The rose-leaf ears pricked at the sound of the beloved name, but the whole tremendous body shook with his growling response. "You don't love her, you brute, else you'd have picked up the book and been ready to start at the sound of her name. I'll teach you to be so slow." With a sudden lightning movement she caught hold of the loose skin just under the jaw, firmly, grimly, with her left hand, holding him amazed and for a moment helpless as she pulled the paper out of the ring; then she let go, and pointed to the book, just as the dog was about to spring.
"Missie told you to keep it for her."
The room vibrated with the thunder of his fury as he placed both feet on the book and glared about him.
"I know," said Jill as she read the message over the old woman's shoulder. "She has gone to my son. To his tents in the desert." She spoke quietly and with a certain dignity and authority which checked all questions. "He will take her straight to me. Shall we go back to Khargegh, or shall I go to them, to his tents?" There was no sign of the triumph in the mother-heart at the thought of the happiness which was to come to her first-born; neither had she a single thought for the others.
A mother's love is the most surpassing of all loves; it is the eighth wonder of the world; it is a mystery before which that of the Sphinx shrinks to insignificance; it is the one love which asks for so very little in return for all it gives.