"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Bastien, "but ees eet possible that you not know! Katie she haf told all to me. Ze man you declare of he will no more come back. Ze man who made of you a preesonar, have to show one on ze morrow, but eet matter not vich, and dey arrange to show ze ozer man! He take your place; he mooch good fellow, and zey shoot him mooch dead to-morrow!"
And all at once the truth—the self-sacrifice that Pasmore had so quietly carried out—flashed upon them. It was a revelation.
Douglas understood now why it was the sergeant had told him to hurry on, and not wait.
CHAPTER XI
THE RETREAT
There was a dead silence for about thirty seconds after the half-breed had revealed the truth regarding Pasmore's non-appearance. Douglas wondered why he had not suspected the real state of affairs before. Of course, Pasmore knew that his guards had only consented to the exchange on condition that he was handed over to the bloodthirsty crew on the morrow!
As for Dorothy, she realised at last how she had been trying to keep the truth from herself. She thought of how she had almost resented the fact of Pasmore having more than once faced death in order to secure the safety of her father and herself, although the man was modesty itself and made it appear as if it were only a matter of duty. True, she had thanked him in words, but her heart upbraided her when she thought of how commonplace and conventional those words must have sounded, no matter what she might have felt She knew now that Katie must have found and spoken to him, and that her father's liberty probably meant his—Pasmore's—death. How noble was the man! How true the words—"Greater love hath-no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend."
It was Douglas who first broke the silence; he spoke like a man who was determined on a certain line of action, and whose resolve nothing should shake.
"I feel that what this fellow tells us is true, Dorothy," he said; "but it is utterly impossible that I can have it so. Pasmore is a young man with all his life before him, and I have no right to expect a sacrifice like this. I am going back—back this very moment, and you must go on with Rory. Pasmore can follow up. You must go on to Child-of-Light, who will take you safely to some of the settlers near Fort Pitt. As soon as the soldiers get here they will crush this rebellion at once. After all, I don't believe they will harm me. As for Pasmore, if they discover that he is one of the Police, he is a dead man. Good-bye!"
The girl caught him by both hands, and kissed him.