"Only when he found it was his life or mine. I tell you, David, if our enemy in the outer darkness were the babu's brother, he would not touch a hair of my head unless in self-defense."
"I don't understand. It's all so impossible!" Amber threw out his hands helplessly, "Unbelievable! For God's sake wake me up and tell me I've had a nightmare!"
"I would that were so, David. But the end is not yet."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Amber, startled.
"Simply, that we have more to endure, you and I. Consider the limitations of the human understanding, David; a little while ago I promised to ask your aid if ever the time should come when I might be free to do so; I said, 'That hour will never strike.' Yet already it is here; I need you. Will you help me?"
"You know that."
"I know…. One moment's patience, David." Rutton glanced at the clock.
"Time for my medicine," he said; "that heart trouble I mentioned…."
He drew from a waistcoat pocket a small silver tube, or phial, and uncorking this, measured out a certain number of drops into a silver spoon. As he swallowed the dose the phial slipped from his fingers and rang upon the hearthstone, spilling its contents in the ashes. A pungent and heady odour flavoured the air.
"No matter," said Rutton indifferently. "I shan't need it again for some time." He picked up and restored the phial to his pocket. "Now let me think a bit." He took a quick turn up the room and down again. Amber remarked that the medicine was having its effect; though the brilliance of Rutton's eyes seemed somewhat dimmed a dull flush had crept into his dark cheeks, and when he spoke it was in stronger accents—with a manner more assured, composed.
"A mad dance," he observed thoughtfully: "this thing we call life. We meet and whirl asunder—motes in a sunbeam. To-night Destiny chose to throw us together for a little space; to-morrow we shall be irrevocably parted, for all time."