He looked up at the lamp and smiled. The pillar, in those days, must have been a haunt of illusions, for Brand, like Constance and Pyne himself in the case of Mrs. Vansittart, thought he caught an expression familiar to his eyes long before he had seen that clear-cut, splendidly intelligent face.
But there was no time for idle speculation. He glanced into the well of the stairs to make sure that no one was ascending.
Then he approached nearer to Pyne and said in an intense whisper:
"It is folly to waste words with you. I have reasoned this thing out and now I will tell you what I have decided. I will take the watch from eight until twelve. At twelve you will relieve me, and I will go below to secure provisions and water sufficient to maintain the lives of my daughters, you and myself for a few hours longer than the others. By right, if I followed the rules I have promised to obey, I alone should live. That is impossible. A Spartan might do it, but I cannot abandon my girls and yet retain my senses. I trust you because I must have a confederate. If the weather does not break before tomorrow night we must barricade the stairs—and fight—if necessary."
His face was drawn and haggard, his eyes blazing. He shook as one in the first throes of fever. He seemed to await his companion's verdict with an overpowering dread lest any attempt should be made to question the justice of his decree.
"Yes. I figured it out that way, too," said Pyne. "It's queer, isn't it, to be in such a fix when there's all sorts of help within call, so to speak. We might as well be in a mine closed up by an explosion. And, I'll tell you what—I'm real sorry for you."
Brand, collapsing under the strain, sank into a chair.
"It is an awful thing," he moaned, "to condemn so many men, women, and children, to such a death."
A spasm of pain made Pyne's lips tremulous for an instant. He had forgotten Elsie and Mamie.
But his voice was fully under control when he spoke again.