The first white streak of dawn found her still at her post, with hands quietly folded and unclosed eyes; found Amar Singh wide-eyed also, his lean face and figure rigid as a stone image, a bared sword lying like a flash of light across his knees.
And with the dawn came also the far-off mutter of the footsteps that night had stolen from her; an inverted repetition of the same sounds in a steady crescendo that rang like music in her ears—a sound to lift the heart.
The massed tramping of men and horses broke up at length, scattered in all directions, and within five minutes she looked up to find her husband in the doorway—a thickset man, with more of force than perception in his blunt features and heavily-browed eyes.
She rose and went to him straightway, her face alight with satisfaction, and he took a friendly hold of her arm by way of greeting. They had always been more like good comrades than man and wife, these two.
"Well, old girl," he said, "there was no show after all, you see. It seems that the raid didn't quite come off; and we had our scamper for nothing, worse luck! The Boy going on all right?"
"'Tis hard to tell. He's in a quiet sleep just now, anyway."
"You may as well come out of this, then, and give us some breakfast. I'm going to the Major's room to tidy up."
As his wife stepped back into the sick-room, Theo Desmond came quickly towards her.
"Well done," he said heartily; "you didn't expect us quite so soon, did you? Not a shot fired, and I should have been swearing all the way home—but for the Boy. Looks peaceful enough now, doesn't he? Temperature any lower?"