"The children, Mrs. Sterne," he stammered. "Surely you w-will remain w-with them."
"There will be Naomi and Young Brown," said Ferlie coolly. "And I want to explain that, should anything happen to us, those converts who take care of the boys till my brother and Colonel Maddock return will be very substantially rewarded for their trouble. I have left a note with Naomi."
The hardness of her voice frightened him.
"Nothing should happen," he said haltingly. "Really——"
She was not listening.
"John," she called, "Come here."
He came, dragging his imitation spear, and she knelt down putting her arms about him.
"I have got to go away for a little while, John. If I do not get back very soon, wait for Uncle Peter and look after Thu Daw. And when Uncle Peter comes, tell him that Mother went away to follow Cyprian wherever he had gone. Can you repeat it after me? Say, 'Wherever he had gone.'"
He spoke the words wonderingly, straining back, boylike, from the close pressure of her arms.
He was always proud to be entrusted with a commission and the charge of Thu Daw. Only when she had hurried a little way down the road, walking between the padre and Mr. Toms, some intuition made him drop his weapon and run after her, crying, "Mother! Mother!"