“Yes,” replied his cousin, “I can see it, and I’ll go. But you must promise me that you won’t stay longer than——”
The rifle cracked again, and then Dick Bracknell replied. “I’ll promise anything you like if you’ll only go and get Joy away.”
Then, very reluctantly, Corporal Bracknell went.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE PRODIGAL MAKES GOOD
“DICK INSISTED,” explained Corporal Bracknell, as with Joy and her foster-sister and the boy Jim he fled down the river. “I could see he wanted the post of danger—and I could not refuse. Sibou is with him, and I think they will hold the pursuit.”
For a moment Joy did not speak. She was thinking of the consideration Dick Bracknell had shown to her during the last two days, and understood quite well that now he was endeavouring to atone for the wrong he had once done her. Pity surged in her heart as she thought of him weak and ill, holding back a horde of savage men, pity and gratitude, but no warmer emotion, for Dick Bracknell had killed all possibility of that in that moment at Alcombe, when, on her marriage morning she had made that startling discovery of his perfidy.
“Do you think that—that Dick will get away also?” she asked at last.