“My hand? I– Would you bargain for my esteem? I thought you a gentleman!”
“To be sure–to be sure! Who says I am not? But all is fair in love and war, you know. Your choice is quite free. I take it, you will not consider his–er–proposals. But if you do not wish my aid, you have another way of escape–that is–at least other women have done it.”
The girl gazed at him, her eyes dilating with horror as she realized his meaning.
“No, no; not that!” she gasped. “I want to live–I’ve a right to live! Why, I’m only just twenty-two–I–”
“Hush!” cautioned Winthrope. “He’s coming back. Be calm! There will be time until I get over this vile malaria. It may be that he himself will have the fever.”
“He will not have the fever,” replied the girl, in a hopeless tone, and she leaned back listlessly against the baobab, as Blake swung himself up, frowning and sullen, and flung his weapons from him.
“Bah!” he grumbled, “I told you that brute was a sneak. I’ve chased clean down to the pool and into the open, and not a smell of him. Must have hiked off into the tall grass the minute he heard me.”
“If only he had gone off for good!” murmured Miss Leslie.
“Maybe he has; though you never can count on a sneak. Even you might be able to shoo him off next time; but, like as not, he’d come along when we were all out calling, and clean out our commissary. Guess I’ll set to and run up a barricade down there where the gully is narrowest. There’re shoals of dead thorn-brush to the right of the pool.”
“Ah, yes; I fancy the vultures will be so vexed when they find your hedge in the way,” remarked Winthrope.