Norah felt no relief. Between them in their several ways, these men made life more dreadful than death.
Archie began again. He was speaking now to Dick, though his eyes looked beyond him. 'I make one condition,' he said. 'I must have sole charge. You must do what I say. Otherwise I can't promise to pull it off.' He might have added that if Dick was to oppose him at every turn he couldn't promise restraint. 'Do you agree?' he asked curtly.
In his relief Dick would have agreed to change his creed.
I'm sure you're right,' he said, 'unity of command.' The reprieve had gone to his head like wine, and he talked light-headedly. 'By Jove, the heat! I felt suffocated.' But no whisper of a breeze had come to dissipate the heaviness that lay on the land. 'What's your scheme to get away?' he asked.
Archie forced himself to answer.
'Move down to lake level first.'
'Why not go on up here?'
'Blast the man,' thought Archie. Then aloud, 'How many days will it take us with Norah,' he hesitated before mentioning her Christian name to this fellow, 'to find a village?'
Dick spread out his hands.
'Well, I don't know either. We might be out of ammunition first. And what about water? And where are we going to get carriers for your loads from?'