She stood bare-headed, her short hair stirring, her chin up and her eyes bright with courage. He noticed where the lake sun had caught the skin on her arms. It was borne on him that his attitude lacked worth. An aristocrat-on-the-scaffold gesture was indicated. Or perhaps something more tender. 'Darling,' he whispered, with his faint Irish intonation, 'I'd die happy in your arms.'
As he laid his cheek against hers, he sensed a slight rigidity. Had he struck the wrong note? Norah was sometimes disconcertingly practical.
'"There is a time for marrying, and a time for giving in marriage,"' she quoted under her breath. 'Now, be sensible, Dick,' she went on aloud, 'and listen to me. There's no need to talk about dying, but it's no good looking to the lake for help. Our best chance is to strike inland and hope to hit a village or a native path leading to one.'
Dick felt his flourish had miscarried; but in spite of himself, his sinews were braced by Norah's example.
She developed her plan. Not wasting any of the forty-eight hours that were assured to them, they must struggle up the mountain side, the three of them, with the food on their backs. When night overtook them, they would lie between two blazing fires to protect them against beasts. Then push on in the dawn, till they had left the sleeping sickness belt and reached inhabited country once again. If their luck held, they should strike a village or a village path before their food was gone.
'How are you going to get over that?' Dick waved his arm toward the crater wall.
There must be a pass somewhere.'
'We may take days to find it.'
'We must leave something to chance.'
But Dick was no gambler, and the idea of laying out all their food on the possibility that they would find a path frightened him. He thought of the stories of travellers lost in the bush, walking in despairing circles. Where they were, they at least had water.