SECOND BOOK
THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD
CHAPTER I
When Helena had left the General and Ishmael Ameer together, the signs she knew so well of illness in her father's face suggested that she should run at once for the Medical Officer. One moment she stood in the room adjoining the General's office, listening to the muffled rumble that came from the other side of the wall, the short snap of her father's impatient voice and the deep boom of the Egyptian's, and then she hurried into the outer passages to pin on her hat. There she met the General's Aide-de-camp, who, seeing her excitement, asked if there was anything he could do for her, but she answered "No," and then—
"Yes, I think you might go over to the Colonel" (meaning the Colonel commanding the Citadel) "and tell him this man is here with a crowd of his followers."
"He must know it already, but I'll go with pleasure," said the young Lieutenant. At the next moment there were three hasty beats on the General's bell, followed by a summons from the General's soldier servant, but the Aide-de-camp had disappeared.
Helena went out by the back of the house, and seeing her cook and the black boy as she passed the kitchen quarters an impulse came to her to send somebody else on her errand, lest anything should happen in her absence; but telling herself that nobody but herself and the Doctor must know the secret of her father's condition, she hurried along.
Her way was through the unoccupied courts of the old palace, down a flight of long steps, through an old gateway whereof the iron-clamped door always stood open, across a disused drawbridge, and so on to the open parade-ground. The Army Surgeon's quarters were on the farther side of it, and never before had it seemed so broad.
When she reached her destination the Surgeon was out on his evening round of the hospital, so she wrote a hurried note asking him to come to the General's house immediately, sent his assistant in search of him, and then turned back.
Returning hurriedly by the "married quarters," she was detained for some moments by a soldier's wife, a young thing, almost a child, who stood at the door of her house with a red woollen shawl about her shoulders, a baby in long clothes in her arms, and a look of radiant happiness in her round face.