“Miss Keeling would never think of your doing such a thing, Stratford. To hang about here, of all places, while Anstruther and the servants looked for a lost cat, would be a piece of criminal folly—one might almost say wickedness. We can’t risk the lives of the whole party for the sake of a cat. Here, ayah—take another good look about while we finish breakfast, and if you haven’t found the beast when we’re ready to start, we must leave it behind.”
Georgia’s face flushed as she stirred her coffee deliberately. She had no wish to risk the lives of the whole party by insisting on delay, but it was not Dick’s place to say so for her. It looked as though he had no confidence in her, that he should not allow her even the semblance of a choice, and confidence was what she demanded above all things. It flashed upon him presently, noticing her silence, that he had hurt her, and he bent towards her to say in a low voice—
“I say, Georgie, you don’t mind much, do you? Are you awfully keen on the little beast? I’ll buy you dozens when we get to Khemistan. But you wouldn’t have us waste time now?”
“You have quite put it out of my power even if I wished it,” returned Georgia, coldly; and Fitz, at the other side of the makeshift table, was filled with a sudden and violent hatred against Dick. It was not the first time that this feeling had entered his mind—in fact, it merely slumbered intermittently, and awoke whenever Dick and Georgia had a difference of opinion, no matter which side was in the right. Fitz had no desire to quarrel with Georgia’s choice, for his loyalty was too unquestioning to admit a doubt of her wisdom in the matter; but that the highly-favoured man who was honoured by the love of this peerless lady should be so blind to the grace bestowed upon him as actually to contradict and even to bully her (this was Fitz’s rendering of what he saw) was only an awful illustration of the depths to which human depravity could descend. At such times as this all the boy’s faculties were on the alert to render some service, however great or small, to his lady, which might assure her that even though Major North possessed no due sense of the overwhelming privileges she had granted to him, there were others who still counted it an honour to be able to anticipate her least wish. It is slightly pathetic to be obliged to record that Georgia accepted his good offices without at all appreciating the sentiment from which they sprang—indeed, so ungrateful is human nature that, had she discovered it, she would probably have rejected them with contumely, and poured out the vials of her wrath on the head of the luckless youth who dared to criticise Dick—and that she valued the slightest attention from her lover far above all that Fitz could offer, in spite of the much greater disinterestedness of the latter’s endeavours. But this only proved to Fitz more clearly still her excellence, as exemplified by her absolute loyalty to the man of her choice, and stimulated him to continue to render his unselfish services.
The efforts of Rahah and her fellow-servants to find Colleen Bawn proving ineffectual, the march began at the usual time, although not until after Dick had personally conducted Georgia to the top of the cliff, that she might see whether the kitten had found its way thither; but the rough scramble to the summit and the difficult descent were alike undertaken in vain. Doubtless, said Rahah, with an indignant glance at Dick, the white cat had curled itself up in some cleft of the rocks and gone to sleep, and it would be easy for the men to discover it if they searched systematically, although a cursory look round was useless. But no delay was allowed, and Rahah settled herself mournfully in her pannier, and snubbed Ibrahim whenever he came near her—a course of treatment which, while it failed to irritate him, proved most serviceable in working off her own bad temper.
Important though this storm in a tea-cup was to the two or three persons immediately interested, the leaders of the party had far weightier matters to consider. The march had lasted some two hours and a half when Stratford, who had been riding at the head of the caravan with one of the guides, turned back and joined Dick, whose post, when he was not on duty, was naturally at Georgia’s side.
“What do you think of the look of the weather, North?”
“I don’t like it. See what a dirty sort of colour the sky has turned. I should say we were in for a storm.”
“That’s just what these fellows say. A sand-storm is what they prophesy; but that’s all rot, I suppose.”
“Oh no. We can get up very tolerable imitations of the real thing in these desert tracts, but they are not particularly frequent. However, the guides ought to know; and if they say there’s one coming, we had better look out for some sort of shelter.”