“Yes, and there’s no one else to do it. Beltring and I wanted to try, because there’s just the chance that the tribes would listen to us, as we have been with him so much, but the Colonel won’t let us leave the fort.”
“No, it would be no good. You would only be risking your lives uselessly,” said Georgia. “He has more influence over them than any man I ever knew, except my father.”
“Ah, but, Mrs North, there’s no time to lose. As soon as we have killed two or three of the lot, they’ll all be against us, and the longer we hold out the worse it will be. Even if Bahram Khan doesn’t succeed in bringing them over to his side at once, he will be intriguing against his uncle in secret.”
“I know, but what can we do? I dare not make inquiries about Dick, for if the Amir is keeping him safe somewhere, it might put him into Bahram Khan’s power. We can only wait.”
“Oh, Mrs North, don’t count on that,” pleaded Fitz sorrowfully. “It’s no good, believe me. Ashraf Ali knows he is dead as well as we do.”
“But I know that he is not dead,” said Georgia, and Fitz went out hastily. In the verandah he met Mabel.
“Oh, Miss North, I wanted to speak to you,” he said, but she beckoned him imperiously aside.
“You seem to think it rather a fine thing to abuse a man who isn’t there to defend himself,” she said.
“Indeed?” he said, in astonishment. “I wasn’t aware of it.”
“Perhaps you didn’t know that I could hear you when you were laughing at Mr Burgrave?”