“But why?” asked Mabel, mystified.
“Because it was all my fault for firing that shot—wretched thoughtless beast that I am! I would have blown my brains out.”
“Now that is wicked,” said Mabel with decision, “and foolish too. But if you are going to talk in this agitating way, I think I should like to sit down in the shade over there. I feel rather shaky still.”
“I’m an unfeeling idiot! Lean on me, please.”
He supported her gently across the intervening space, and found a seat for her on a fragment of rock, in a nook which furnished a partial shelter from the sun and the whirling sand. She made room for him beside her, but he persisted in tramping up and down, his face twitching painfully.
“I can’t stay quiet!” he cried, in answer to her remonstrance. “When I think it’s just a chance—a mercy, Mrs North would say—that you’re not—not—” he skipped the word—“at this moment, it knocks me over. And all my fault!”
Mabel’s renewed protest was cut short by the appearance of the two grooms, who ran up with scared faces, and inquired dolefully which way the horses had gone, and whether the Presences would wait where they were until the missing steeds had been captured and brought back.
“Why, what else should we do?” asked Fitz, calm enough now in the presence of the alien race. His own groom hastened to reply that Dera Gul, the ancestral stronghold of Bahram Khan, was only a bow-shot off, and that there the Presences might find rest and refreshment.
“Not if I know it!” was Fitz’s mental comment. “It’s a blessing that the principal villain himself is away at Nalapur, but we won’t trespass on the hospitality of his vassals in his absence. We will wait here,” he added to the servant, who replied sullenly that his honour’s words were law, and departed with his companion in search of the horses.
“What was he saying?” asked Mabel curiously.