“Emmie, are you asleep?”
She was asleep, but she woke to the murmur of his voice at her ear. Lying beside her, he continued to whisper.
“Emmie, there’s something wrong with the men.”
“Something wrong? How do you mean?”
“I can’t understand, myself. I’ve been at them for hours, and I can’t make anything of them. It’s as though they had become suspicious—or as though they were all sickening for some infernal disease.”
“What does Manuel say? Is he all right?”
“No. I believe he’s been somehow upset too, but he won’t own it. He was helping me with them, seeming to back me up, and yet I had the feeling that he would let me down if he dared. It struck me they might have taken alarm because I made them fill the water skins yesterday. You know—they might have supposed we were going where there’d be no water. But it wasn’t that. Emmie, I had to tell you this. Don’t worry about it.”
“No—only because you are worried yourself, Tony.”
“Well, it would be too damnably disappointing if they lost heart now, or shirked the work I have to give them. But I don’t believe they will. No, it is some ridiculous and absurd fancy that has taken possession of them. One must be prepared for anything—in the Andes. Whatever it is, I’ll put it right to-morrow.”