“Many thanks, Mr. Ewart,” he said, as he handed me back my pouch and took the light I offered him. “Ah! I’m glad to see you smoke real tobacco. By the way,” he added, “have you a friend—a real friend—you can trust?”
“I have, thank God!” I replied fervently. “Why?”
“I should like you to send for him. Do anything you can to get him here at once. Go and drag him here, if you like—only get him here.”
“But why this urgency?” I asked again. “I admit that we have some very horrible natural phenomena to deal with; but, apart from the fact that some wretched poacher has stolen a dog, we have no human element to fear. I don’t see how he can help, and he might run a risk himself.”
“Never mind—fetch him or send for him. If you could have seen yourself start when you returned to the pool yonder to find me missing, you would realise that your nervous system would be the better for a little congenial companionship. Frankly, Mr. Ewart, I don’t like the idea of you being left alone here during the next few days with a blind girl and an old man—if you’ll pardon me for being so blunt.”
“But you’ll be here,” I said; “and I hope you will have something to say to us that will put nerves out of the question when you have examined Myra.”
Garnesk rose to his feet and laid a friendly hand on my arm.
“As soon as I’ve seen what this place looks like at a quarter-past four to a quarter-past five in the afternoon I shall leave you.”
“But—good heavens, man!” I cried, aghast, “you won’t leave us like that. We hoped for so much from your visit. You can’t realise, man, what it may mean to—to us all! You see——”