"Yes. It seemed his father had known the way and had told him in direst secrecy how to reach the village; and when the officers were ready to start he went with them, and by some stroke of luck hit the right road at once, although the directions were fearfully complicated."
"If only you had known----"
"Do you think I don't say that to myself day after day?" Anstice's brow was pearled with sweat. "If I had had the faintest idea there was any chance of a rescue----"
"I know, I know!" The other man moved restlessly. "Good God, man, I'm not condemning you"--Anstice flushed hotly--"I'm only saying what a pitiful mistake the whole thing was ... the tragedy might have been averted if only----"
"It's no use talking now." Anstice's tone was icy. "The thing's happened, the mistake is made and can't be unmade. Only, if you think you could have let her fall into the hands of those fanatics--well, I couldn't, that's all."
"She ... she asked you to ... to save her from that?" He hung on the other man's answer as though his own life depended upon it.
"Yes. I shouldn't have ventured to shoot her without her permission, you know!" In a moment he repented of the ghastly pleasantry into which exasperation had led him. "Forgive me, Cheniston--the thing's got on my nerves ... I hardly know what I'm saying...."
Cheniston, who had turned a sickly white beneath his bronze, looked at him fiercely.
"I'm making all allowances for you," he said between his teeth, "but I can't stand much of that sort of thing, you know. Suppose you tell me, without more ado, the nature of the--the bargain between you."
Without more ado Anstice complied.
"Miss Ryder made me promise that if the sun should rise before any help came to us I would shoot her with my own hand so that she should not have to face death--or worse--at the hands of our enemies."
"You thought it might be--worse?"
"Yes. My father was a doctor in China at the time of the Boxer rising," said Anstice with apparent irrelevance. "And as a boy I heard stories of--of atrocities to women--which haunted me for years. On my soul, Cheniston"--he spoke with a sincerity which the other man could not question--"I was ready--no, glad, to do Miss Ryder the service she asked me."
Twice Cheniston tried to speak, and twice his dry lips refused their office. At last he conquered his weakness.