"Oh, I won't bite her head off," said Anstice, with a short laugh of genuine amusement. "But we have no use for hysterical young women here; and no doubt when she understands that she will amend her ways."
"Very well. I will go and find her." With a last look towards the bed Iris vanished; and for a brief moment Anstice was left alone, to wonder at the strange and unexpected situation in which he now found himself, shut up in this lonely building in the heart of the desert with a handful of souls for whose safety he could not but feel himself largely responsible.
He did not attempt to disguise from himself that the outlook was decidedly unpromising. Even though Sir Richard reached Cairo without mishap, some time must necessarily elapse before he could gather together what Iris had called the relieving force; and although Anstice had no reason to doubt the staunchness and courage of his fellow-defenders, he could not fail to realize that as a fighting unit they were altogether outmatched by the two or three score of enemies who were by now, apparently, thirsting savagely for their blood.
Then, too, the shadow of death already hovered over the little garrison; and as Anstice turned once more to survey the pale and wasted features of the man who had supplanted him in the one supreme desire of his life, he told himself that it would be a miracle if Bruce Cheniston lived long enough to see the arrival of the help on which so much depended.
"If I had got here a week--three days ago, I might have done something," he told himself rather hopelessly. "But now I'm very much afraid it is too late. He is going to die, I'm pretty sure of that, though I hope to God I may be mistaken; and heaven only knows what will happen in the course of the next three days."
As he reached this point in his meditations a voice in his ear made him start; and turning, he beheld a pale and distraught-looking young woman who might in happier circumstances have laid claim to a certain uninspired prettiness. At this moment, however, her eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep, her ashy-coloured hair limp and dishevelled round her unintellectual forehead, she was rather a piteous object; and in spite of his resolve to speak bracingly to her Anstice's voice was quite gentle as he replied to her murmured question.
"Yes, I am Dr. Anstice, and I want you to be good enough to sit here and look after Mr. Cheniston while I talk over matters with the other gentlemen."