"See here, Cheniston, you're ill and you don't know what you're saying. Don't talk any more, there's a good chap. You only tire yourself out to no purpose."
But with the perversity of fever Cheniston would not be gainsaid.
"I'm all--right." His hollow voice and laboured breath gave the lie to his assertion. "But--if I die--and the rest of you get out alive--you--you'll look after Iris, won't you? I wish you'd--marry her--you'd be good to her--and she would soon--be fond--of you----"
Somehow Anstice could bear no more. With a hasty movement he sprang up, and in his voice was a decision against which Cheniston in his weakness could not hope to prevail.
"See here, Cheniston, you've just got to lie still and keep quiet. You know"--his manner softened--"you're really not fit to talk. Do try to get a little sleep--you'll feel so much stronger if you do."
"I feel--very weak." He spoke with an evident effort, and Anstice repented him of his vehemence. With a gentleness Iris herself could not have surpassed he did all in his power to make Cheniston as easy as possible; and when, presently, the latter relapsed into the stupor which passed with him for sleep, Anstice left him, to go in search of Mrs. Wood, who had promised to take charge of him for an hour or two.
A few minutes later he encountered Garnett, walking moodily along the uneven passage-way; and a new seriousness in the Australian's expressive face gave Anstice pause.
"What's up, eh? You look mighty solemn all of a sudden!"
"I feel it, too." The younger man turned round and his eyes looked grim. "Do you know what those damned Bedouins have been up to now? I believe, and so does Hassan, that they've been poisoning the well out there"--he pointed through the slit in the wall to the courtyard beneath--"and if so we've not got a drop of water we can drink."
"I don't believe it." Honestly he did not. Although he had no cause to love the Oriental race he was loth to believe even an uncivilized foe capable of such barbarity.
"As sure as God made little apples, it's true." Garnett was in no wise offended by Anstice's uncompromising rejoinder. "Hassan and I both thought we saw a fellow sneaking in the courtyard last night--just before dawn--when it was too mighty dark to see much; but as he sheered off we didn't give the alarm. But it seems Hassan is pretty well acquainted with their charming tricks, and he was suspicious from the first."