Afterwards Part 52

His voice died weakly away; and Anstice gently bade him keep quiet for a while.

"No use talking and exciting yourself," he said, for he could see the other's stock of strength was lamentably small. "Lie still and allow me to talk over affairs with Mrs. Cheniston--we will put our heads together and evolve some plan for your benefit." He hardly knew what he said, so filled was his heart with a pity in which now there was no faintest tinge of resentment for the unfair bargain which this man had once driven with him.

With a sigh Cheniston closed his eyes, and appeared to relapse once more into a kind of stupor; and when, in obedience to a silent gesture, Iris withdrew to the window, Anstice joined her there immediately.

Such remedies as yet remained to be tried Anstice determined to employ; but though he told himself fiercely that if mortal man could save Bruce Cheniston from the grave he should a.s.suredly be saved, he experienced that hopeless feeling which all who gaze in the very face of death know only too well; and he did not dare to meet Iris' eyes as he conversed with her in a carefully-lowered tone.

"I'll sit up to-night, Mrs. Cheniston, and you must try to get some sleep. I suppose"--he broke off suddenly, remembering the position in which they stood--"I suppose some of you watch--for the enemy"--he laughed with something of an effort--"every night?"

"Yes. I don't think we any of us slept last night," said Iris quietly.

"You see we are so short-handed--only Mr. Wood and Mr. Garnett and Ha.s.san know anything about fire-arms; and Mrs. Wood and I, and Rosa, Mrs. Wood's nurse, have been busy looking after Bruce and little Molly Wood."

"Of course. Well, I think the first thing to do, after I have given Mr.

Cheniston this"--he had been mixing something in a little gla.s.s as he spoke--"is to meet and hold a council of war, with a view to the most useful disposition of our forces. After all"--he spoke more lightly, so keen was his desire to see her look less anxious--"we are not by any means a force to be despised. We have four able-bodied men among us; and this place, from what I can gather, looks pretty impregnable, on one side at least."

"Yes. Even Mr. Garnett admits that the Bedouins could hardly swarm up that rocky wall," said Iris, with a slightly more cheerful air. "And of course, too, we have not got to hold out indefinitely; for if my father reaches Cairo in good time we may have the relieving force here in less than three days."

"Of course we may!" His tone was resolutely optimistic. "Now, as soon as Mr. Cheniston drinks this we'll set to work."

He approached the bed, and having with some difficulty roused Cheniston from his stupor, administered the dose deftly; after which he turned to Iris once more.

"You spoke of a nurse just now. Who is she?"

"Oh, she is only a children's nurse, and rather a broken reed at the best of times," said Iris ruefully. "She had hysterics all last night, but she's a bit more sensible to-day."

"Hysterics or no, she can keep watch for half an hour," said Anstice rather grimly. "Suppose you find her and send her to me. Would you mind?"

"I'll go at once." Iris turned towards the door, and Anstice noted with a pang at his heart that she was certainly thinner and moved with less buoyancy than of old. "You--you won't be too severe with her, Dr.

Anstice? After all, she is only a young girl, and she has gone through quite a lot since yesterday morning!"

"Oh, I won't bite her head off," said Anstice, with a short laugh of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt. "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 G.o.d 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 circ.u.mstances 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."

"Yes, sir." She cast a swift look at the bed, and then hastily averted her pale-brown eyes. "Mr. Cheniston--he--he won't die, will he, sir? I mean, not immediate, like?"

"No, he will not die immediately," said Anstice rea.s.suringly. "All you have to do is to sit here, beside the bed"--he had noticed how she kept her distance from the aforesaid bed, and placed her in the chair he had vacated with a firm pressure there was no resisting--"and watch Mr.

Cheniston carefully. If he shows signs of waking come for me. But don't disturb him in any way. You understand?"

The girl said, rather whimperingly, that she did; and with a last glance at Cheniston, who still lay sunk in a dreary stupor, Anstice went quietly from the room in search of his comrades in misfortune.

He found them in the room in which he had first seen Iris; and he joined the conclave without loss of time.

"Oh, here you are!" Iris broke off in the middle of a sentence and came forward. "Mrs. Wood, this is Dr. Anstice; and this"--she turned to a tall, clean-shaven man dressed, rather unconventionally, in the clothes of a clergyman--"is Mr. Wood. Here is Mr. Garnett, and that is all, with the exception of Molly."

She drew forward a child of about Cherry Carstairs' age, a pale, fragile child in whose face Anstice read plainly the querulousness of an inherited delicacy of const.i.tution.

"She ought really to be asleep," said Mrs. Wood, a short, rather good-looking woman of a florid type, whose subdued voice and air were at variance with the cheerful outline of her features. "But somehow night and day have got mixed up at present--in fact, my watch has stopped, and I don't know what time it is."

"It is just ten o'clock, Mrs. Wood." It was Roger Garnett who volunteered the information; and as Anstice turned to discover what manner of man the speaker might be he was relieved to find that the young Australian wore an unmistakably militant air. He was of average height, with powerful shoulders; and in his blue eyes burned a l.u.s.t for battle which was in no way diminished by the fact that his left arm was bound up just below the elbow.

"Brute dotted me one there," he explained casually as he saw Anstice's glance fall on the bandage. "Thought at first he'd broken a bone, but he hadn't. It was only a flesh wound, and Mrs. Wood did it up in the most approved St. John style!"

"I'll look at it for you presently, if you like," said Anstice, "though it appears to be most scientifically bandaged. Now, what I should like to know is this. Did these fellows attack you last night? They did? At what time--and in what force did they come?"

"It was just before dawn--the recognized time for a night attack, eh?"

Garnett's blue eyes twinkled. "They thought it was going to be a soft job, I believe; but they had apparently forgotten that the door was pretty well impregnable, thanks to the jolly old bandit, or whatever he was, who used to retire here with his doubtless ill-gotten gains! And as they had forgotten to provide themselves with any means of reaching these windows the attack failed, so to speak."

"I gather you were looking out? Any casualties?" Anstice put the question coolly; and young Garnett grinned.

"Yes, siree--one for which by the grace of G.o.d I may consider myself responsible. They were all arguing in the courtyard below when I gave them a kind of salute from up here, and by gosh, you should have seen the beggars scatter! One of them got it in the thigh, at least so I deduce from the fact that he had to be a.s.sisted away, groaning!"

"They didn't return?"

"No. Clambered over the wall and made tracks for home, sweet home instanter."

"To tell you the truth, Dr. Anstice"--it was Mr. Wood who spoke, and Anstice turned quickly towards him--"I do not myself believe that they will attack us again at present. They have now found it impossible to force an entrance unseen; and I should not be surprised if their plan of campaign included waiting, and trying to starve us out. A policy of masterly inaction, so to speak."

"Do you know, I rather agree with the Padre," said Garnett thoughtfully.

"Of course they have not a notion that we have sent for help; and though they saw Dr. Anstice arrive with Ha.s.san, it is quite possible that in the dusk they thought it was one of us who had made a futile sortie with the Arab."

"I daresay you are right," said Anstice thoughtfully. "But I suppose you do not propose we should relax our vigilance on that account?"

"No." Mr. Wood looked keenly at the speaker, and appeared rea.s.sured by something he read in the other's face. "Last night we watched both this window and that of the other room--the one where Mr. Cheniston is lying----"

"It is unfortunate that he should be in one of the rooms where there is a possibility of trouble," said Anstice, rather worried by the notion.

"I suppose the others are really uninhabitable?"

"Well, there is no possibility of admitting sufficient air," said Mrs.

Wood practically. "There is a little hole where we s.n.a.t.c.h a moment's rest now and then, but for a man with fever----"

"No, I suppose he must stay where he is." Anstice genuinely regretted the necessity. "The only thing to do is to try to draw the enemy's fire to the other window, if occasion arises. Now, how do we divide our forces? Mrs. Cheniston"--he spoke the name firmly now--"you, I suppose, will watch your husband, and if I may suggest that I take the window in that room under my charge--Ha.s.san might be at hand to take my place when I'm occupied with Mr. Cheniston----"

"Then Mr. Garnett and I will be responsible for the watch in this room,"

said the clergyman quietly. "The others--my wife and Rosa--can take it in turn to relieve Mrs. Cheniston. How does that plan strike you, Dr.

Anstice?" By common consent they began to look on Anstice as their leader.

"A very sensible plan," said Mrs. Wood quickly, "But I positively insist upon Mrs. Cheniston having some sleep. She was up all night and has not rested a moment to-day."