Afterwards Part 53

"What about me, Mummy?" A rather fretful little voice interrupted the speaker, as Molly pressed closely to her side. "What's me and Rosa going to do? There isn't any beds and the bench is so hard!"

"Poor kiddie!" Anstice's heart was touched by this lamentable wail.

"Suppose you let me see what I can do to make you a bed, Molly! I'm a doctor, you know, and doctors know more about making beds than ordinary people!"

The child regarded him with lack-l.u.s.tre eyes which were quite devoid of any childish gaiety; and for a moment she appeared to revolve the question in her mind. Finally she decided that he was to be trusted, for she nodded her weary little head and put her thin, hot hand into the one he extended to her.

"The room opposite to this is our bedroom," said Iris, with a faint smile. "Shall I come too, Molly, and show Dr. Anstice where to find the things?"

"Yes. You come too." The other moist hand sought Iris' cooler one; and between them they led the poor child into the room Iris indicated.

Here, with a little ingenuity, a bed was made up of chairs and cushions, which Molly was too worn out to resist; and having seen her sink at once into an uneasy slumber, the two returned to the larger room, where the others still held whispered conclave.

"Dr. Anstice"--Iris laid her hand on his arm, her voice full of the sweetest contrition--"you have had nothing to eat and you must be famished."

"I'm not hungry," he a.s.sured her truthfully; but she refused to listen to his protests; and calling Mrs. Wood to her a.s.sistance she soon had a meal ready for him. Although the resources of the establishment were limited to tinned food and coffee boiled over a little spirit stove, Anstice was in no mood to criticize anything which Iris set before him.

Indeed he could hardly take his eyes from her as she ministered to him; and the food he ate might have been manna for anything he knew to the contrary.

Having finished his hasty meal and a.s.sured his kind hostesses that he felt a hundred per cent better thereby, Anstice turned to Mr. Wood with a new seriousness.

"It is nearly eleven o'clock," he said, "and I suppose we should be thinking of taking up our positions? If you and Mr. Garnett are ready, I'll call Ha.s.san to take charge of the other window for a little while, and have a look at my patient yonder."

The other men agreed; and Anstice left them stationing themselves at their posts while he entered the next room and relieved the frightened Rosa from her task of watching the invalid.

As he approached Cheniston's side he saw that as yet no fatal change had occurred. Bruce still lay in a kind of stupor, half-sleep, half-unconsciousness; but his pulse was not perceptibly weaker, and for a wild moment Anstice considered the possibility of his patient's recovery--a possibility which, however, he dared hardly entertain as he looked at the haggard face, the sunken eyes, the peeling lips.

When Iris entered a minute or two later Anstice gave her a few directions, bidding her call him immediately should Bruce awaken; and as she acquiesced and sat down on the hard chair lately vacated by the maid, Anstice looked at her with a feeling of rather helpless compa.s.sion.

"Mrs. Cheniston, I'm so awfully sorry to have to ask you to sit up.

You're worn out, I know, and I wish you could get some sleep."

"Oh, don't bother about me!" She smiled up at him, and his heart contracted within him at the look of fatigue in her face. "I'm immensely strong, you know--and I can sleep to-morrow. Only"--the smile faded out of her eyes, leaving them very sad--"do you think there is any possibility of Bruce being better in the morning?"

"Yes--he is no worse than when I saw him an hour or two ago," Anstice a.s.sured her. "And in a bad case like this even a negative boon of that kind is something to be thankful for."

She looked at him again, rather wistfully this time; but he did not meet her eyes; and presently he withdrew, leaving her to her lonely watch; while he went to take up his vigil at the window in preparation for any possible attack.

But that night pa.s.sed without adventure of any kind.

CHAPTER IV

It was on the afternoon of the following day that a new and serious complication arose.

The night had pa.s.sed without incident of any kind; and shortly after sunrise the little party met to compare notes of their respective vigils.

All through the night Anstice had come and gone by Cheniston's bedside; but although there was no improvement in his patient's condition, neither did he seem to have progressed any further into the grim Valley of the Shadow; and although this extreme weakness and prostration were ominous enough, Anstice still cherished that very faint, very timid hope which had been born on the previous night.

He had never wished so fervently for the power to save a life as in this particular case. Gone was all remembrance of the former ill-feeling between them, of the unfair and cruel bargain which this man had forced upon him to the utter destruction of his life's happiness. He forgot that Bruce Cheniston had been unjust, callous, a very Shylock in his eager grasping of his pound of flesh; and he remembered only that this man had won Iris' love, and thereby established his claim to any service which the man who had also loved Iris might reasonably bestow.

The fact that Iris must needs be adversely affected by her husband's death was sufficient in itself to rouse his wish to save Cheniston's life if that life could be saved; and during the day, when the vigil of the little garrison might be relaxed, he was a.s.siduous in his care of the man who lay so desperately ill in the quiet room overlooking the sun-baked desert.

Only once Cheniston roused himself sufficiently to hold a few minutes'

laboured conversation with Anstice; and afterwards the latter was not perfectly certain of Bruce's complete understanding of the words he used.

"Iris--how is she?" His voice was so weak that Anstice could barely hear it; but he guessed what it was that the other man wished to ask; and answered at once:

"Mrs. Cheniston is quite well--only a little tired. She is lying down for an hour, but if you want her I'll go and call her."

"No. Don't disturb her," said Bruce feebly; and then, after a pause, he uttered the words which, later, seemed to Anstice a reflection on his perfect mental poise at the moment. "Poor little Iris--it wasn't fair to marry her--I wish to G.o.d I'd left her--to you."

For a minute Anstice sat silent, absolutely stunned by this extraordinary statement; and before he could speak the weak voice began again.

"You loved her--so did I--in a way--but I've never really loved anyone--but--Hilda Ryder." The unconscious pathos in his tone robbed the words of all offence. "But she's a dear little soul--Iris--and I only wish I'd not been beast enough--to marry her--to spite you----" The thin voice trailed away into a whisper and Anstice spoke resolutely.

"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 a.s.sertion. "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 surpa.s.sed he did all in his power to make Cheniston as easy as possible; and when, presently, the latter relapsed into the stupor which pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage-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 d.a.m.ned Bedouins have been up to now? I believe, and so does Ha.s.san, 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 G.o.d made little apples, it's true." Garnett was in no wise offended by Anstice's uncompromising rejoinder. "Ha.s.san 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 Ha.s.san is pretty well acquainted with their charming tricks, and he was suspicious from the first."

"But was this beggar prowling round by the well?"

"We couldn't see much, but this morning Ha.s.san investigated and found footmarks on the sand leading directly to and from the well; and he is convinced that is what the brute was doing."

"How much water have we left?"