Part 54 (2/2)

The suggestion meeting with Anstice's approval they adjourned in search of food; and found Iris coming to look for them with tidings of a meal.

When they had taken their seats at the improvised table, Iris quietly withdrew; and Anstice guessed she had returned to her place by the side of her husband--a place she had relinquished for an hour only during the whole of the strenuous day.

When, a little later, he went to see Cheniston again, he was dismayed to find an ominous change in his patient.

Bruce had indeed the air of a man at the point of death; and as he looked at the wasted features, the sunken eyes, the grey shadows which lay over the whole face, transforming it into a mere mask, Anstice told himself bitterly that all his care had been in vain; that before morning broke there would be one soul the less in their pitiful little company.

He bent over the bed and spoke gently; but Cheniston was too ill to pay any heed; and with a sigh Anstice stood upright and turned to Iris rather helplessly.

”Mrs. Cheniston”--he forced himself to speak truthfully--”I am afraid your husband is no better. In fact”--he hesitated, hardly knowing how to put his fears into words--”I think--perhaps--you must be prepared for the worst.”

”You mean he will die?” She spoke steadily, though her eyes looked suddenly afraid. ”Dr. Anstice, is there no hope? Can _you_ do nothing more for him?”

”There is so little to be done,” he said. ”Believe me, I have tried every means in my power, but you know my resources here are so limited, and in those surroundings--if I had been here a week earlier, I might have done something; but as things are----”

”Oh, I know--I know you have done all you could!” She feared her words had sounded ungracious. ”Only--Bruce is so young--he has never been ill before----”

”Ah, yes, but everything has been against him--the climate for one thing--and of course the forced removal was about the last thing he should have had to endure.” Anstice longed to comfort her as she stood before him, looking oddly young and wistful in her distress, but honesty forbade him to utter words of hope, knowing as he did what might well take place during the coming night.

”You think he will die--to-night?” Her eyes, tearless as they were, demanded the truth; and after a secondary hesitation Anstice replied candidly:

”I am very much afraid he may.” He turned aside when he had spoken, that he might not see her face; and for a long moment there was a silence between them which Anstice, for one, could not have broken.

Then Iris sighed very faintly.

”If that is so, you--you won't leave us, will you? I think--I could bear it better if you were here.”

Anstice's vehement promise to stay with her was suddenly cut short as he remembered the venture which was planned for the early hours of the coming night; and Iris' quick wits showed her that some project was afoot which would prevent him comforting her by his constant presence.

Yet so sore was her need of him, so ardently did she desire the solace which he alone could bring her, that she was moved to a wistful entreaty that was strangely unlike herself.

”Dr. Anstice, you--you will stay? If--if anything happens to Bruce, I shall be so--so lonely----”

Never had Anstice so rebelled against the fate which had given her to another man as in this moment when she stood before him, her face pale with dread, her wide eyes filled with something not unlike absolute terror as she faced the coming shadow which was to engulf her life. He would have given the world to have the right to take her in his arms, to kiss the colour back to those white cheeks, the security to the quivering mouth. This was the first favour she had ever asked at his hands, the first time she had thrown herself, as it were, on his mercy; and he must refuse her even the meagre boon she asked of him.

But Anstice was only mortal; and he could not refuse without giving her the true reason of his refusal, although he and Garnett had agreed that the undertaking of the night should be kept a secret lest the rest of the little party be rendered nervous and uncomfortable by his absence.

The feelings of the other women were nothing to him, compared with those of the girl he still loved with all the strength of his soul and heart; and he could not have borne to let her think him callous, regardless of her fears, content to leave her to pa.s.s through what must be one of the darkest hours of her life alone.

Very gently he told her of the discovery Garnett and Ha.s.san had made; with the subsequent unhappy certainty of a water famine; and Iris had been in Egypt long enough to know that in this desert waste of sun and sand the lack of water and its attendant evil, thirst, were the most fruitful sources of tragedy in the Egyptian land.

”You mean there is no water left?” She spoke very quietly, and he answered her in the same tone.

”No--at least barely a bottleful. The rest was used for making coffee for us all just now. And this remaining drop must be reserved for your husband, in case he calls for it. Besides, there is to-morrow----” He stopped short, with a tragic foreboding that there would be no morrow on earth for the man who lay dying beneath their eyes.

”Yes. As you say, there is to-morrow. And”--her voice was low--”I suppose there is no hope of rescue before to-morrow night at earliest?”

”I am afraid not before the following dawn.” Somehow he could not lie to Iris. ”And since we must have water it is plain one of us must go and get it.”

”Go? Outside the Fort?” Her face blanched still further. ”But it--would be madness to venture out--you would be seen--and shot--at once....”

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