Afterwards Part 54

"Well, that's the very devil of it," said Garnett ruefully "It seems we had a fair quant.i.ty--you know it all has to be brought from that same old well--but that silly little Rosa thought this morning that she'd like a bath, so without asking permission she tipped it all into a kind of tin tub there was on the premises and performed her ablutions therein."

"Well, I confess I don't blame her," said Anstice rather dryly. "I feel as if I'd give a fiver for a bath myself--this d.a.m.ned sand makes one so infernally gritty."

"Just so--and the tin basin we wash in--in turns--isn't exactly luxurious!" Garnett's eyes twinkled. "All the same, things look pretty serious on the water question. We must have water--unfortunately the desert thirst is no fancy picture--I'm like a lime-kiln myself at this moment--but if the well is poisoned, and Ha.s.san seems convinced it is, we can't drink the water, can we?"

"Certainly not." Anstice hoped his voice did not betray his dismay at this disclosure. "Where's the nearest well--outside of here?"

"Over in the village--or rather, there's one outside the village which would be less public." Garnett laughed a little. "But I don't quite see how we're going to fetch water from it. You know the beggars are keeping a pretty smart lookout--and if they caught sight of one of us sallying forth we'd be potted as sure as a gun. And every available man is wanted here."

"I suppose"--Anstice had been thinking--"I suppose it would be quite impossible to get out by the rocky side? I mean could one possibly climb down? The Bedouins don't seem to guard that side, and one would be in the desert, well away from their band."

"Yes--but I doubt if it would be feasible. Unless--what about a rope? I saw a great coil of rope in one of the dungeons downstairs this morning." A new alertness leaped into his bright eyes. "I say, let's go and reconnoitre, shall we? It would be great to outwit the beasts after all!"

"Right! Where shall we go and scout?"

"Place opposite--the only one with a decent-sized hole in the wall--have to find a place one could squeeze through, I suppose--and I'm such an infernally broad chap, too!"

Anstice laughed.

"Well, I'm pretty long," he said, still smiling. "Lead on, will you--oh, this is the place, is it?"

They had entered a small circular chamber which had evidently been used for the purpose of scanning the desert far below in search of possible foes; for the aperture in the wall which corresponded to a modern window was much larger than any of the other slits in the building; and Anstice and the Australian were able, by a little man[oe]uvring, to lean out side by side and view the prospect beneath.

"Pretty fair drop, eh?" From his tone Garnett was in no wise daunted by the sight.

"Yes--want a steady head. But it could be done," said Anstice judicially. "A long rope--a precious long one, too--fastened to something up here, and one could clamber down all right. And once down it should be easy to skirt round to the well you mentioned. That's settled, then, and since you're disabled"--he glanced at the other's bandaged arm--"this is going to be my job."

"Oh, I say, that's not fair!" The other's tone of indignation amused Anstice even at that critical moment. "It was my suggestion, wasn't it?

Oh, I believe you did say something about it too ... but I think I ought to be the one to go."

"But your arm----"

"Oh, d.a.m.n my arm!" Garnett spoke vehemently. "It won't hurt it a sc.r.a.p--and honestly, I'd simply _love_ the job!"

"I know you would--but really you'll have to let me do it." Anstice spoke firmly, though he was sorry for the other man's disappointment.

"You see that arm of yours is badly hurt, though you won't own up to it; and it might easily go back on you when you started using it. And if you got stuck down there, we'd have no water, and be a man short here as well."

For another minute the Australian held out, arguing the point with a kind of fiery eloquence which showed how keenly he desired to undertake the adventure; but in the end he gave way, though he was too unsophisticated entirely to hide his chagrin.

"Then that's settled." Anstice dared not betray his sympathy any further. "Now it remains to settle the details; and by the way, wouldn't it be wise to keep it as quiet as possible? We don't want to alarm the women."

"Quite so." Garnett squared his shoulders and plunged pluckily into the discussion. "I should suggest you go fairly early, as soon as the moon's up--so that with luck you'd be back before the enemy start prowling round. The well is a mile away, in a westerly direction." He pointed as he spoke. "And there is not much cover when once you get fairly out ... though I don't think there is a very great risk of the brutes spotting you."

"How long should it take me to get there and back?"

"Well, walking over sand is not like walking on macadam," said Garnett practically, "and I don't suppose you could do the job under an hour or two. Besides, you may have to dodge the brutes now and then," he added regretfully; and again Anstice could not refrain from smiling.

"Well, that's settled, then. The moon rises about seven, doesn't it? And if I get off soon after that----"

"That would do tophole. And we can easily spin a yarn to the rest," said Garnett more cheerfully. "In the meantime let's go and get something to eat. I'm famished."

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...."