Afterwards.

by Kathlyn Rhodes.

_PROLOGUE_

I

"Dr. Anstice"--the girl spoke slowly, and her voice was curiously flat--"how much longer have we--before dawn?"

Without replying, the man glanced at his watch; and when he spoke his voice, too, was oddly devoid of tone.

"I think--only an hour now."

"Only an hour." In the gloom of the hut the girl's face grew very pale.

"And then----" She broke off, shuddering.

"Miss Ryder, don't think of it. After all, we need not give up hope yet.

An hour--why, heaps of things may happen in an hour."

A wan little smile touched the girl's lips, and she came a step nearer her companion.

"Don't let us buoy ourselves up with false hopes," she said quietly. "In your heart you know quite well that nothing on earth can save us now.

When the sun rises"--in spite of herself she shivered--"we shall die."

The man said nothing for a moment. In his heart he knew she spoke the truth; yet being a man he tried once more to rea.s.sure her.

"Miss Ryder, I won't allow that." Taking her hand he led her once more to the rude bench on which she had spent the night. "There _is_ a chance--a faint one, I admit, but still an undeniable chance."

"You mean----?" Although she tried to speak calmly he heard the tiny thrill of hope in her voice, and in his soul he wondered whether, after all, he were not acting cruelly in speaking thus.

"I mean our absence must have been noticed long ago. When we did not return in time for the picnic lunch or tea, someone must have wondered where we were; and it is quite possible we were seen to enter the Temple earlier in the day."

"That awful Temple!" The horror in her eyes made his heart beat pitifully over her. "If only I had not been so foolish as to insist on entering! You didn't know how dangerous it was to go in, but I did--at least, I knew something of the danger--and I would go ... and then--the uncanny silence, the sudden knowledge that we were not alone ... that something, _someone_ malignant, hateful, was watching us--and then those awful men who seized us ... oh!" The agony of remembrance was too much for her, and she sank back, half-fainting, against the wall.

"Miss Ryder, don't go over it all again!" Although it seemed certain that they had only an hour to live, Anstice could not bear to see her suffer now. "Don't let us think of what has happened--let us try to imagine that we are saved--as indeed we may be yet!" But he stole a glance out of the empty window-s.p.a.ce as he spoke, and his heart sank to note the lightening of the Indian night's soft dusk.

"I think not." Her tone was calm, almost indifferent, but her apprehensive eyes belied her voice. "Dr. Anstice, you have not forgotten your promise? If ... if it comes to the worst, you--you won't let me fall into--_their_ hands?"

And then he knew that in spite of her endeavours to be brave, to face the impending fate heroically, she too had had her doubts throughout the long hours of their imprisonment--doubts as to whether death would indeed come to her with the merciful swiftness of a fanatic's bullet....

And because he shared her doubt, because he, too, had wondered whether he alone would be shot at dawn, while she, his companion in this horrible nightmare, were reserved for some far more ghastly fate, because of his wonder and his doubt Anstice rejoiced in the fact that he had it in his power to save her from the worst that could happen.

He had not given his promise-lightly; yet having given it he would fulfil it, if the G.o.d who seemed to have deserted them in their need should see fit to nerve him to the deed.

She was looking at him wistfully, with something of horror behind the wistfulness; and he could not bear to keep her waiting any longer for the a.s.surance she craved.

"Yes," he said gently, and there was a tender note in his voice. "I will keep my word. You shall not fall into their hands. I promise you that."

She sighed faintly, and made room for him beside her on the rough seat.

"That is settled, then. And now, just for this last half-hour, let us pretend that we are in no danger, that we are waiting for our friends, the friends we ran away from at the picnic--yesterday."

Something in her own words startled her, and she broke off abruptly.

"Well?" He smiled at her. "Let us pretend. How shall we begin?"

"Was it only yesterday?" Her accent thrilled him through and through.

"Did we really start out from my uncle's bungalow yesterday morning? How gay we were, weren't we--all the twenty of us ... you and I leading because our horses were the best and I knew the way...."

"Yes--and all the smart young officers looking daggers at me because I had carried you off!" His tone was admirably light.

"Nonsense!" Hilda Ryder actually laughed, and in the dim and gloomy hut her laughter sounded almost uncanny. "I'm sure no one was in the least envious! You see, we were new friends--and it is such a treat to meet someone new out here!"

"Yes. By Jove, we'd only met twice, hadn't we? Somehow I was thinking we were quite old friends, you and I! But as you say, I was a new-comer, this was my first visit to the East. Rather a change, India and the snows, from a slum in Sh.o.r.editch!"

"Sh.o.r.editch? Did you really live in a slum?"

"Rather--and quite enjoyed it!" He laughed at her incredulous face. "It was experience, you see--disease flourishes in many and divers forms down there, and although I couldn't contemplate staying there for ever, the time wasn't wasted."

"And then--you left your slum?"

"Yes. I wanted more time to myself." He threw back his head as he talked, and swept the curly black hair off his brow with an impatient hand. "You see I had visions--oh, purely futile ones, I daresay--but I had a great idea of finding a cure for a certain disease generally considered incurable----" He broke off suddenly.

"Well? You have found it?" Her tone was eager.

"Not yet--but I shall!" In his enthusiasm he had forgotten the present, forgotten the horror which was coming nearer with great strides as the morning brightened in the sky. He saw only the future--not the immediate future--death, with his back against the wall of the courtyard, his face turned to the rising sun; but the splendid, strenuous future, when after good years of toil, of experience, even of suffering, he should make the great discovery which should free mankind from one of its most grievous foes, and add a precious treasure to the scientific storehouse of the world....

"It's a difficult task--almost superhumanly difficult!" His black eyes snapped at the thought of the difficulties in the way. "But thank G.o.d I'm young and full of hope--the hope that belongs to youth--and with luck I believe I'll win through in the end...."

A sudden shaft of rosy light, striking slantwise through the windowless aperture in the wall, brought him to a standstill.

"Sunrise! My G.o.d--I--I'd forgotten!" In an instant the youth and enthusiasm were wiped out of his face as by a ruthless hand, and he started to his feet. "Miss Ryder, forgive me! I've been talking like a fool, and you sit there listening like an angel, while all the time----"

"Hush, please!" She laid her hand on his arm, and through the sleeve of his thin riding-suit he felt the chill of her slender fingers. "It isn't time--yet. Let us pretend until the last minute. You know--you haven't asked me what I intend--intended"--for a second she faltered--"to make of _my_ life!"

Inwardly cursing his own folly, Anstice sat down again beside her and took her hand in his as a brother might have done.

"Well, what is ... was...." He, too, bungled over the tense, but she pretended not to notice his confusion. "What are you going to be--or do?

I hope your dreams are as wild as mine!"

"Not quite!" Her tone robbed the words of all offence. "Mine are very humble dreams, I'm afraid! You see"--for a second her voice shook, but she steadied it and continued to speak--"there's a man in Egypt whom I am--was--oh, what can I say?--whom I was to marry--some day."

"Really? You're engaged?" A fresh pang of pity shot through his heart.

"Yes. He's an engineer--in the Irrigation Department--and the best man in all the world!" For a moment love triumphed over death, and its glory illuminated the gloom of that fatal place of imprisonment with a hint of immortality. "That's _my_ ambition, Dr. Anstice--to love him and marry him, and be a true and faithful wife--and perhaps"--her voice sank a note--"perhaps in time to bear his children. That"--said Hilda Ryder, and now her eyes were full of dreams--"would be to me the most glorious destiny in the world!"

Her soft voice trembled into silence, and for the s.p.a.ce of twenty heart-beats the two sat motionless, only their hands seeking the mutual comfort which their warm contact might well bring.