"It is the only way," he was shouting angrily. "We cannot take them into the town to-night--maybe not for two or three days. Some there are in Aratat who would end their lives before sunrise. I say to you that we cannot put them to death until we are sure that the others have no chance to escape to England. I am a lawyer. I know what it would mean if the story got to the ears of the government. We have them safely in our hands. The others will soon die. Then--then there can be no mistake!

They must be taken to the mines and kept there until I have explained everything to the people. Part of us shall conduct them to the lower mill and the rest of us go on to the bank with these chests of gold." In the end, after much grumbling and fierce quarreling, in which the prisoners took little or no interest, the band was divided into two parts. Rasula and six of the st.u.r.diest men prepared to continue the journey to Aratat, transporting the chests. Five sullen, resentful fellows moved over beside the captives and threw themselves down upon the gra.s.sy sward, lighting their cigarettes with all the philosophical indifference of men who regard themselves as put upon by others at a time when there is no alternative.

"We will wait here till day comes," growled one of them defiantly. "Why should we risk our necks going down the pa.s.s to-night? It is one o'clock. The sun will be here in three hours. Go on!"

"As you like, Abou Dal," said Rasula, shrugging his pinched shoulders.

"I shall come to the mill at six o'clock." Turning to the prisoners, he bowed low and said, with a soft laugh: "Adios, my lady, and you, most n.o.ble sir. May your dreams be pleasant ones. Dream that you are wedded and have come into the wealth of j.a.pat, but spare none of your dream to the husband and wife, who are lying awake and weeping for the foolish ones who would go searching for the forbidden fruit. Folly is a hard road to travel and it leads to the graveyard of fools. Adios!"

Lady Agnes bent over and dropped her face into her hands. She was trembling convulsively. Browne did not show the slightest sign that he had heard the galling words.

At a single sharp command, the six men picked up the three chests and moved off rapidly down the road Rasula striding ahead with the flaring torch.

They were barely out of sight beyond the turn in the hill when Deppingham moved as though impulse was driving him into immediate attack upon the guards who were left behind with the unhappy prisoners. Chase laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

"Wait! Plenty of time. Wait an hour. Don't spoil everything. We'll save them sure," he breathed in the other's ear. Deppingham's groan was almost loud enough to have been heard above the rustling leaves and the collective maledictions of the disgusted islanders.

The minutes slipped by with excruciating slowness The wakeful eyes of the three watchers missed nothing that took place in the little gra.s.s-grown niche below them They could have sprung almost into the centre of the group from the position they occupied. Utterly unconscious of the surveillance, the islanders gradually sunk into a morose, stupid silence. If the watchers hoped that they might go to sleep they were to be disappointed Two of the men sat with their backs to the rocks, their rifles across their knees. The others sprawled lazily upon the soft gra.s.s. Two torches, stuck in the earth, threw a weird light over the scene.

Bobby Browne was now lying with his shoulder against a fallen tree-trunk, staring with unswerving gaze at the woman across the way.

She was looking off into the night, steadfastly refusing to glance in his direction. For fully half an hour this almost speaking tableau presented itself to the spectators above.

Then suddenly Lady Agnes arose to her feet and lifted her hands high toward the black dome of heaven, Salammbo-like, and prayed aloud to her G.o.d, the sneering islanders looking on in silent derision.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE PERSIAN ANGEL

The man called Abou suddenly leaped to his feet, and, with the cry of an eager animal, sprang to her side. His arms closed about her slender figure with the unmistakable l.u.s.t of the victor. A piteous, heart-rending shriek left her lips as he raised her clear of the ground and started toward the dense shadows across the road. Her terror-stricken face was turned to the light; her cries for mercy were directed to the brute's companions.

They did not respond, but another did. A hoa.r.s.e, inarticulate cry of rage burst from Deppingham's lips. His figure shot out through the air and down the short slope with the rush of an infuriated beast. Even as the astonished Abou dropped his struggling burden to meet the attack of the unexpected deliverer, he was felled to the earth by a mighty blow from the rifle which his a.s.sailant swung swift and true. His skull was crushed as if it were an eggsh.e.l.l.

Lady Agnes struggled to her feet, wild-eyed, half crazed by the double a.s.sault. The next instant she fell forward upon her face, dead to all that was to follow in the next few minutes. Her glazed eyes caught a fleeting glimpse of the figures that seemed to sweep down from the sky, and then all was blank.

There was no struggle. Chase and Selim were upon the stupefied islanders before they could move, covering them with their rifles. The wretches fell upon their knees and howled for mercy. While Deppingham was holding his wife's limp form in his arms, calling out to her in the agony of fear, utterly oblivious to all else that was happening about him, his two friends were swiftly disarming the grovelling natives. Selim's knife severed the cords that bound Bobby Browne's hands; he was staring blankly, dizzily before him, and many minutes pa.s.sed before he was able to comprehend that deliverance had come.

Ten minutes later Chase was addressing himself to the four islanders, who, bound and gagged, were tied by their own sashes to trees some distance from the roadside.

"I've just thought of a little service you fellows can perform for me in return for what I've done for you. All the time you're doing it, however, there will be pistols quite close to your backs. I find that Lady Deppingham is much too weak to take the five miles' walk we've got to do in the next two hours--or less. You are to have the honour of carrying her four miles and a half, and you will have to get along the best you can with the gags in your mouths. I'm rather proud of the inspiration. We were up against it, hard, until I thought of you fellows wasting your time up here in the woods. Corking scheme, isn't it? Two of you form a basket with your hands--I'll show you how. You carry her for half a mile; then the other two may have the satisfaction of doing something just as handsome for the next half mile--and so on. Great, eh?"

And it was in just that fashion that the party started off without delay in the direction of the chateau. Two of the cowed but eager islanders were carrying her ladyship between them, Deppingham striding close behind in a position to catch her should she again lose consciousness.

Her tense fingers clung to the straining shoulders of the carriers, and, although she swayed dizzily from time to time, she maintained her trying position with extreme courage and cool-headedness. Now and then she breathed aloud the name of her husband, as if to a.s.sure herself that he was near at hand. She kept her eyes closed tightly, apparently uniting every vestige of force in the effort to hold herself together through the last stages of the frightful ordeal which had fallen to her that night.

With Selim in the lead, the little procession moved swiftly but cautiously through the black jungle, bent on reaching the gate if possible before the night lifted. Chase and Bobby Browne brought up the rear with the two reserve carriers in hand. Browne, weak and suffering from torture and exposure, struggled bravely along, determined not to r.e.t.a.r.d their progress by a single movement of indecision. He had talked volubly for the first few minutes after their rescue, but now was silent and intent upon thoughts of his own. His head and face were bruised and cut; his body was stiff and sore from the effects of his valiant battle in the cavern and the subsequent hardships of the march.

In his heart Bobby Browne was now raging against the fate that had placed him in this humiliating, almost contemptible position. He, and he alone, was responsible for the sufferings that Lady Agnes had endured: it was as gall and wormwood to him that other men had been ordained to save her from the misery that he had created. He could almost have welcomed death for himself and her rather than to have been saved by George Deppingham. As he staggered along, propelled by the resistless force which he knew to be a desire to live in spite of it all, he was wondering how he could ever hold up his head again in the presence of those who d.a.m.ned him, even as they had prayed for him.

His wife! He could never be the same to her. He had forfeited the trust and confidence of the one loyal believer among them all.... And now, Lady Deppingham loathed him because his weakness had been greater than hers!

When he would have slain the four helpless islanders with his own hands, Hollingsworth Chase had stayed his rage with the single, caustic adjuration:

"Keep out of this, Browne! You've been enough of a d.a.m.ned bounder without trying that sort of thing."

Tears were in Bobby Browne's eyes as, mile after mile, he blundered along at the side of his fellow-countryman, his heart bleeding itself dry through the wound those words had made.

It was still pitch dark when they came to the ridge above the park.

Through the trees the lights in the chateau could be seen. Lady Agnes opened her eyes and cried out in tremulous joy. A great wave of exaltation swept over Hollingsworth Chase. _She_ was watching and waiting there with the others!

"Dame Fortune is good to us," he said, quite irrelevantly. Selim muttered the sacred word "Allah." Chase's trend of thought, whatever it may have been, was ruthlessly checked. "That reminds me," he said briskly, "we can't waste Allah's time in dawdling here. Luck has been with us--and Allah, too--great is Allah! But we'll have to do some skilful sneaking on our own hook, just the same. If the upper gate is being watched--and I doubt it very much--we'll have a hard time getting inside the walls, signal or no signal. The first thing for us to do is to make everything nice and snug for our four friends here. You've laboured well and faithfully," he said to the panting islanders, "and I'm going to reward you. I'm going to set you free. But not yet. Don't rejoice. First, we shall tie you securely to four stout trees just off the road. Then we'll leave you to take a brief, much-needed rest. Lady Deppingham, I fancy, can walk the rest of the way through the woods.

Just as soon as we are inside the walls, I'll find some way to let your friends know that you are here. You can explain the situation to them better than I can. Tell 'em that it might have been worse."

He and Selim promptly marched the bewildered islanders into the wood.

Bobby Browne, utterly exhausted, had thrown himself to the soft earth.

Lady Deppingham was standing, swaying but resolute, her gaze upon the distant, friendly windows.

At last she turned to look at her husband, timorously, an appeal in her eyes that the darkness hid. He was staring at her, a stark figure in the night. After a long, tense moment of indecision, she held out her hands and he sprang forward in time to catch her as she swayed toward him. She was sobbing in his arms. Bobby Browne's heavy breathing ceased in that instant, and he closed his ears against the sound that came to them.

Deppingham gently implored her to sit down with him and rest. Together they walked a few paces farther away from their companion and sat down by the roadside. For many minutes no word was spoken; neither could whisper the words that were so hard in finding their way up from the depths. At last she said:

"I've made you unhappy. I've been so foolish. It has not been fun, either, my husband. G.o.d knows it hasn't. You do not love me now."

He did not answer her at once and she shivered fearfully in his arms.

Then he kissed her brow gently.

"I _do_ love you, Agnes," he said intensely. "I will answer for my own love if you can answer for yours. Are you the same Agnes that you were?

My Agnes?"

"Will you believe me?"

"Yes."

"I could lie to you--G.o.d knows I would lie to you."

"I--I would rather you lied to me than to---"

"I know. Don't say it. George," as she put her hands to his face and whispered in all the fierceness of a desperate longing to convince him, "I am the same Agnes. I am _your_ Agnes. I am! You _do_ believe me?"

He crushed her close to his breast and then patted her shoulder as a father might have touched an erring child.

"That's all I ask of you," he said. She lay still and almost breathless for a long time.

At last she spoke: "It is not wholly his fault, George. I was to blame.

I led him on. You understand?"

"Poor devil!" said he drily. "It's a way you have, dear."

The object of this gentle commiseration was staring with gloomy eyes at the lights below. He was saying to himself, over and over again: "If I can only make Drusie understand!"