h your chin--this way--keeping the butt well
out from you. You make sure when you do that. The only satisfaction
you'll have, if it comes to suicide as a last resource, will be that
you've tried to do your duty and the knowledge that you'll be avenged. I
promise that. But I don't think you'll have any need to do it--if I did
think it I'd have thought twice before sending you."

"How does such a very young man as you come to have all this
responsibility?" asked Rosemary, taking the pistol without a shudder.
She laughed then as she noticed Cunningham's discomfort and recognized
the decency that hates to talk about itself.

"I suppose I know my own mind," he answered. "These other awfully decent
fellows don't, that's all--if you except Mahommed Gunga. That chap's
a wonder. 'Pon my soul, it seems he knew this was coming and picked
me from the start to take charge over here. Seems, owing to my
dad's reputation, these Rangars think me a sort of reincarnation of
efficiency. I've got to try and live up to it, you know--same old game
of reaping what you didn't sow and hoping it'll all be over before you
wake up! Won't you try and get some sleep before morning? No? Come and
sit over by the parapet with me, then."

He carried chairs for both of them to a point whence he could sit and
watch the track that led to Howrah and so help out the very meagre
garrison. There, until the waning moon dipped down below the sky-line,
they talked together--first about the task ahead of each of them; then
about the sudden ghastliness of the rebellion, whose extent not one of
them could really grasp as yet; last, and much longest, as familiarity
gradually grew between them, of youthful reminiscences and home--of Eton
and the Isle of Skye.

In the darkness and the comparative coolness that came between the
setting of the moon and dawn Rosemary fell asleep, her head pillowed in
her father's lap. For a while, then, seeing her only dimly through the
night, but conscious, as he could not help being, of her youth and
charm and of the act of self-sacrifice that she had undertaken without
remonstrance, he felt ashamed. He began to wonder whether there might
not have been some other way--whether he had any right, even for his
country's sake, to send a girl on such a mission. Misgiving began to sap
his optimism, and there was no Mahommed Gunga to stir the soldier in him
and encourage iron-willed pursuance of the game. He began to doubt; and
doubt bred si