nd bent over
her, his hands upon her, holding her still; for every muscle, every
nerve twitched spasmodically, convulsively, in the instinctive effort
of the powerless body to be free. She had a confused impression also
that he spoke to her, but what he said she was never able to recall.
In the end, her horror faded, and she saw him as through a mist
bending above her, grim and tense and silent, controlling her as it
were from an immense distance. And even while she yet dimly wondered,
he passed like a shadow from her sight, and wonder itself ceased.

Half an hour later Nicholas Ratcliffe, the wit and clown of his
regiment, regarded by many as harebrained or wantonly reckless,
carried away from the beleaguered fort among the hostile mountains the
slight, impassive figure of an English girl.

The night was dark, populated by terrors alive and ghastly. But he
went through it as one unaware of its many dangers. Light-footed and
fearless, he passed through the midst of his enemies, marching with
the sublime audacity of the dominant race, despising caution--yea,
grinning triumphant in the very face of Death.

CHAPTER IV

DESOLATION

Out of a deep abyss of darkness in which she seemed to have wandered
ceaselessly and comfortlessly for many days, Muriel Roscoe came
haltingly back to the surface of things. She was very weak, so weak
that to open her eyes was an exertion requiring all her resolution,
and to keep them open during those first hours of returning life a
physical impossibility. She knew that she was not alone, for gentle
hands ministered to her, and she was constantly aware of some one who
watched her tirelessly, with never-failing attention. But she felt
not the smallest interest regarding this faithful companion, being
too weary to care whether she lived or fell away for ever down those
unending steeps up which some unseen influence seemed magnetically to
draw her.

It was a stage of returning consciousness that seemed to last even
longer than the period of her wandering, but this also began to pass
at length. The light grew stronger all about her, the mists rolled
slowly away from her clogged brain, leaving only a drowsing languor
that was infinitely restful to her tired senses.

And then while she lay half-dreaming and wholly content, a remorseless
hand began to bathe her face and head with ice-cold water. She awoke
reluctantly, even resentfully.

"Don't!" she entreated like a child. "I am so t