e 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 assure 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
retard 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 damned 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 damned 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, h