"I should rather think you did. Well, as you have the decency to own it
here's something to go on with. Only because you're hard up, mind, not
on account of anything you may or may not have done for me," and he
opened a drawer, and taking out some notes chucked them across to the
other. "Well Jim Bexley, you can go now. Keep me up to where you're to
be found in case I want you, and, above all, keep sober. So long."

He banged the handbell and the same clerk came up; and Bully Rawson
found himself shown out, while wondering if he had done the right thing,
and whether there was anything more to be got out of Warren, also
whether the latter had been really as cool as he seemed or whether his
coolness was forced "side." As to this Warren was thinking the same
thing himself; and came to the conclusion that he had been for one
moment in desperate peril. Then he ceased to give the matter another
thought.

For some time after his visitor's departure he sat thinking. How would
Lalante take the news? This was the worst side of it. Who was to break
it to her? Not he himself--with all his nerve and self-possession this
was a task from which Warren shrank. Who better qualified for it than
her own father. Le Sage must be the man. He would write to Le Sage,
giving the facts.

The facts? A sudden and unaccountable misgiving leaped into his mind,
striking him as it were, between the eyes. What if Rawson had invented
the story, or had simply escaped and left the other two in the lurch?
In that case the chances were ten to one that they turned up again,
since the Zulus were only fighting among themselves and not against the
whites. How could he have pinned his faith to the word of an utterly
irredeemable scoundrel such as Bully Rawson? Thinking now of his former
jubilation Warren felt perfectly sick at the thought that it might have
been wholly premature. However he would put the matter beyond all
doubt. He would wire his agents in Natal to leave no stone unturned; to
spare no trouble or expense; to hire a whole army of native spies, if
necessary, to collect every scrap of information throughout the whole of
the disturbed country. This need arouse no curiosity; his friendship
with Wyvern would account for it.

What was this thing called love, that it should upset reason, and
possess the brain to the exclusion of all other things. In the travail
of his soul Warren recognised that he was standing on the brink of a