Afterwards. Kathlyn Rhodes
"How was that?" He spoke quickly, but there was no suspicion in his tone now.
"Miss Ryder explained that she had been practising shooting with her uncle and had forgotten to reload. But"—he paused—"even had it been fully charged, I'm afraid our fate would have been unchanged."
Cheniston rose suddenly, took a few aimless steps across the floor, and then sank down on the bed again almost in his former position. In front of him Anstice stood motionless, his hands, clenched now, still in his pockets, his eyes the only live feature in the grey pallor of his face.
"Well!" Suddenly he threw back his head with a restless gesture, as though the strain of the interview was beginning to tell on him. "After hearing our sentence we were taken back to our hut, there to await the moment of sunrise—of our death."
"They gave you no food?" The question was almost futile in its triviality; but Anstice answered it quite naturally.
"Oh, yes, we were given food of a sort. Luckily I had a little flask of brandy, and once—at midnight—I persuaded Miss Ryder to take a few drops. She was splendidly brave throughout."
There was a short silence. Both men felt that the crux of the interview was at hand; and each, in his way, was preparing himself for it.
"Well?" It was Cheniston who spoke first. "The night wore on, I suppose, and you saw no hope of escape? But didn't you guess your absence would be remarked upon?"
"Of course. And we hoped against hope that someone would remember the Temple."
"They did—in the end?"
"Yes, and made all possible speed to reach it. But by that time we had been taken away, there was no one to be seen, and of course all traces of us had absolutely disappeared."
"Then how did they find you in the end?"
"The native servant who had talked of the wonders of the Temple to Miss Ryder was aghast when he found what harm his talk had done. It seems she had cured his little boy of some childish illness, and he simply worshipped her in consequence. So he was wild to rescue her, and after dispatching parties of searchers in every likely direction he suddenly recollected hearing of some mysterious High Priest in a tiny village in the hills, which was so securely hidden from observation that very few people knew of its existence."
"Colonel Godfrey said he would never have reached it without the guidance of some native," said Cheniston thoughtfully. "Would that be the man himself?"
"Yes. It seemed his father had known the way and had told him in direst secrecy how to reach the village; and when the officers were ready to start he went with them, and by some stroke of luck hit the right road at once, although the directions were fearfully complicated."
"If only you had known——"
"Do you think I don't say that to myself day after day?" Anstice's brow was pearled with sweat. "If I had had the faintest idea there was any chance of a rescue——"
"I know, I know!" The other man moved restlessly. "Good God, man, I'm not condemning you"—Anstice flushed hotly—"I'm only saying what a pitiful mistake the whole thing was … the tragedy might have been averted if only——"
"It's no use talking now." Anstice's tone was icy. "The thing's happened, the mistake is made and can't be unmade. Only, if you think you could have let her fall into the hands of those fanatics—well, I couldn't, that's all."
"She … she asked you to … to save her from that?" He hung on the other man's answer as though his own life depended upon it.
"Yes. I shouldn't have ventured to shoot her without her permission, you know!" In a moment he repented of the ghastly pleasantry into which exasperation had led him. "Forgive me, Cheniston—the thing's got on my nerves … I hardly know what I'm saying. … "
Cheniston, who had turned a sickly white beneath his bronze, looked at him fiercely.
"I'm making all allowances for you," he said between his teeth, "but I can't stand much of that sort of thing, you know. Suppose you tell me, without more ado, the nature of the—the bargain between you."
Without more ado Anstice complied.
"Miss Ryder made me promise that if the sun should rise before any help came to us I would shoot her with my own hand so that she should not have to face death—or worse—at the hands of our enemies."
"You thought it might be—worse?"
"Yes. My father was a doctor in China at the time of the Boxer rising," said Anstice with apparent irrelevance. "And as a boy I heard stories of—of atrocities to women—which haunted me for years. On my soul, Cheniston"—he spoke with a sincerity which the other man could not question—"I was ready—no, glad, to do Miss Ryder the service she asked me."
Twice Cheniston tried to speak, and twice his dry lips refused their office. At last he conquered his weakness.
"You waited till the sun rose … and then … you were sure … you did not doubt that the moment had come?"
"No. I waited as long as I dared … the sun had risen and we heard the clamour in the courtyard outside. … "
"And so——" Again his parched lips would not obey his bidding.
"When the men were at the very door of the hut I carried out my promise," said Anstice steadily. "She closed her eyes … I told her to, so that she should not be afraid to see death coming … and then … " at the recollection of that last poignant moment a slow shudder shook him from head to foot, " … it was all over in a second. She did not suffer—of that, at least, you may be certain."
Cheniston's hand was over his eyes; and for a space the room was very still.
Then:
"And you—you went out, as you thought, to meet your own death?"
"Yes—and I wish to God I'd met it," said Anstice with an uncontrollable outburst of bitterness. "I endured the shame, the horror of it all in vain. You know what happened … how just as the men were about to fire the rescuers burst into the courtyard. … My God, why were they so late! Or, being late, why did they come at all!"
Cheniston's blue eyes, which had been full of a natural human anguish, grew suddenly hard.
"You are not particularly grateful to your rescuers," he said. "Yet if they had been a few minutes later, you too would have been beyond their help."
Anstice was quick to notice the renewed hostility in the young man's tone.
"Just so." His manner, too, had changed. "But can you expect me to feel a very vivid gratitude to the men who restored my life to me, seeing with what memories that life must always be haunted?"
"Need you endure the haunting of those memories?"
The question, spoken quietly, yet with an obvious significance, took Anstice aback. For a moment he frowned, his dazed mind fumbling after the speaker's meaning.
"Need I?" Suddenly he knew what Cheniston had meant to imply. "Ah—you mean a man may always determine the length of his days?"
Cheniston nodded, never taking his eyes off the other's face.
"I see. Well, suicide would be a way out, of course. But"—for a second his eyes hardened, grew stern—"I don't mean to take that way—unless life grows too much for me. A second—mistake"—he spoke slowly—"would not annul the first."
"No." Cheniston's face had lost all its boyishness; it looked haggard, unhappy, old. "Possibly not. But when one has made a mistake of so tragic a nature I should have thought one would have been only too ready to pay the price of one's miscalculation."
For a second Anstice stared at him silently.
"Just so," he said at last, very quietly, taking his hands out of his pockets for the first time. "The question is, What is the