style="font-size:15px;"> "It was. As I conceived it, Miss Vanbrugh," I replied.
After looking at Becque's bandages and giving him a sip of hot soupe, made with our compressed meat-tablets and a little cognac, she returned to the anderun, bidding me drink the soupe, for Becque could do little more than taste it.
"You win again, you dog!" said Becque, as soon as we were alone. "What a fool I was to aim at your head--with a shaking hand! . . . But I did so want to see those poor brains you are so proud of. . . . Now, will you kill me?"
"No," I answered.
"I know you won't!" he replied. "You haven't the guts. . . . And I know I shall recover. . . . Why, you fool, I breathe almost without pain. . . . My lungs are absolutely sound. . . . You only gave me a flesh wound and I heal splendidly. Always have done. . . ."
The poor wretch evidently did not know that the bandages hid as surely mortal a wound as ever man received. His talk of fatal injuries and certain death, which he had supposed to be a ruse that would gull and fool me, was but the simple truth.
"I'll be on my feet in a week, you witless ape," he continued, "and I'll get you yet! . . . Believe me, Beautiful de Beaujolais, I won't miss you next time I shoot. . . . But I hope it won't come to that. . . . I want to see you die quite otherwise--and then I'll deal with your Arab-debauching harlots. . . . But I'll get you somehow! I'll get you, my Beau Sabreur! . . ."
He raised himself on one elbow, pointed a shaking hand at my face, spat, and fell back dead. . . .
Chapter XVI.
For My Lady
"The worldly hopes men set their hearts upon,
Turn ashes--or they prosper;
Anon, like snow upon the desert's dusty face,
Lighting a little hour or two--are gone. . . ."
Becque's body having been borne away at dawn for burial, I soon began to wonder if the events of the previous day and night had really occurred, or whether they were the nightmare imaginings of a delirious fever-victim.
My wounds were real enough, however, and though slight, were painful in the extreme, throbbing almost unbearably and making movement a torture.
I would not have been without them though, for three times that day Mary Vanbrugh dressed them, and if I scarcely heard her voice, I felt the blessed touch of her fingers.
But she attended me as impersonally and coldly as a queen washing the feet of beggars, or as a certain type of army-surgeon doctoring a sick negro soldier.
As she left the tent on the last of her almost silent visits, she paused at the door-curtain and turned to me.
"What exactly was that shot in the night, Major de Beaujolais?" she asked.
"It was Becque shooting at me," I replied. "You did not suppose that it was me shooting at Becque, did you, Miss Vanbrugh?"
"I really did not know, Major de Beaujolais," answered the girl. "I should not be so foolish as to set any limit to what you might do in the name of Duty! . . . Nothing whatever would surprise me in that direction, now, I think. . . ."
"A man's duty is his duty," I replied.
"Oh, quite," she answered. "I would not have you deviate a hair's breadth from your splendid path. . . . But since the day you informed me that you would have left me to the mercies of the Touareg--had there been but one camel--I have been thinking . . . a good deal. . . . Yes, 'A man's duty is his duty' and--if I might venture to speak so presumptuously--a woman's duty is her duty, too. . . ."
"Surely," I agreed.
"And so I find it my duty to hinder you no further, and to remain in the Oasis with these fine Arabs--under the protection of the Emir el Hamel el Kebir. . . ."
"What!" I shouted, startled out of my habitual calm and courtesy. "You find it your 'duty' to do what?"
I felt actually faint--and began to tremble with horror, fear, and a deadly sickness of soul.
"I think you heard what I said," the girl replied coldly, "and I think you know that I always mean what I say, and say what I mean. . . . Oh, believe me, Major de Beaujolais--I have some notions of my own on duty--and it is no part of mine to hinder yours. . . ."
I drank some water, and my trembling hand spilt more than my dry throat swallowed.
"So I shall remain here," she went on, "and I think too that I prefer the standards and ideals of this Emir. . . . Somehow I do not think that anything would have induced him to leave a woman to certain death or worse. . . . Not even a treaty!" and the bitter scorn of her accents, as she said that word, was terrible.
Her voice seared and scorched me. . . . I tried to speak and could not.
"Nor do I feel that I shall incur any greater danger here than I should in setting off into the Desert again with a gentleman of your pronounced views on the subject of the relative importance of a woman and a piece of paper. . . . Nor shall my maid go with you. . . . I prefer to trust her, as well as myself, to these people of a less-developed singleness of purpose . . . and I like this Emir--enormously."
I found my voice. . . . Clumsily, owing to my wounds, I knelt before her. . . .
"Miss Vanbrugh . . . Mary . . ." I cried. "This is inhuman cruelty. . . . This is madness! . . . Think! . . . A girl like yourself--a lovely fascinating woman--here . . . alone. . . . You must be insane. . . . Think. . . . A hareem--these Arabs. . . . I would sooner shoot you here and now. . . . This is sheer incredible madness. . . ."
"Yes--like yourself, Major de Beaujolais," she replied, drawing back from me. "I am now 'mad' on the subject of Duty. . . . It has become an obsession with me too--(an example of the influence of one's companions upon one's character!)--and I find it my duty to leave you entirely free to give the whole of your mind to more important matters--to leave you entirely free to depart alone as soon as your business is completed--for I will be no further hindrance to you. . . . Good-bye, and--as I do not think I shall see you again--many thanks for bringing me here in safety, and for setting me so high a standard and so glorious an example. . . ."
* * *
I do not know what I replied--nor what I did. I was all French in that moment, and gave full rein to my terrible emotion.
But I know that Mary Vanbrugh left the tent with the cold words:
"Duty, Major de Beaujolais--before everything! We will both do our Duty. . . . I shall tell the Emir el Hamel el Kebir that I intend to remain here indefinitely, under his protection, and that I hope he will give you your precious treaty, and send you off at once. . . . My conscience--awakened by you--will approve my doing what I now see to be my duty. . . . Good-bye, Major de Beaujolais. . . ."
I
