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Herne moved and groaned, but spoke no word.

“What? You don’t see it? You never had much sense of humour. And yet it’s a good thing to laugh when you can. We savages don’t know how to laugh. We only yell. That is all you wanted to know, is it? You will go back now with an easy mind?”

“As if that could be all!” Herne muttered.

“That is all. And count yourself lucky that I haven’t killed you. It was touch and go that night you attacked me. You may die yet.”

“I may. But it won’t be your fault if I do. Great Heaven, I might have killed you!”

“So you might.” Again came that quiver of dreadful laughter. “That would have been the end of the story for everyone, for you wouldn’t have got away without me. But that was no part of the program. Even you couldn’t kill a dead man. Feel that, if you don’t believe me!” Suddenly one of the shrivelled, mummy hands came down to his own. “How much life is there in that?”

Herne gripped the hand. It was cold and clammy; he could feel every separate bone under the skin. He could almost hear them grind together in his hold. He repressed another shudder; and even as he did it, he heard again the bitter cry of a woman’s wrung heart, “Bobby is still alive and wanting me.”

Would she say that when she knew? Would she still reach out her hands to this monstrous wreck of humanity, this shattered ruin of what had once been a tower of splendid strength? Would she feel bound to offer herself? Was her love sufficient to compass such a sacrifice? The bare thought revolted him.

“Are you satisfied?” asked the voice that seemed to him like a mocking echo of Bobby’s ardent tones. “Why don’t you speak?”

A great struggle was going on in Herne’s soul. For Betty’s sake–for Betty’s sake–should he hold his peace? Should he take upon himself a responsibility that was not his? Should he deny this man the chance that was his by right–the awful chance–of returning to her? The temptation urged him strongly; the fight was fierce. But–was it because he still grasped that bony hand?–he conquered in the end.

“I haven’t told you yet why I came to look for you,” he said.

“Is it worth while?” The question was peculiarly deliberate, yet not wholly cynical.

Desperately Herne compelled himself to answer.

“You have got to know it, seeing it was not for my own satisfaction–primarily–that I came.”

“Why then?” The brief query held scant interest; but the hand he still grasped stirred ever so slightly in his.

Herne set his teeth.

“Because–someone–wanted you.”

“No one ever wanted me,” said the Wandi Mullah curtly.

But Herne had tackled his task, and he pursued it unflinching.

“I came for the sake of a woman who once–long ago–refused to marry you, but who has been waiting for you–ever since.”

“A woman?” Undoubtedly there was a savage note in the words. The shrunken fingers clenched upon Herne’s hand.

“Betty Derwent,” said Herne very quietly.

Dead silence fell in the darkened tent–the silence of the desert, subtle, intense, in a fashion terrible. It lasted for a long time; so long a time that Herne suffered himself at last to relax, feeling the strain to be more than he could bear. He leaned among his pillows, and waited. Yet still, persistently, he grasped that cold, sinuous hand, though the very touch of it repelled him, as the touch of a reptile provokes instinctive loathing. It lay quite passive in his own, a thing inanimate, yet horribly possessed of life.

Slowly at last through the darkness a voice came:

“Monty!”

It was hardly more than a whisper; yet on the instant, as if by magic, all Herne’s repulsion, his involuntary, irrepressible shrinking, was gone. He was back once more on the other side of the gulf, and the hand he held was the hand of a friend.

“My dear old chap!” he said very gently.