FullReads

“Oh, don’t!” sobbed Betty. “Don’t! You hurt me so!”

“Hurt you, Betty! I!”

She turned impulsively and leaned her head against him.

“Major Herne, you–you are awfully good to me, do you know? I shall never forget it. And if–if I were not quite sure in my heart that Bobby is still alive and wanting me, I would come to you, if you really cared to have me. But–but–“

“Do you mean that, Betty?” he said. His arm was round her, but he did not seek to draw her nearer, did not so much as try to see her face.

But she showed it to him instantly, lifting clear eyes, in which the tears still shone, to his.

“Oh, yes, I mean it. But, Major Herne, but—-“

He met her look, faintly smiling.

“Yes,” he said. “It’s a pretty big ‘but,’ I know, but I’m going to tackle it. I’m going to find out if the boy is alive or dead. If he lives, you shall see him again; if he is dead–and this is the more probable, for it is no country for white men–I shall claim you for myself, Betty. You won’t refuse me then?”

“Only find out for certain,” she said.

“I will do that,” he promised.

“But how? How? You won’t go there yourself?”

“Why not?” he said.

Something like panic showed in the girl’s eyes. She laid her hands on his shoulders.

“Monty, I don’t want you to go.”

“You would rather I stayed?” he said. He was looking closely into her eyes.

She endured the look for a little, then suddenly the tears welled up again.

“I can’t bear you to go,” she whispered. “I mean–I mean–I couldn’t bear it if–if—-“

He took her hands gently, and held them.

“I shall come back to you, Betty,” he said.

“Oh, you will!” she said very earnestly. “You will!”

“I shall,” said Montague Herne; and he said it as a man whose resolution no power on earth might turn.

III

No country for white men indeed! Herne grimly puffed a cloud of smoke into a whirl of flies, and rose from the packing-case off which he had dined.

Near by were the multitudinous sounds of the camp, the voices of Arabs, the grunting of camels, the occasional squeal of a mule. Beyond lay the wilderness, mysterious, silent, immense, the home of the unknown.

He had reached the outermost edge of civilization, and he was waiting for the return of an Arab spy, a man he trusted, who had pushed on into the interior. The country beyond him was a dense tract of bush almost impenetrable; so far as he knew, waterless.

In the days of the British expedition this had been an almost insuperable obstacle, but Herne was in no mood to turn back. Behind him lay desert, wide and barren under the fierce African sun. He had traversed it with a dogged patience, regardless of hardship, and, whatever lay ahead of him, he meant to go on. Hidden deep below the man’s calm aspect there throbbed a fierce impatience. It tortured him by night, depriving him of rest.

Very curiously, the conviction had begun to take root in his soul also that Bobby Duncannon still lived. In England he had scouted the notion, but here in the heart of the desert everything seemed possible. He felt as if a voice were calling to him out of the mystery towards which he had set his face, a voice that was never silent, continually urging him on.

Wandering that night on the edge of the bush, with the camp-fires behind him, he told himself that until he knew the truth he would never turn back.

He lay down at last, though his restlessness was strong upon him, compelling his body at least to be passive, while hour after hour crawled by and the wondrous procession of stars wheeled overhead.

In the early morning there came a stir in the camp, and he rose, to find that his messenger had returned. The man was waiting for him outside his tent. The orange and gold of sunrise was turning the desert into a wonderland of marvellous colour, but Herne’s eyes took no note thereof. He saw only his Arab guide bending before him in humble salutation, while in his heart he heard a girl’s voice, low and piteous, “Bobby is still alive and wanting me.”