The Way of an Eagle. Ethel M. Dell
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the moment's emergency than she had been since leaving the fort.
"You are to eat it," she said very decidedly. "You shall eat it. Do you hear, Nick? I know what is the matter with you. You are starving. I ought to have seen it before."
Nick uttered a shaky laugh, and dragged himself up on to his elbows.
"I'm not starving," he declared. "Take it away, Muriel. Do you think
I'm going to eat your luncheon, tea, and dinner, and to-morrow's
breakfast as well?"
"You are going to eat this," she answered.
He flashed her a glance of keen curiosity. "Am I?" he said.
"You must," she said, speaking with an odd vehemence which later surprised herself. "Why should you go out of your way to tell me a lie? Do you think I can't see?"
Nick raised himself slowly. Something in the situation seemed to have deprived him of his usual readiness. But he would not take the bread, would not even look at it.
"I'm better now," he said. "We'll go back."
Muriel stood for a second irresolute, then sharply turned her back. Nick sat and watched her in silence. Suddenly she wheeled. "There!" she said. "I've divided it. You will eat this at least. It's absurd of you to starve yourself. You might as well have stayed in the fort to do that."
This was unanswerable. Nick took the bread without further protest. He began to eat, marvelling at his own docility; and suddenly he knew that he was ravenous.
There was very little left when at length he looked up.
"Show me what you have saved for yourself," he said.
But Muriel backed away with a short, hysterical laugh.
He started to his feet and took her rudely by the shoulder. "Do you mean to say—" he began, almost with violence; and then checked himself, peering at her with fierce, uncertain eyes.
She drew away from him, all her fears returning upon her in a flood; but at her movement he set her free and turned his back.
"Heaven knows what you did it for," he said, seeming to control his voice with some difficulty. "It wasn't for your own sake, and I won't presume to think it was for mine. But when the time comes for handing round rewards, may it be remembered that your offering was something more substantial than a cup of cold water."
He broke off with a queer sound in the throat, and began to move away.
But Muriel followed him, an unaccountable sense of responsibility overcoming her reluctance.
"Nick!" she said.
He stood still without turning. She had a feeling that he was putting strong restraint upon himself. With an effort she forced herself to continue.
"You want sleep, I know. Will you—will you lie down while I watch?"
He shook his head without looking at her.
"But I wish it," she persisted. "I can wake you if—anything happens."
"You wouldn't dare," said Nick.
"I suppose that means you are afraid to trust me," she said.
He turned at that. "It means nothing of the sort. But you've had one scare, and you may have another. I think myself that that fellow was a scout on the look-out for Bassett's advance guard. But Heaven only knows what brought him to this place, and there may be others. That's why I didn't dare to shoot."
He paused, his light eyebrows raised, surveying her questioningly; for Muriel had suddenly covered her face with both hands. But in another moment she looked up again, and spoke with an effort.
"Your being awake couldn't lessen the danger. Won't you—please—be reasonable about it? I am doing my best."
There was a deep note of appeal in her voice, and abruptly Nick gave in.
He moved back to their resting-place without another word, and flung himself face downwards beside the nest of fern that he had made for her, lying stretched at full length like a log.
She had not expected so sudden and complete a surrender. It took her unawares, and she stood looking down at him, uncertain how to proceed.
But after a few seconds he turned his head towards her and spoke.
"You'll stay by me, Muriel?"
"Of course," she answered, that unwonted sense of responsibility still strongly urging her.
He murmured something unintelligible, and stirred uneasily. She knew in a flash what he wanted, but a sick sense of dread held her back. She felt during the silence that followed as though he were pleading with her, urging her, even entreating her. Yet still she resisted, standing near him indeed, but with a desperate reluctance at her heart, a shrinking unutterable from the bare thought of any closer proximity to him that was as the instinctive recoil of purity from a thing unclean.
The horror of his deed had returned upon her over-whelmingly with his brief reference to it. His lack of emotion seemed to her as hideous callousness, more horrible than the deed itself. His physical exhaustion had called her out of herself, but the reaction was doubly terrible.
Nick said no more. He lay quite motionless, hardly seeming to breathe, and she realised that there was no repose in his attitude. He was not even trying to rest.
She wrung her hands together. It could not go on, this tension. Either she must yield to his unspoken desire, or he would sit up and cry off the bargain. And she knew that sleep was a necessity to him. Common-sense told her that he was totally unfit for further hardship without it.
She closed her eyes a moment, summoning all her strength for the greatest sacrifice she had ever made. And then in silence she sat down beside him, within reach of his hand.
He uttered a great sigh and suffered his whole body to relax. And she knew by the action, though he did not speak a word, that she had set his mind at rest.
Scarcely a minute later, his quiet breathing told her that he slept, but she sat on by his side without moving during the long empty hours of her vigil. He had trusted her without a question, and, as her father's daughter, she would at whatever cost prove herself worthy of his trust.
CHAPTER VII
THE COMING OF AN ARMY
Through a great part of the night that followed they tramped steadily southward. The stars were Nick's guide, though as time passed he began to make his way with the confidence of one well-acquainted with his surroundings. The instinct of locality was a sixth sense with him. Hand in hand, over rocky ground, through deep ravines, by steep and difficult tracks, they made their desperate way. Sometimes in the distance dim figures moved mysteriously, revealed by starlight, but none questioned or molested them. They passed from rock to rock through the heart of the enemy's country, unrecognised, unobserved. There were times when Nick grasped his revolver under his disguise, ready, ready at a moment's notice, to keep his word to the girl's father, should detection be their portion; but each time as the danger passed them by he tightened his hold upon her, drawing her forward with greater assurance.
They scarcely spoke throughout the long, long march. Muriel had moved at first with a certain elasticity, thankful to escape at last from the horrors of their resting-place. But very soon a great weariness came upon her. She was physically unfit for any prolonged exertion. The long strain of the siege had weakened her more than she knew.
Nevertheless, she kept on bravely, uttering no complaint, urged to utmost effort by the instinctive desire to escape. It was this one idea that occupied all her thoughts during that night. She shrank with a vivid horror from looking back. And she could not see into the