nk of
my child. She will be in your hands. I know you will all defend her to
the last ounce of your strength; but which of you"--a terrible gasping
checked his utterance for many labouring seconds; he put his hand over
his eyes--"which of you," he whispered at last, his words barely
audible, "will have the strength to--shoot her before your own last
moment comes?"

The question quivered through the quiet room as if wrung from the
twitching lips by sheer torture. It went out in silence--a dreadful,
lasting silence in which the souls of men, stripped naked of human
convention, stood confronting the first primaeval instinct of human
chivalry.

It continued through many terrible seconds--that silence, and through
it no one moved, no one seemed to breathe. It was as if a spell
had been cast upon the handful of Englishmen gathered there in the
deepening darkness.

The Brigadier sat bowed and motionless at the table, his head sunk in
his hands.

Suddenly there was a quiet movement behind him, and the spell was
broken. Ratcliffe stepped deliberately forward and spoke.

"General," he said quietly, "if you will put your daughter in my care,
I swear to you, so help me God, that no harm of any sort shall touch
her."

There was no hint of emotion in his voice, albeit the words were
strong; but it had a curious effect upon those who heard it. The
Brigadier raised his head sharply, and peered at him; and the other
two officers started as men suddenly stumbling at an unexpected
obstacle in a familiar road.

One of them, Major Marshall, spoke, briefly and irritably, with a
touch of contempt. His nerves were on edge in that atmosphere of
despair.

"You, Nick!" he said. "You are about the least reliable man in
the garrison. You can't be trusted to take even reasonable care of
yourself. Heaven only knows how it is you weren't killed long ago. It
was thanks to no discretion on your part. You don't know the meaning
of the word."

Nick did not answer, did not so much as seem to hear. He was standing
before the Brigadier. His eyes gleamed in his alert face--two weird
pin-points of light.

"She will be safe with me," he said, in a tone that held not the
smallest shade of uncertainty.

But the Brigadier did not speak. He still searched young Ratcliffe's
face as a man who views through field-glasses a region distant and
unexplored.

After a moment the officer who had remained silent throughout came
forward a step and spoke. He