FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  
fe, what I mean to do now. You are in full possession of the facts of the case. You have defined my position fairly accurately. I did know you were in an impossible corner. I did know that you and the men with you were in all probability doomed. And--I did not think good to send a rescue. You do not understand the game of war. You merely went in for it for the sake of sport, I for the sake of the stakes. There is a difference. More than that I do not mean to say." He sat down opposite Derrick as he ended and began to smoke with an air of indifference. But his eyes were on the boy's face. They had been close friends for years. Derrick still sat forward. He was staring at the ground heavily, silently Carlyon had given him a shock. Somehow he had not expected from him this cool acknowledgment of an action from which he himself shrank with unspeakable abhorrence. To leave a friend in the lurch was, in Derrick's eyes, an act so infamous that he would have cut his own throat sooner than be guilty of it. It did not occur to him that Carlyon might have urged extenuating circumstances, but had rather scornfully abstained from doing so. He did not even consider the fact that, as commanding-officer, Carlyon's responsibility for the lives in his charge was a burden not to be ignored or lightly borne. He did not consider the risk to these same valuable lives that a rescue in force would have involved. He saw only himself fighting for a forlorn hope, his grinning little Goorkhas gallantly and intrepidly following wherever he would lead, and he saw the awful darkness down which his feet had stumbled, a terrible chasm that had yawned to engulf them all. He sat up at last and looked straight at Carlyon. He spoke slowly, with an effort. "If it had been only myself," he said, "I--perhaps, I might have found it easier. But there were the men, my men. You could not alter your plans by one hair's-breadth to save their gallant lives. I can't get over that. I never shall. You left us to die like rats in a hole. But for a total stranger--a spy, a Secret Service man--we should have been cut to pieces, every one of us. You did not, I suppose, send that man to help us out?" Carlyon blew a cloud of smoke upwards. He frowned a little, but his look was more one of boredom than annoyance. "What exactly are you talking about?" he said. "I don't employ spies. As to Secret Service agents, I think you have heard my opinion of them bef
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169  
170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
Carlyon
 

Derrick

 

Secret

 
Service
 

rescue

 

breadth

 

possession

 

easier

 

effort

 

darkness


intrepidly

 
gallantly
 

grinning

 
Goorkhas
 
stumbled
 

looked

 

straight

 

terrible

 

yawned

 

engulf


slowly

 

boredom

 

annoyance

 

frowned

 

upwards

 
talking
 

agents

 

opinion

 

employ

 

suppose


forlorn

 

pieces

 
stranger
 

gallant

 

involved

 

silently

 

heavily

 

ground

 

forward

 

understand


staring
 
Somehow
 

expected

 

doomed

 

shrank

 
unspeakable
 

abhorrence

 
action
 
acknowledgment
 

friends