Chapter 6 - Page 2

all, and at thinking of what your mother, who trusted you to me, would think about it. My land, there'll be some head-lines in the _Boston Herald_ over this! I guess somebody will have to suffer for it."

"Poor Mr. Stuart!" cried Sadie, as the monotonous droning voice of the delirious man came again to their ears. "Come, auntie, and see if we cannot do something to relieve him."

"I'm uneasy about Mrs. Shlesinger and the child," said Colonel Cochrane. "I can see your wife, Belmont, but I can see no one else."

"They are bringing her over," cried he. "Thank God! We shall hear all about it. They haven't hurt you, Norah, have they?" He ran forward to grasp and kiss the hand which his wife held down to him as he helped her from the camel.

The kind grey eyes and calm sweet face of the Irishwoman brought comfort and hope to the whole party. She was a devout Roman Catholic, and it is a creed which forms an excellent prop in hours of danger. To her, to the Anglican Colonel, to the Nonconformist minister, to the Presbyterian American, even to the two Pagan black riflemen, religion in its various forms was fulfilling the same beneficent office--whispering always that the worst which the world can do is a small thing, and that, however harsh the ways of Providence may seem, it is, on the whole, the wisest and best thing for us that we should go cheerfully whither the Great Hand guides us. They had not a dogma in common, these fellows in misfortune; but they held the intimate, deep-lying spirit, the calm, essential fatalism which is the world-old framework of religion, with fresh crops of dogmas growing like ephemeral lichens upon its granite surface.

"You poor things!" she said. "I can see that you have had a much worse time than I have. No, really, John, dear, I am quite well--not even very thirsty, for our party filled their water-skins at the Nile, and they let me have as much as I wanted. But I don't see Mr. Headingly and Mr. Brown. And poor Mr. Stuart--what a state he has been reduced to!"

"Headingly and Brown are out of their troubles," her husband answered. "You don't know how often I have thanked God to-day, Norah, that you were not with us. And here you are, after all."

"Where should I be but by my husband's side? I had much, _much_ rather be here than safe at Halfa."

"Has any news gone to the town?" asked the Colonel.

"One boat escaped. Mrs. Shlesinger and her child and maid were in it. I was downstairs in my cabin when the Arabs rushed on to the vessel. Those on deck had time to escape, for the boat was alongside. I don't know whether any of them were hit. The Arabs fired at them for some time."

"Did they?" cried Belmont exultantly, his responsive Irish nature catching the sunshine in an instant.