She faced around, drawn by something that will and reason could not overcome, to see that Jim Galway and Ropey Smith had finished their task of pacing off the distance.  The two combatants were starting for their stations, their long shadows in the slant of the morning sunlight travelling over the sand like pursuing spectres.  Leddy went with the quick, firm step which bespoke the keenness of his desire; Jack more slowly, at a natural gait.  His station was so near her that she could reach him with a dozen steps.  And he was whistling—­the only sound in a silence which seemed to stretch as far as the desert—­whistling gaily in apparent unconsciousness that the whole affair was anything but play.  The effect of this was benumbing.  It made her muscles go limp.  She sank down for very want of strength to keep erect; and Ignacio, hardly observed, keeping close to her dropped at her side.

“Ignacio, tell the young man, the one who was our guest last evening, that I wish to see him!” she gasped.

With flickering, shrewd eyes Ignacio had watched her distress.  He craved the word that should call him to service and was off with a bound.  His rushing, agitated figure was precipitated into a scene hard set as men on a chess-board in deadly serenity.  Leddy and Jack, were already facing each other.

“Senor!  Senor!” Ignacio shouted, as he ran.  “Senor Don’t Care of the Big Spurs—­wait!”

The message which he had to give was his mistress’s and, therefore, nobody else’s business.  He rose on tiptoes to whisper it into Jack’s ear.  Jack listened, with head bent to catch the words.  He looked over to Mary for an instant of intent silence and then raised his empty left hand in signal.

“Sorry, but I must ask for a little delay!” he called to Leddy.  His tone was wonderful in its politeness and he bowed considerately to his adversary.

“I thought it was all bluff!” Leddy answered.  “You’ll get it, though—­you’ll get it in the old way if you haven’t the nerve to take it in yours!”

“Really, I am stubbornly fond of my way,” Jack said.  “I shall be only a minute.  That will give you time to steady your nerves,” he added, in the encouraging, reassuring strain of a coach to a man going to the bat.

He was coming toward Mary with his easy, languid gait, radiant of casual inquiry.  The time of his steps seemed to be reckoned in succeeding hammer-beats in her brain.  He was coming and she had to find reasons to keep him from going back; because if it had not been for her he would be quite safe.  Oh, if she could only be free of that idea of obligation to him!  All the pain, the confusion, the embarrassment was on her side.  His very manner of approach, in keeping with the whole story of his conduct toward her, showed him incapable of such feelings.  She had another reaction.  She devoutly wished that she had not sent for him.