“Haven’t you slept at all?” she asked him in wonder.  “How in the world did you keep awake?”

He did not answer her, only laughed again as though at some secret joke.  He seemed to be in rather good spirits, she noticed, and she marvelled at him with a heavy pain at her heart that was utterly beyond expression or relief.

She sat silent for a little, then at length withdrew her hands, assuring him that they were quite warm.

“And I want to talk to you,” she added, in a more practical tone than she had previously managed to assume.  “Mr. Ratcliffe, you may be in command of this expedition, but I think you ought to tell me your plans.”

“Call me Nick, won’t you?” he said.  “It’ll make things easier.  You are quite welcome to know my plans, such as they are.  I haven’t managed to develop anything very ingenious during all these hours.  You see we are, to a certain extent, at the mercy of circumstances.  This place isn’t more than a dozen miles from the fort, and the hills all round are infested with tribesmen.  I hoped at first that we should get clear in the night, but you were asleep, and on the whole it seemed best to lie up for another day.  We might make a bolt for it to-morrow night if all goes well.  I have a sort of instinct for these mountains.  There is always plenty of cover for those who know how to find it.  It will be slow progress, of course, but we will keep moving south, and, given luck, we may fall in with Bassett’s relief column before many days.”

So with much serenity he disclosed his plans, and Muriel marvelled afresh at the confidence that buoyed him up.  Was he really as sublimely free from anxiety as he wished her to believe, she wondered?  It was difficult to think otherwise, even though he had admitted that they were governed by circumstance.  She began to think that there was magic in him, some hidden reserve force upon which he could always draw when all other resources failed.

Another matter had also caught her attention, and this she presently decided to investigate.  She had never thought of Nick Ratcliffe as in any sense a remarkable person before.

“Did you actually carry me ten miles?” she asked.

“Something very near it,” said Nick.

“How in the world did you do it?” Her interest was quickened.  Undoubtedly there was something uncanny in this man’s strength.

“You’re not very heavy, you know,” he said.

His arm was still around her, and she suffered it; for the darkness still frightened her when she allowed herself to think.

“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked him next.

“Not quite lately,” said Nick.  “I’ve been smoking.  I wonder you didn’t notice it.”

His tone was somehow repressive, but she ignored it with a growing temerity.  After all, he did not seem such an alarming person on a nearer acquaintance.

“Does smoking do as well as eating?” she asked.