He stood in front of the Brigadier for a moment—­an insignificant figure but for the perpetual suggestion of simmering activity that pervaded him; then stepped behind the commanding officer’s chair, and there took up his stand without further words.

The Brigadier paid no attention to him.  His mind was fixed upon one subject only.  Moreover, no one ever took Nick Ratcliffe seriously.  It seemed a moral impossibility.

“It is quite plain to me,” he said heavily at length, “that the time has come to face the situation.  I do not speak for the discouragement of you brave fellows.  I know that I can rely upon each one of you to do your duty to the utmost.  But we are bound to look at things as they are, and so prepare for the inevitable.  I for one am firmly convinced that General Bassett cannot possibly reach us in time.”

He paused, but no one spoke.  The man behind him was leaning forward, listening intently.

He went on with an effort.  “We are a mere handful.  We have dwindled to four white men among a host of dark.  Relief is not even within a remote distance of us, and we are already bordering upon starvation.  We may hold out for three days more.  And then”—­his breath came suddenly short, but he forced himself to continue—­“I have to think 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.