CHAPTER XXVII

J’ACCUSE!

“Of course, there could be but one ending to it all.  The man to whom you have promised yourself—­Garth Trent—­was court-martialled and cashiered.”

As she finished speaking, Elisabeth’s hands, which had been tightly locked together upon her knee, relaxed and fell stiffly apart, cramped with the intensity of their convulsive pressure.

Sara sat silent, staring with unseeing eyes across the familiar bay to that house on the cliff where lived the man whose past history—­that history he had guarded so strenuously and completely from the ears of their little world—­had just been revealed to her.

Mentally she was envisioning the whole scene of the story which hesitatingly—­almost unwilling, it seemed—­Elisabeth had poured out.  She could see the lonely fort on the Indian Frontier, sparsely held by its indomitable little band of British soldiers, and ringed about on every side by the hill tribes who had so suddenly and unexpectedly risen in open rebellion.  In imagination she could sense the hideous tension as day succeeded day and each dawning brought no sign of the longed-for relief forces.  Indeed, it was not even known if the messengers sent by the officer in command had got safely through to the distant garrison to deliver his urgent message asking succour.  And each evening found those who were besieged within the fort with diminished rations, and diminished hope, and with one or more dead to mark the enemy’s unceasing vigilance.

And then had come the mysterious apparent withdrawal of the tribesmen.  For hours no sign of the enemy had been seen, nor a single fugitive shot fired when one or other of the besieged had risked themselves at an unguarded aperture, whereas, until that morning, for a man to show himself, even for a moment, had been to court almost certain death.

Could the rebels have received word of the approach of a relieving force, whispers of a punitive expedition on its way, and so stolen stealthily, discreetly away in the silence of the night?

The hearts of the little beleaguered force rose high with hope, but again morning drew to evening without bringing sight or sound of succour.  Only the enemy persisted in that strange, unbroken silence, and, at last, a hasty council of war was held within the fort, and Garth Trent, together with a handful of men, had been detailed to make a reconnaissance.

Sara could picture the little party stealing out on their dangerous errand—­dangerous, indeed, if the withdrawal of the tribesmen were but a bluff, a scheme devised to lull the besieged into a false sense of security in order to attack them later at a greater disadvantage.  And then—­the sudden spit of a rifle, a ringing fusillade of shots in the dense darkness!  The reconnaissance party had run into an ambuscade!