“We’ve got a start, any way,” Quest observed, “and these are the five best horses in the camp. Girls, a little faster. We’ve got to trust Craig for the direction but I believe he is right.”
“So far as my instinct tells me,” the Professor agreed, “I believe that we are heading in precisely the right direction.”
They galloped steadily on. The moon rose higher and higher until it became almost as light as day. Often the Professor raised himself in his saddle and peered forward.
“This column of soldiers would march at night,” he remarked. “I am hoping all the time that we may meet them.”
Quest fell a little behind to his side, although he never left off watching Craig.
“Look behind you, Professor,” he whispered.
In the far distance were a number of little black specks, growing every moment larger. Even at that moment they heard the low, long call of the Mongars.
“They are gaining on us,” Quest muttered.
The two girls, white though they were, bent over their horses.
“We’ll stick to it till the last moment,” Quest continued, “then we’ll turn and let them have it.”
They raced on for another mile or more. A bullet whistled over their heads. Quest tightened his reins.
“No good,” he sighed. “We’d better stay and fight it out, Professor. Stick close to me, Lenora.”
They drew up and hastily dismounted. The Mongars closed in around them. A cloud had drifted in front of the moon, and in the darkness it was almost impossible to see their whereabouts. They heard the Chief’s voice.
“Shoot first that dog of a Craig!”
There was a shriek. Suddenly Feerda, breaking loose from the others, raced across the little division. She flung herself from her horse.
“Tell my father that you were not faithless,” she pleaded. “They shall not kill you!”
She clung to Craig’s neck. The bullets were beginning to whistle around them now. All of a sudden she threw up her arms. Craig, in a fury, turned around and fired into the darkness. Then suddenly, as though on the bidding of some unspoken word, there was a queer silence. Every one was distinctly conscious of an alien sound—the soft thud of many horses’ feet galloping from the right; then a sharp, English voice of command.
“Hold your fire, men. Close into the left there. Steady!”
The cloud suddenly rolled away from the moon. A long line of horsemen were immediately visible. The officer in front rode forward.
“Drop your arms and surrender,” he ordered sternly.
The Mongars, who were outnumbered by twenty to one, obeyed without hesitation. Their Chief seemed unconscious, even, of what had happened. He was on his knees, bending over the body of Feerda, half supported in Craig’s arms. The officer turned to Quest.
“Are you the party who left Port Said for the Mongar Camp?” he asked.
Quest nodded.
“They took us into the jungle—just escaped. They’d caught us here, though, and I’m afraid we were about finished if you hadn’t come along. We are not English—we’re American.”
“Same thing,” the officer replied, as he held out his hand. “Stack up their arms, men,” he ordered, turning around. “Tie them in twos. Dennis, take the young ladies back to the commissariat camels.”
The Professor drew a little sigh.
“Commissariat!” he murmured. “That sounds most inviting.”
CHAPTER XIII
’NEATH IRON WHEELS
1.
Side by side they leaned over the rail of the steamer and gazed shorewards at the slowly unfolding scene before them. For some time they had all preserved an almost ecstatic silence.
“Oh, but it’s good to see home again!” Laura sighed at last.
“I’m with you,” Quest agreed emphatically. “It’s the wrong side of the continent, perhaps, but I’m aching to set my foot on American soil again.”
“This the wrong side of the continent! I should say not!” Laura exclaimed, pointing to where in the distance the buildings of the Exposition gleamed almost snow-white in the dazzling sunshine. “Why, I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”
The Professor intervened amiably. His face, too, shone with pleasure as he gazed landwards.
“I agree with the young lady,” he declared. “The blood and sinews of life may seem to throb more ponderously in New York, but there is a big life here on this western side, a great, wide-flung, pulsating life. There is room here, room to breathe.”
“And it is so beautiful,” Lenora murmured.
Quest glanced a little way along the deck to where a pale-faced man stood leaning upon his folded arms, gazing upon the same scene. There was no smile on Craig’s face, no light of anticipation in his eyes.
“I guess there’s one of us here,” Quest observed, “who is none too pleased to see America again.”
Lenora shivered a little. They were all grave.
“We must, I think, admit,” the Professor said, “that Craig’s deportment during the voyage has been everything that could be desired. He has even voluntarily carried out certain small attentions to my person which I must confess that I had greatly missed.”
“That’s all right,” Quest agreed. “At the same time I am afraid the moment has come now to remind him that the end is drawing near.”
Quest moved slowly down the deck towards Craig’s side, and touched him on the arm.
“Give me your left wrist, Craig,” he said quietly.
The man slunk away. There was a sudden look of horror in his white face. He started back but Quest was too quick for him. In a moment there was the click of a handcuff, the mate of which was concealed under the criminologist’s cuff.
“You’d better take things quietly,” the latter advised. “It will only hurt you to struggle. Step this way a little. Put your hand in your pocket, so, and no one will notice.”
Craig obeyed silently. They stepped along the deck towards the rest of the party. Lenora handed her glasses to Quest.
“Do look, Mr. Quest,” she begged. “There is Inspector French standing in the front row on the dock, with two enormous bunches of flowers—carnations for me, I expect, and poinsettias for Laura. They’re the larger bunch.”
Quest took the glasses and nodded.
“That’s French, right enough,” he assented. “Look at him standing straightening his tie in front of that advertisement mirror! Flowers, too! Say, he’s got his eye on one of you girls. Not you, by any chance, is it, Lenora?”
Lenora laughed across at Laura, who had turned a little pink.
“I guess French has got sense enough to know I’m not that sort,” the latter replied. “The double-harness stuff doesn’t appeal to me, and he knows it!”
Lenora made a little grimace as she turned away.
“Well,” she said,