not needed his protection, and had he not promised to remain on the spot
to assist her, he would have escaped in rapid flight from this struggle
within him. Yet, under the existing circumstances, there could be no
question of his doing this. He had only himself to blame for having
given her the right to count upon his friendship; and it was a behest
of chivalry to deserve her confidence. Incapable of tearing himself
from the place, where he knew his loved one remained, Heideck must have
stayed a quarter of an hour rooted to the spot, and just when he had
resolved--on becoming conscious of the folly of his behaviour--on
turning homewards, he perceived something unusual enough to cause him to
stay his steps.

He saw the house-door, which the Indian maid had a short time before
closed behind him, open, and in the flood of light which streamed out
into the darkness, perceived that several men dressed in white garments
hurried, closely following each other, up the steps.

Remembering Mrs. Irwin's enigmatical references to a danger which
possibly threatened her, and seized by a horrible dread of something
about to happen, he pushed open the garden gate and rushed towards the
house.

He had not yet reached it, when the shrill cry of a woman in distress
fell upon his ear. Heideck drew the revolver he always carried from his
pocket and sprang up the steps at a bound. The door of the drawing-room,
where he had shortly before been in conversation with the Captain's
wife, was wide open, and from it rang the cries for help, whose
desperate tones brought home to the Captain the certainty that Edith
Irwin was in the gravest peril. Only a few steps, and he saw the young
English lady defending herself heroically against three white-dressed