He passed out through the shattered doorway, but she stood where he had left her, motionless, almost unconscious. It was thus Nicholson and the Colonel found her when, a moment later, they entered the room by the verandah. Colonel Carmichael's passionate reproaches died away as he saw her face. "You must not stop here," he said. "You have frightened us all terribly. The regiment has come and is attacking. There will be some desperate fighting. We must all stick together." She caught Nicholson's eyes resting on her. She thought she read pity and sympathy in their steady depths, and wondered if he guessed what she had tried to do. But he said nothing, and she followed the two men blindly and indifferently back to the bungalow. CHAPTER X TRAVERS They had no light. They talked in whispers, and now and again, when the darkness grew too oppressive, they stretched out groping hands and touched each other. They did this without explanation. Though none complained or spoke of fear, each needed the consolation of the other's company, and a touch was worth more than words. Mrs. Cary alone needed nothing. She lay on the rough truckle-bed and slept. Thus she had been for a week--a whole week of nerve-wrecking struggle against odds which marked hope as vain. Bullets had beaten like rain upon the walls about her, the moaning of wounded men on the other side of the hastily constructed partition mingled unceasingly with the cries of the ever-nearing enemy. And she had lain there quiet and indifferent. Martins, the regiment's doctor, had looked in once at her and had shaken his head. "In all probability she will never wake," he had said. "Perhaps it is the kindest thing that could happen to her." And then he had gone his way to those who needed him more. Mrs. Berry knelt by the bedside. Her hands were folded. She had been praying, but exhaustion had overcome her, and her quiet, peaceful breathing contrasted strangely with the other sounds that filled the bungalow. Mrs. Carmichael and Beatrice sat huddled close together, listening. They could do nothing--not even help the wounded men who lay so close to them. Everything was in pitch darkness, and no lights were allowed. They could not go out and help in the stern, relentless struggle that was going on about them. They bore the woman's harder lot of waiting, inactive, powerless, fighting the harder battle against uncertainty and all the horrors of the imagination. "I am sorry the regiment has come," Mrs. Carmichael whispered. "There is no doubt they will be massacred with the rest of us. What are a few hundreds against thousands? It is a pity. They are such fine fellows."