“When you are more yourself, Mrs North, I know you will regret this injustice,” said Mr Burgrave, without anger. “Allow me to take you to your quarters in the fort.” Georgia shook from head to foot as he offered her his arm. She was on the point of refusing it, of yielding to the sickening sense of aversion with which his presence inspired her, when the scowling gaze of the mounted troopers arrested her attention, and awakened her to the deadly peril in which the Commissioner stood. These men idolised Dick, and they had heard her accuse Mr Burgrave of causing his death. A word from her would mean that his last moment had come. Even to turn her back upon him would be taken to show that she left him to their vengeance, which might not follow immediately, but would be certain to fall sooner or later. With a great effort she conquered her repugnance, and laid her hand upon his arm. “At a time like this there are no private quarrels,” she said hoarsely, addressing the troopers rather than the Commissioner. “We must all stand together for the honour of England.” “Of course, of course!” agreed Mr Burgrave, wondering what on earth had called forth such a melodramatic remark, for he had missed the growl of disappointed rage with which the troopers let their ready blades fall back into the scabbards. “Most admirable spirit, I’m sure.” “Upon my word!” muttered Woodworth to Fitz, “the man would have been cut to pieces before our eyes in another moment, and he never saw it.” “Oh, ignorance is bliss,” returned Fitz shortly. “What’s to happen to the carts?” “Broken up for firewood, I suppose. We can’t make room for everything.” “I fear you will find your quarters somewhat confined,” Mr Burgrave was saying kindly to Georgia, as with the help of his Sikhs he piloted her through the gateway, “but we cannot expect palatial accommodation in our present circumstances. Our good friends Mrs Hardy and Miss Graham are taking pains to make things comfortable for you, I know, and you must be kind enough to excuse the deficiencies due to lack of time and means.” Georgia gave a short fierce laugh. The Commissioner’s tone suggested that if he had been consulted sooner there would have been a perfect Hôtel Métropole in readiness to receive the fugitives. She broke away from him, and laid her hand lovingly upon one of the new gates, for his presentation of which to a presumably ruined fort all the newspapers of the province had made Dick their butt only the week before. The echoes of their Homeric laughter were even at this moment resounding in Bombay on the one hand and Lahore on the other.