He must disappear. He must die—die in such a way that Lucille would never suppose he had committed suicide. It was the only way to save himself from so awful a crime and to save her from himself.
He would start just before dawn on Abdul’s shikar camel, be well away from Kot Ghazi by daylight and reach the old deserted dak-bungalow, that no one ever used, by evening. There Abdul would come to him with his _bhoja-oont_[31] bringing the usual supplies, and on receipt of them he would dismiss Abdul altogether and disappear again into the desert, this time for good. Criminal lunatics and homicidal maniacs are better dead, especially when they are tempted beyond their strength to marry innocent, beautiful girls who do not understand the position.
The dak-bungalow again at last! But how terribly dreary, depressing, and horrible it looked _now_—the hut that had once seemed a kind of heaven on earth to the starving wanderer. Then, Lucille was thousands of miles away (geographically, and millions of miles away in imagination). Now, she was but thirty miles away—and it was almost more than human endurance could bear…. Should he turn back even now, ride straight to Kot Ghazi, fall at her feet and say: “I can struggle no longer. Come back to Monksmead—and let what will be, be. I have no more courage.”
And go mad, one day, and kill her? Keep sane, and sully her fair name? On to the hovel. Rest for the night, and, at dawn, strike into the desert and there let what will be, be.
Making the camel kneel, Damocles de Warrenne removed its saddle, fastened its rein-cord tightly to a post, fed it, and then detached the saddle-bags that hung flatly on either side of the saddle frame, as well as a patent-leather sword-cover which contained a sword of very different pattern from that for which it had been made.
Entering the hut, of which the doors and windows were bolted on the outside, he flung open the shutters of the glassless windows, lit a candle, and prepared to eat a frugal meal. From the saddlebags he took bread, eggs, chocolate, sardines, biscuits and apples. With a mixture of permanganate of potash, tea and cold water from the well, if the puddle at the bottom of a deep hole could be so termed, he made a drink that, while drinkable by one who has known worse, was unlikely to cause an attack upon an enfeebled constitution, of cholera, enteric, dysentery or any other of India’s specialities. What would he not have given for a clean whisky-and-soda in the place of the nauseating muck—but what should be the end of a man who, in his position, turned to _alcohol_ for help and comfort? “The last state of that man …”