Cigars were passed, and the men rose and strolled away. We wandered outside the gardens, passing the rejected guide as we did so. “I don’t like the look in his eye,” said Clovelly.
Colonel Ryder laughed. “You’ve always got a fine vision for the dramatic.”
We passed on. I suppose about twenty minutes had gone when, as we were entering the garden again, we heard loud cries. Hurrying forward towards the Tanks, we saw a strange sight.
There, on a narrow wall dividing two great tanks, were three people--Mrs. Falchion, Amshar, and the rejected Arab guide. Amshar was crouching behind Mrs. Falchion, and clinging to her skirts in abject fear. The Arab threatened with a knife. He could not get at Amshar without thrusting Mrs. Falchion aside, and, as I said, the wall was narrow. He was bent like a tiger about to spring.
Seeing Mrs. Falchion and Amshar apart from the others,--Mrs. Falchion having insisted on crossing this narrow and precipitous wall,--he had suddenly rushed after them. As he did so, Miss Treherne saw him, and cried out. Mrs. Falchion faced round swiftly, and then came this tragic situation.
Seeing that Mrs. Falchion made no effort to dislodge Amshar from her skirts, the Arab presently leaped forward. Mrs. Falchion’s arms went out suddenly, and she caught the wrist that held the dagger. Then there was an instant’s struggle. It was Mrs. Falchion’s life now, as well as Amshar’s. They swayed. They hung on the edge of the rocky chasm. Then we lost the gleam of the knife, and the Arab shivered, and toppled over. Mrs. Falchion would have gone with him, but Amshar caught her about the waist, and saved her from the fall which would have killed her as certainly as it killed the Arab lying at the bottom of the tank. She had managed to turn the knife in the Arab’s hand against his own breast, and then suddenly pressed her body against it; but the impulse of the act came near carrying her over also.
Amshar was kneeling at her feet, and kissing her gown gratefully. She pushed him away with her foot, and, coolly turning aside, began to arrange her hair. As I approached her, she glanced down at the Arab. “Horrible! horrible!” she said. I remembered that these were her words when her husband was lifted from the sea to the ‘Fulvia’.