The Diva's Ruby. F. Marion Crawford

She came up out of the water very slowly, and she modestly loosened her wet garment from her, so that it hung straight when she stood at the end of the beach, as far from the traveller as possible. She, also, sat down to dry herself: and there was silence for a long time.

      After half-an-hour the traveller rose and began to examine the rock, feeling it with his hands wherever there was the least shadow, as high as he could reach, to find if there was any foothold, though he was already sure that there was not.

      'There is no way out,' Baraka said at last. 'I have been here by day. I have seen.'

      'They will let themselves down from above with ropes, till they are near enough to shoot,' the traveller answered.

      'No,' replied Baraka. 'They know that you have a good weapon, and they will not risk their lives. They will leave us here to starve. That is what they will do. It is our portion, and we shall die. It will be easy, for there is water, and when we are hungry we can drink our fill.'

      The traveller knew the people amongst whom he had wandered, and he did not marvel at the girl's quiet tone; but it chilled his blood, for he understood that she was in earnest; and, moreover, she knew the place, and that there was no way out.

      'You said well that I had brought you here to die,' she said presently, 'but I did not know it, therefore I must lose my life also. It is my portion. God be praised.'

      He was shamed by her courage, for he loved life well, and he held his head down and said nothing as he thought of what was to come. He knew that with plenty of good water a man may live for two or three weeks without food. He looked at the black pool in which he could not even see the reflections of the stars as he sat, because the opening above was not very wide, and he was low down, a good way from the water's edge. It seemed a good way, but perhaps it was not more than three yards.

      'You will die first,' Baraka said dreamily. 'You are not as we are, you cannot live so long without food.'

      The traveller wondered if she were right, but he said nothing.

      'If we had got out with the treasure,' continued Baraka, 'you would have loved me for it, because you would have been the greatest man in the world through me. But now, because we must die, you hate me. I understand. If you do not kill me you will die first; and when you are dead I shall kiss you many times, till I die also. It will be very easy. I am not afraid.'

      The man sat quite still and looked at the dark streak by the edge of the pool where the water had wet it when the falling boulder outside had sent in little waves. He could see it distinctly. Again there was silence for a long time. Now and then Baraka loosened her only garment about her as she sat, so that it might dry more quickly; and she quietly wrung out her thick black hair and shook it over her shoulders to dry it too, and stuck her two silver pins into the sand beside her.

      Still the traveller sat with bent head, gazing at the edge of the pool. His hands were quite dry now, and he slowly rubbed the clinging moisture from his revolver. Some men would have been thinking, in such a plight, that if starving were too hard to bear, a bullet would shorten their sufferings in the end; but this man was very full of life, and the love of life, and while he lived he would hope.

      He still watched the same dark streak where the sand was wet; he had not realised that he had been so far from it till then, but by looking at it a long time in the starlight his sight had probably grown tired, so that he no longer saw it distinctly. He raised himself a little on his hands and pushed himself down till it was quite clearly visible again, and he looked at the rock opposite and up to the stars again, to rest his eyes. He was not more than a yard from the water now.

      The place was very quiet. From far above a slight draught of air descended, warm from the rocks that had been heated all day in the sun. But there was no sound except when Baraka moved a little.

      Presently she did not move any more, and when the traveller looked he saw that she was curled up on the sand, as Eastern women lie when they sleep, and her head rested on her hand; for her garment was dry now, and she was drowsy after the walk and the effort she had made. Besides, since there was no escape from death, and as the man did not love her, she might as well sleep if she could. He knew those people and understood; and he did not care, or perhaps he also was glad. He was a man who could only have one thought at a time. When he had left the house of Baraka's father he had been thinking only of the rubies, but now that he was in danger of his life he could think only of saving it, if there were any way. A woman could never be anything but a toy to him, and he could not play with toys while death was looking over his shoulder. He was either too big for that, or too little; every man will decide which it was according to his own measure. But Baraka, who had not been taught to think of her soul nor to fear death, went quietly to sleep now that she was quite sure that the traveller would not love her.

      He had been certain of the distance between his feet and the water's edge as he sat; it had been a yard at the most. But now it was more; he was sure that it was a yard and a half at the least. He rubbed his eyes and looked hard at the dark belt of wet sand, and it was twice as wide as it had been. The water was still running out somewhere, but it was no longer running in, and in an hour or two the pool would be dry. The traveller was something of an engineer, and understood sooner than an ordinary man could have done, that his enemies had intentionally stopped up the narrow entrance through which he had to come, both to make his escape impossible, and to hasten his end by depriving him of water. The fallen boulder alone could not have kept out the overflow of the spring effectually. They must have shovelled down masses of earth, with the plants that grew in it abundantly and filled it with twining threadlike roots, and they must have skilfully forced quantities of the stuff into the openings all round the big stone, making a regular dam against the spring, which would soon run down in the opposite direction. They knew, of course, that Baraka had led him to the place and had gone in with him, for she had left all her outer garments outside, and they meant that she should die also, with her secret. In a week, or a fortnight, or a month, they would come and dig away the dam and pry the boulder aside, and would get in and find the white bones of the two on the sand, after the vultures had picked them clean; and they would take the traveller's good revolver, and his money.

      He thought of all these things as he sat there in the dim light, and watched the slow receding of the water-line, and listened to the girl's soft and regular breathing. There was no death in her dream, as she slept away the last hours of the night, though there might not be many more nights for her. He heard her breath, but he did not heed her, for the water was sinking before him, sinking away into the sand, now that it was no longer fed from the opening.

      He sat motionless, and his thoughts ran madly from hope to despair and back again to hope. The water was going down, beyond question; if it was merely draining itself through the sand to some subterranean channel, he was lost, but if it was flowing away through any passage like the one by which he had entered, there was still a chance of escape,—a very small chance. When death is at the gate the tiniest loophole looks wide enough to crawl through.

      The surface of the pool subsided, but there was no loophole; and as the traveller watched, hope sank in his heart, like the water in the hollow of the sand; but Baraka slept on peacefully, curled up on her side like a little wild animal. When the pool was almost dry the traveller crept down to the edge and drank his fill, that he might not begin to thirst sooner than need be; and just then day dawned suddenly and the warm darkness gave way to a cold light in a few moments.

      Immediately, because it was day, Baraka stretched herself on the sand and then sat up; and when she saw what the traveller was doing she also went and drank as much as she could swallow, for she had understood why he was drinking as soon as she saw that the pool was nearly dry. When she could drink no more she looked up at the rocks high overhead, and they were already white and red and yellow in the light of the risen sun; for in that country there is no very long time between dark night and broad day.

      Baraka sat down again, on the spot where she had slept, but she said nothing. The man was trying to dig a little hole in the wet sand with his hands, beyond the water that was still left, for perhaps he thought that if he could make a pit on one side, some water would stay in it; but the sand ran together as soon as he moved it; and presently, as he bent over, he felt that he was