Page:O Douglas - Olivia in India.djvu/232

220 No answer. Sister Anna Margaret slept well.

"Sister!" said G. bitterly. "She's no sister in adversity."

"Get up, G.," I said encouragingly. "Get up and turn on the light. Perhaps it isn't a tiger, perhaps it's only a musk rat."

G. refused with some curtness. "Get up yourself," she added.

Again we shouted for Sister, with no result.

You have no idea how horrible it was to lie there in the darkness and listen to movements made by we knew not what. We felt bitterly towards Sister Anna, never thinking of what her feelings would be if she came confidingly to our help and was confronted by some fearsome animal.

"If only," said G., "we knew what time it was and when it will be light. I can't live like this long. Let go my arm, can't you?"

"I daren't," I said. "You're all I've got to hold on to."

We lay and listened, and we lay and listened, but the padding footsteps didn't come back; and then I suppose we must have fallen asleep, for the next thing we knew was that the ayahs were standing beside us with tea, and the miserable night was past.