“You, Nick!” he said.  “You are about the least reliable man in the garrison.  You can’t be trusted to take even reasonable care of yourself.  Heaven only knows how it is you weren’t killed long ago.  It was thanks to no discretion on your part.  You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Nick did not answer, did not so much as seem to hear.  He was standing before the Brigadier.  His eyes gleamed in his alert face—­two weird pin-points of light.

“She will be safe with me,” he said, in a tone that held not the smallest shade of uncertainty.

But the Brigadier did not speak.  He still searched young Ratcliffe’s face as a man who views through field-glasses a region distant and unexplored.

After a moment the officer who had remained silent throughout came forward a step and spoke.  He was a magnificent man with the physique of a Hercules.  He had remained on his feet, impassive but observant, from the moment of his entrance.  His voice had that soft quality peculiar to some big men.

“I am ready to sell my life for Miss Roscoe’s safety, sir,” he said.

Nick Ratcliffe jerked his shoulders expressively, but said nothing.  He was waiting for the General to speak.  As the latter rose slowly, with evident effort, from his chair, he thrust out a hand, as if almost instinctively offering help to one in sore need.

General Roscoe grasped it and spoke at last.  He had regained his self-command.  “Let me understand you, Ratcliffe,” he said.  “You suggest that I should place my daughter in your charge.  But I must know first how far you are prepared to go to ensure her safety.”

He was answered instantly, with an unflinching promptitude he had scarcely expected.

“I am prepared to go to the uttermost limit, sir,” said Nicholas Ratcliffe, his fingers closing like springs upon the hand that gripped his, “if there is a limit.  That is to say, I am ready to go through hell for her.  I am a straight shot, a cool shot, a dead shot.  Will you trust me?”

His voice throbbed with sudden feeling.  General Roscoe was watching him closely.  “Can I trust you, Nick?” he said.

There was an instant’s silence, and the two men in the background were aware that something passed between them—­a look or a rapid sign—­which they did not witness.  Then reckless and debonair came Nick’s voice.

“I don’t know, sir.  But if I am untrustworthy, may I die to-night!”

General Roscoe laid his free hand upon the young man’s shoulder.

“Is it so, Nick?” he said, and uttered a heavy sigh.  “Well—­so be it then.  I trust you.”

“That settles it, sir,” said Nick cheerily.  “The job is mine.”

He turned round with a certain arrogance of bearing, and walked to the door.  But there he stopped, looking back through the darkness at the dim figures he had left.

“Perhaps you will tell Miss Roscoe that you have appointed me deputy-governor,” he said.  “And tell her not to be frightened, sir.  Say I’m not such a bogey as I look, and that she will be perfectly safe with me.”  His tone was half-serious, half-jocular.  He wrenched open the door not waiting for a reply.