"Oh, faith now, but that's a damned shame, sir!" Bohannan protested,
rubbing an ugly welt on his brow. His voice was thick, dull,
unnatural. Madness glimmered in his blinking eyes. "With the blessed
tongue of me parched to a cinder! And wine like that! Here, sir--take
a handful of diamonds, or whatever, and give me just one little
drink!"
'"'Bristol! Restrain that man!" the Master ordered. "If you can't
handle him, get help!"
As a couple of Legionaries laid hands on the major, another voice
spoke up. It was that of Ferrara, the Italian ace:
"The major is right, sir, in spite of all! Good wine in our throats
would make death less bitter. 'We who are about to die, salute
thee'--and ask wine!"
The Master peered sharply from beneath black brows. Discipline seemed
crumbling. Now at what might be, perhaps, the last minute of his
command, was the Master's word to be made light of? Were his orders to
be gainsaid?
"No wine!" he flung at all of them, his voice tense as wire. "Who says
we are about to die? Why, there may be a fighting chance, even yet!
This underground river may come to light, somewhere. And if it does,
it may bear us back to day, again.
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