He laid her down upon the couch and bent over her, his hands upon her, holding her still; for every muscle, every nerve twitched spasmodically, convulsively, in the instinctive effort of the powerless body to be free.

She had a confused impression also that he spoke to her, but what he said she was never able to recall.
In the end, her horror faded, and she saw him as through a mist bending above her, grim and tense and silent, controlling her as it were from an immense distance.

And even while she yet dimly wondered, he passed like a shadow from her sight, and wonder itself ceased.
Half an hour later Nicholas Ratcliffe, the wit and clown of his regiment, regarded by many as harebrained or wantonly reckless, carried away from the beleaguered fort among the hostile mountains the slight, impassive figure of an English girl.
The night was dark, populated by terrors alive and ghastly.

But he went through it as one unaware of its many dangers.

Light-footed and fearless, he passed through the midst of his enemies, marching with the sublime audacity of the dominant race, despising caution--yea, grinning triumphant in the very face of Death..