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Show "You say he can crack a walnut with his fingers?" "But yes, m'sieu. And yet his hands are slim as a woman's. Tiens! He should be passing here in a day or two. They tell me he is en conge." "Who told you so?" "Do I remember? 'These things go from mouth to mouth in the desert as quickly as fire from straw to straw. We have news in the desert, I can tell you. It is getting dark. Shall I fetch the lamp out here for m'sieu ?" "Yes, fetch the lamp, madame." The landlady got up and went quickly in through the door, her gray dress wagging from her broad hips. When she had gone Sir Claude got up, too, and went to the entrance of the arbor. He could no longer see the salt mountain. It was a dark night, for the moon had not yet risen. it would come and bathe lonely world in light. Meanwhile •• he wanted the lamp. added to a strange which had been brought to him the landlady's gossip. As he staring vaguely before him the desert, he remembered his evening in the inn at El-Akbara. had got up from the dining-table go to bed and had heard a sharp sound in the room. He seemed to hear it now, to see the Spahi delicately extracting the kernel from the nutshell. Even then he had been conscious of a faint and creeping uneasiness, of a hesitation which he had a I not understood. The Spahi was cert'l I tainly this Benchaalal. Of that he , lf'lf was convinced. Well, and what if he was? Sir Claude was not a very imaginative man, but he was not totally t devoid of imagination. He was, as ~r has been said, by nature somewhat cautious and sceptical, as Lady Wyvss |
