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Show _......,. passed [::: ~ by here without stopping?" :~"'"'-: ~...,..,....,,-,,,,~ "He has not passed, m'sieu. If: > .L~i::~~:fj:.,. . he had I should know it. They would I· ~ "' have seen him at the station." "· · _z.;:..:;..,., "And you know he is en conge?" "M'sieu, he is. He should have come by yesterday at latest, if not the day before. But perhaps he is at El-Akbara, where m'sieu is staying. I asked Achmed." "What did he say?" "He said no. But what does that mean? Achmed is an Arab, and an Arab never tells the truth." "Well, au revoir, madame." "M'sieu is going to bed already? And just as I have brought the lamp!" "No, I am going for a stroll to the village. Leave the lamp. I shall soon be back to drink another bottle of wine." "M'sieu is too good. 88 But is m'sieu armed? It is not safe to wander at night without arms." Grimly Sir Claude looked at her, pulling out of one of his pockets the muzzle of a revolver. "It's all right, madame." "Bien! Bien! Au revoir, m'sieu." "Au revoir, madame." He walked away in the darkness. The landlady stood under the vine looking after him. "What has he?" she said to herself. She had noticed that a change had come over her guest while she had been talking, that his air of calm \ satisfaction, peculiar to the successful hunter full fed after a long day's sport, had given place to a moody anxiety, a restlessness that betokened = an altered mood. =..,;___ "What has he, this monsieur?" she repeated to herself. The wind from the desert blew |