Baumann checked his speech and looked over Gerard’s shoulder intently into the dark garden. Gerard was sitting by the edge of the verandah, with his face turned eagerly towards Baumann.
“What’s the matter?” Gerard asked impatiently.
“Nothing, I think. Nothing really.”
But nevertheless Baumann appeared a little uneasy and his eyes still held their gaze in the same direction. Ratenay turned. At the first he could see nothing to account for the alertness which had come so swiftly into Baumann’s face. Then he made out a black figure sitting or crouching upon the low edge of the verandah some way behind Gerard de Montignac, just in the edge of the lights, and more in shadow than in light. Gerard had not moved by so much as the twitch of a limb. He rapped, however, now upon the iron table with his knuckles.
“Come, Baumann!” he said sharply. “You were at Meknes five months ago. Well!”
“I had finished my business,” Baumann replied hurriedly, but speaking in a lower voice than he had used before. “I was on my way back to Rabat by the plain of the Sebou. You know how the track runs from Meknes, due north over rolling country, then along the flank of the Zarhoun mountain to a pass.”
“Yes.”
“Half way to the pass stand the Roman ruins of Volubilis.”
“Yes.”
“But they lie off the track to the right and close under the mountain, and worse than that, close under the sacred City of Mulai Idris, which is forbidden ground.”