Chapter V The Shadow in the Cave
We ate heartily, the pair of us, that evening. The effect on me was comforting and humanising. I felt well disposed to my fellow man—and woman, and inclined to sanguine expectations. Miss Ottley, however, was, as usual, impenetrable. She belonged of right to the age of iron. A female anachronism. To cheer her I suggested a game of chess. She consented, and mated me in fourteen moves. We played again, and once more she beat me. My outspoken admiration of her skill—I rather fancy my own play at chess—left her perfectly imperturbable. In the third game she predicted my defeat at the eleventh move on making her own fourth. I did my best, but her prophecy was fulfilled. "Enough!" said I, and retiring to the door way, I lighted a cigarette.
"Hassan Ali, our dragoman, should be here to-morrow," she presently remarked, "with troops."
"They will never catch our rascal Arabs," I replied. "With five clear days' start those beggars might be anywhere."
"Just so," said she, "but they will be of some use none the less—if only to drag that sarcophagus out of the temple."
"Eh!" I exclaimed—and looked at her sharply. "What is the matter with the thing—here?"
She shrugged her shoulders, then of a sudden smiled. "Do you wish to be amused?"
"Of all things."