The other followed his upward glance. Just a few scarcely perceptible bits of stick and dry grass quite twenty feet overhead.
“By Jove, Helston, but what an eye you’ve got. And you’re new to this end of the country too.”
“Yes. I’ve got an eye—for trifles—as you say, Coates,” returned Helston Varne. “But I only wish some of the things I’ve got to—I’ve had to—clear up, were as easy to deduce as that—only I don’t, because it would eliminate the sporting element altogether. By the way, there’s some one coming from the opposite direction. We shall meet directly, but I hope it isn’t a lot of beastly loaded camels, or Heaven only knows how we are going to pass each other.”
“What? Why you’ve got an ear as well as an eye. Blest if I can hear anything.”
“Not, eh?” Then, after a moment of listening—“By Jingo, yes—it is camels.”
Now the sound grew audible to all, that of deep toned voices and the roll and rattle of loose stones, and soon, round a bend of the rock wall appeared a characteristic and extremely picturesque group.
There might have been ten or a dozen men. The one who led was mounted on a fine camel, but the rest were afoot. Another camel brought up the rear, loaded with baggage. They were tall, hook-nosed, copper coloured men, with jetty beards and an equally jetty tress flowing down in front over each shoulder. They were clad in loose white garments, and their heads surmounted by the ample turban wound round the conical kulla—and all were armed with the inevitable and razor-edged tulwar, three or four indeed carrying rifles besides. At sight of the Europeans they halted, and their looks were not friendly. In point of fact these expressed distinct suspiciousness, partly dashed with a restrained combination of fanatical and racial hatred. But the whole group was splendidly in keeping with the stern wildness of its background.
“Now how the devil are we going to pass each other, and who’s going to give way?” mused Varne Coates in an undertone. Helston said nothing. His mind was absorbed entirely with taking in and thoroughly appreciating the effect of the picture.
“Salaam, brothers,” began Coates, speaking Hindustani: “This tangi is over narrow for two parties to pass each other. Is it not wider a little back, the way you have come?”
The look of hostility on the dark faces seemed to deepen ever so slightly. To Helston’s acute observation it deepened more than slightly.