“I don’t know—and don’t care. It’s no concern of mine.”
“Don’t care what?” said Mrs Tarleton, joining the two, who, seated in long chairs and clad in easy attire, were indulging in “pegs” and cheroots.
“We were talking about Raynier, Mrs Tarleton,” said Haslam. “We agreed he oughtn’t to go and look up a man like Sarbaland Khan attended by only two Levy Sowars.”
“And Miss Clive, Haslam said,” appended Tarleton.
“It isn’t pukka, you know,” repeated Haslam, “nor is it altogether safe.”
“Mercy on us, Mr Haslam! Why, he’d never go taking Hilda anywhere that’s dangerous, surely? Besides, the country’s quite quiet now, and the people friendly.”
“Yes. Still, you never know exactly what may happen next. This is a land of surprises. I don’t trust these soors any further than I can see them, and however friendly it may suit them to be for the moment they hate us like poison underneath it all.”
“Why, you quite frighten me,” said Mrs Tarleton, anxiously. “I wish they’d come back. It’s getting late too. Oh, what if anything should happen!”
“Something is going to happen, and that before long,” growled Tarleton, looking up, “and that’ll be a thunderstorm. Phew! how close it is. I must have another ‘peg.’” And he, too, shouted for his bearer.
It was even as he had said, close—close and brooding. The sun was getting low, but the blue of the sky on the northern side had merged indefinably into a leaden, vaporous opacity which was gradually and insidiously creeping upward to the zenith. Against this, the peaks stood up, black and bizarre, and here and there, caught by a fitful wind puff, a trail of red dust would stream outward from the summit of a ridge, to lose itself in midair, or perchance to mingle with one of the column-like “dust-devils” which rose gyrating from the plain. Something was bound to come of it—an earthquake, a tornado, or a thunderstorm—probably the latter, for a muffled boom in the direction of the advancing blackness now became audible.