“Ugh—it’s like cats slinking back after a gutter-fight,” the young man muttered.
Ayoub wound his scarf over the bandages, shambled back to the doorway, and squatted down to watch the fig-tree.
The missionaries looked at each other across the empty room.
“What’s the use, sir?” was on Willard’s lips; but instead of speaking he threw himself down on the divan. There was to be no prayer-meeting that afternoon, and the two men sat silent, gazing at the back of Ayoub’s head. A smell of disinfectants hung in the heavy air....
“Where’s Myriem?” Willard asked, to say something.
“I believe she had a ceremony of some sort ... a family affair....”
“A circumcision, I suppose?”
Mr. Blandhorn did not answer, and Willard was sorry he had made the suggestion. It would simply serve as another reminder of their failure....
He stole a furtive glance at Mr. Blandhorn, nervously wondering if the time had come to speak of the French official’s warning. He had put off doing so, half-hoping it would not be necessary. The old man seemed so calm, so like his usual self, that it might be wiser to let the matter drop. Perhaps he had already forgotten the scene on the terrace; or perhaps he thought he had sufficiently witnessed for the Lord in shouting his insult to the muezzin. But Willard did not really believe this: he remembered the tremor which had shaken Mr. Blandhorn after the challenge, and he felt sure it was not a retrospective fear.
“Our friend Spink has been with me,” said Mr. Blandhorn suddenly. “He came in soon after you left.”