“Thirteen hundred years!” she exclaimed. “How strange to feel it so! It is like looking at old graves. And how high the walls are, closing up the gorge between the hills.”
At that moment Mrs. Callendar drew our attention to Mrs. Falchion and a party from the ship. Mrs. Falchion was but a few paces from us, smiling agreeably as she acknowledged our greetings. Presently two of her party came to us and asked us to share their lunch. I would have objected, and I am certain Belle Treherne would gladly have done so, but Mrs. Callendar was anxious to accept, therefore we expressed our gratitude and joined the group. On second thoughts I was glad that we did so, because, otherwise, my party must have been without refreshments until they returned to the ship—the restaurants at Aden are not to be trusted. To me Mrs. Falchion was pleasantly impersonal, to Miss Treherne delicately and actively personal. At the time I had a kind of fear of her interest in the girl, but I know now that it was quite sincere, though it began with a motive not very lofty—to make Belle Treherne her friend, and so annoy me, and also to study, as would an anatomist, the girl’s life.
We all moved into the illusive shade of the fig and magnolia trees, and lunch was soon spread. As we ate, conversation turned upon the annoying persistency of Eastern guides, and reference was made to the exciting circumstances attending the engagement of Amshar, the guide of Mrs. Falchion’s party. Among a score of claimants, Amshar had had one particular opponent—a personal enemy—who would not desist even when the choice had been made. He, indeed, had been the first to solicit the party, and was rejected because of his disagreeable looks. He had even followed the trap from the Port of Aden. As one of the gentlemen was remarking on the muttered anger of the disappointed Arab, Mrs. Falchion. said: “There he is now at the gate of the garden.”
His look was sullenly turned upon our party. Blackburn, the Queenslander said, “Amshar, the other fellow is following up the game,” and pointed to the gate.
Amshar understood the gesture at least, and though he gave a toss of the head, I noticed that his hand trembled as he handed me a cup of water, and that he kept his eyes turned on his opponent.
“One always feels unsafe with these cut-throat races,” said Colonel Ryder, “as some of us know, who have had to deal with the nigger of South America. They think no more of killing a man—”
“Than an Australian squatter does of dispersing a mob of aboriginals or kangaroos,” said Clovelly.
Here Mrs. Callendar spoke up briskly. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘dispersing.’”
“You know what a kangaroo battue is, don’t you?”
“But that is killing, slaughtering kangaroos by the hundred.”