"Monsieur," he said, with an expansive smile, "Monsieur is without doubt a thorough man of the world."
That night, in the suburbs of the city, sweet and fragrant as the olive groves and fig trees were, cool and fresh as the night wind was, Spence slept but little.
He could hear the prowling dogs of the streets baying the Eastern moon, the owls hooted in the trees, but it was not these distant sounds, all mellowed by the distance, which drove rest and sleep away. It was the imminent sense of the great issues of the morrow, a wild and fierce excitement which forbade sleep or rest and filled his veins with fire.
He could not quite realise what awful things hung upon the event of the coming day. He knew that his brain could not contain the whole terror and vastness of the thought.
Indeed, he felt that no brain could adequately realise the importance of it all.
Yet even that partial realisation of which he was capable was enough to drive all peace away, the live-long night, to leave him nothing but the plangent, burning thought.
He was very glad when the cool, hopeful dawn came.
The nightmare of vigil was gone. Action was at hand. He prayed in the morning air.
Presently, from the city gates, he saw a little cavalcade drawing near, twelve soldiers on wiry Damascene horses, an officer, with the Governor's secretary riding by his side.
Those preliminaries of a signed draft upon the bank, which cupidity and the occasion demanded, were soon over.