CHAPTER XXI
“At the close of night the cries are heard.”—Arabic Proverb.
Yussuf, with his back against the door of Ralph Trenchard’s hut, lifted his face to the star-bestrewn sky.
He waited.
He waited for the striking of his hour of revenge, which had been fixed by Fate in the beginning of Time; he waited imperturbably for Allah, in His compassion and wisdom, to remove the Nubian, who sat cross-legged and contemplative and to all appearances absolutely unmovable by his side.
Al-Asad sat leaning slightly forward, looking into the shadows with dreamy, half-shut eyes, then turned his head and listened as though, above the distant noise of the men’s shouting and laughter, some sound had reached his ears.
“Camels!” he said softly. “Camels going out. Methought our brothers were having their fill of wrestling?”
Yussuf also had heard the sound of a dromedary grunting its disapproval as it made the steep ascent, but no sign of his inner perturbation showed on his placid, mutilated face.
“Zarah the Merciless makes ready for the white man’s journey into the desert to-morrow. Our brethren of the stables even now revile her shadow, for instead of loading the dromedaries with water skins and provender, they would try their strength against Bowlegs, who, in his vanity, swears by the wind that no man can excel him in the games taught by the white man.”