“You practice the art of healing, sir, I perceive,” suggested Ezra, looking at these.
But Abdallah shook his head.
“I am fairly well versed in the business of a leech,” he replied. “But I give but little time to it.”
Illustration: “YOU PRACTICE THE ART OF HEALING, SIR”
Here Ezra caught an odd, muffled, lingering sound. It was low and indistinct. Thinking it was something outside—a bird, a small animal or such—he paid no attention to it. But at the same time he noticed a peculiar expression upon the face of Abdallah, and he also saw the look which the man flashed at him.
“To be a surgeon, or even an apothecary in such a lonely place, would profit mankind or myself very little,” proceeded the man in his usual tone of grave gentleness.
He smiled at the boy, who nodded a reply. Again the odd sound was repeated. It was murmurous and lingering, rising and falling in a measured sort of way.
“It is within the house,” Ezra told himself. “And it is the voice of some one in conversation.”
But he felt the dark eyes of the Oriental fixed upon him and his face never changed. The sound, apparently, was one that Abdallah would prefer to have unheard; so Ezra’s face held nothing but polite interest in the other’s remarks.