“One would think not,” Traherne assented.
“In any case, they wouldn’t dare to molest us,” Major Crespin said nonchalantly across the fresh cigarette he was lighting.
Traherne shot him a sharp look. Did Crespin for one moment believe that? Or was he trying to reassure his wife? The latter no doubt, Traherne concluded.
“All the same,” the physician said—and following Crespin’s lead by saying it lightly, “it might be safest to burn this paragraph, in case there’s anybody here that can read it.” And he suited action to words, lighting at Crespin’s cigarette the strip of paper he tore out carefully, watching it burn until it licked at his fingers, and he had to drop the flaming fragment. But he watched it burn to the last ash, and then stamped upon that. Lucilla watched it too—they all did, and Yazok the priest watched most intently of all.
Mrs. Crespin held out her hand for the rest of the newspaper, and when Traherne gave it she went and put it with her leather coat where it lay on a rock as Traherne had placed it.
“Hullo!” Crespin held up a hand.
Strange ululations, mingled with the throb of tom-toms and the clash of cymbals were faintly heard from the distance—faint, but growing clearer and clearer, from the mountain-path up which the runner had sped at the priest’s command.
“Hullo!” the Major repeated. “What’s this?”
“Sounds like the march of the Great Panjandrum,” Traherne murmured.
It certainly did; and it looked even more than it sounded, when it swept and pranced into sight.