"Who is it?" she asked again, subduing her voice.
"Why—Kamis, of course." The answer came in a tone of surprise. "You expected me, did n't you? Your light was burning."
"Expected you? No," said Margaret "I didn't expect you; you ought n't to have come."
"But—" the voice was protesting; "my message. It was on the paper around the aloe plumes. I particularly told the fat Kafir woman to give you that, and she promised. If your light was burning, I 'd throw something up at your window, and if not, I 'd go away. That was it."
The night breeze came in at the tail of his words with a dry rustling of the dead vines.
"There was no paper," said Margaret.
The Kafir below uttered an angry exclamation which she did not catch.
"If only you don't mind," he said, then. "I got Paul's message from you and I had to try and see you."
"Yes," said Margaret. She could not see him at all; under the lee of the house the night was black, though at a hundred paces off she could make out the lie of the ground in the starlight. His whispering voice was akin to the night.
"Then you don't mind?" he urged.