“Would you care to see if you can recognise him? These are really marvellous glasses.”
Domini took them from him with some eagerness.
“Twist them about till they suit your eyes.”
At first she could see nothing but a fierce yellow glare. She turned the screw and gradually the desert came to her, startlingly distinct. The boulders of the river bed were enormous. She could see the veins of colour in them, a lizard running over one of them and disappearing into a dark crevice, then the white tower and the Arabs beneath it. One was an old man yawning; the other a boy. He rubbed the tip of his brown nose, and she saw the henna stains upon his nails. She lifted the glasses slowly and with precaution. The tower ran away. She came to the low cliff, to the brown huts and the palms, passed them one by one, and reached the last, which was separated from its companions. Under it stood a tall Arab in a garment like a white night-shirt.
“He looks as if he had only one eye!” she exclaimed.
“The palm-tree man—yes.”
She travelled cautiously away from him, keeping the glasses level.
“Ah!” she said on an indrawn breath.
As she spoke the thin, nasal cry of a distant voice broke upon her ears, prolonging a strange call.
“The Mueddin,” said Count Anteoni.