So Recklow’s pistol swung lightly in his right hand and Cleves’ weapon lay in his side-pocket, and they strolled leisurely around the drive and up and down the white-shell walks, passing Tressa at regular intervals, where she sat in her hammock with the moon-lute across her knees.
Once Cleves paused to place two pink hibiscus blossoms in her hair above her ears; and the girl smiled gravely at him in the light.
Again, pausing beside her hammock on one of their tours of the garden, Recklow said in a low voice: “If the beast would only show himself, Mrs. Cleves, we’d not miss him. Have you caught a glimpse of anything white in the woods?”
“Only the night mist rising from the branch and a white ibis stealing through it.”
Cleves came nearer: “Do you think the Yezidee is in the woods watching us, Tressa?”
“Yes, he is there,” she said calmly.
“You know it?”
“Yes.”
Recklow stared at the woods. “We can’t go in to hunt for him,” he said. “That fellow would get us with his Lewisite gas before we could discover and destroy him.”
“Suppose he waits for a west wind and squirts his gas in this direction?” whispered Cleves.