It had come to him at last, this dread thing, unheralded, totally unexpected, a few minutes after Sanang had departed.
And he suddenly knew he was going to die.
And, when, presently, he comprehended it, he bent his grizzled head and listened seriously. And, after a little silence, he heard his soul bidding him farewell.
So the chatter of white men at a telephone in the next apartment had no longer any significance for him. Whether or not they had been spying on him; whether they were plotting, made no difference to him now.
He tested his knife’s edge with his thumb and listened gravely to his soul bidding him farewell.
But, for a Yezidee, there was still a little detail to attend to before his soul departed;—two matters to regulate. One was to select his shroud. The other was to cut the white throat of this young snow-leopardess called Keuke Mongol, the Yezidee temple girl.
And he could steal down to her bedroom and finish that matter in five minutes.
But first he must choose his shroud, as is the custom of the Yezidee.
That office, however, was quickly accomplished in a country where fine white sheets of linen are to be found on every hotel bed.
So, on his way to the door, his naked knife in his right hand, he paused to fumble under the bed-covers and draw out a white linen sheet.