Involuntarily all three drew nearer each other there in the sunshine.
“It was difficult for me to see,” said Selden in his quiet, serious voice. “It was nearly twilight: I lay flat on top of the wall under the curving branches of a huge syringa bush in full bloom. The Yezidees——”
“Were there two!” exclaimed Cleves.
“Two. They were squatting on the old stone path bordering one of the flower-beds.” He turned to Tressa: “They both wore white cloths twisted around their heads, and long soft garments of white. Under these their bare, brown legs showed, but they wore things on their naked feet which were shaped like what we call Turkish slippers—only different.”
“Black and green,” nodded Tressa with the vague horror growing in her face.
“Yes. The soles of their shoes were bright green.”
“Green is the colour sacred to Islam,” said Tressa. “The priests of Satan defile it by staining with green the soles of their footwear.”
After an interval: “Go on,” said Cleves nervously.
Selden drew closer, and they bent their heads to listen:
“I don’t, even now, know what the Yezidees were actually doing. In the twilight it was hard to see clearly. But I’ll tell you what it looked like to me. One of these squatting creatures would scoop out a handful of soil from the flower-bed, and mould it for a few moments between his lean, sinewy fingers, and then he’d open his hands and—and something alive—something small like a rat or a toad, or God knows what, would escape from between his palms and run out into the grass——”