"Did you tell her I was not hurt?"
"I could not. I did not know what had happened. It was at the very worst, when she seemed to know the feel of fresh power."
"You were with them, Bamban, when they made the plan to separate us. What brought it about?"
Bamban's whole concern seemed to be to answer in a way that would be exactly true and at the same time relieve his master's agony. "They asked me many questions as to our work in the desert—why we had come west from Nadiram. I told them of the mission as I know it—of the waiting leaders in Peking. Then they asked me about the woman, and I said that I was not in the knowledge of your concern with her. They asked if the woman had come from Peking with you. I said no. They asked where you had found her. I told them in Nadiram. They asked what I thought of your bringing the woman with you on this mission. I said I was your servant and that I had no authority to think. They did not make their plans regarding the separation in my hearing."
"Thank you, Bamban."
Romney could not feel his real life. The pain across his chest had returned. At intervals he talked with the boy, who answered patiently, but could give no more than has been said. The white man felt the repetitions, halted in shame, remembering suddenly that he had asked in regard to certain matters many times before—yet his mind would come up from its black depth with the same question again. At times he was childish. He would have taken Bamban's hand if it were night. He thought often of Nadiram as a safe place. It would be heaven to ride on to Wampli—if Anna Erivan were safely back in the Consulate. He had not been strong enough to leave her there! ... Now Anna Erivan was in the hands of the Dugpas, at the mercy of a desert band—carried away by dark men who frothed at the lips.... Often his face turned back. Once he broke out laughing. It was toward the end of the day....
Bamban talked to him after that—told the story again and again without questions, making him listen. Their little band halted for the evening. They meant to reach Wampli the next afternoon. The sun was down, but the sky filled with afterglow—the south still brazen, the east dull, the west ablaze, the north a cool blue-green of pasture-lands. Many times Bamban asked his master to sip the tea. Food was not to be thought of. At last the servant followed the white man's eyes, which were lost in the south.
"What do you see?" Bamban whispered.
"It has the look of a low-flying swan to me."
Bamban saw the flash of white against the sky. It was like developing a plate. A superb camel cleared in the heightening glow, all shadows and distances falling away—a mighty dromedary, pure white, lean and tall in dull gold trappings. Bamban could only think of the words of his master—a low-flying swan.