Nevill had not quite finished his toilet, for he had a kind of boyish
vanity, and wished to show how well and smart he could look after the
long, tiresome journey. But Stephen was ready, and he stepped out,
closing the door behind him.
"Can't you find your servant?" he asked the keeper of the bordj.
"No," said the man, adding some epithets singularly unflattering to the
absent one and his ancestors. "He has vanished as if his father, the
devil, had dragged him down to hell."
"Where are the others?" inquired Stephen. "My men and my friend's men?
Are they still standing outside the gates, watching the boy and his
caravan?"
"I saw them nowhere," returned the Frenchman. "It is bad enough to keep
one Arab in order. I do not run after others. Would that the whole
nation might die like flies in a frost! I hate them. What am I to do
for my dinner, and ladies in the bordj for the first time? It is just my
luck. I cannot leave the kitchen, and that brute Abdallah has not laid
the table! When I catch him I will wring his neck as if he were a hen."
He trotted back to the kitchen, swearing, and an instant later he was
visible through the open door, drinking something out of a bottle.
Stephen went to the door of the third and last guest-room of the bordj.
It was larger than the others, and had no furniture except a number of
thick blue and red rugs spread one on top of the other, on the floor.
This was the place where those who paid least were accommodated, eight
or ten at a time if necessary; and it was expected that Hamish and Angus
would have to share the room with the Arab guides of both parties.
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