Page:Andrew Klarmann - The Fool of God (1913).pdf/18

Rh but he seemed oblivious of the embarrassment so protracted an inspection was bound to cause a helpless mite who, despite this affectionate scrutiny, remained recollected, and, reading his interest in his face, appeared to unite her own speculation with his, looking backward far beyond their present concerns and condition. "May the blessing of your fathers rest upon your head forever," at last murmured Rachor, and with one hand parting her tunic a little, directly be neath her throat, reverently imprinted a kiss upon a mark visible on her breast, of the shape of a small, three-armed cross, and of the color of the hyacinth. But at that moment there sounded a shout of alarm from one of the two guards who had been posted at the entrance of the hollow on the top of two horns of the riven rock which surrounded the place of their retreat.

The depression in which they were camping was probably an old, dried-up salt pool, unevenly filled with the fine sand and dust which the winds of the desert had for many years blown into it, and was bordered by a ring of crumbling rock like the brim of a wine goblet battered from strenuous service of many years. Between the rifts and cracks where a little moisture might remain from a straying cloud of a capricious winter, scanty tufts of wiry grass, several hard-and-dry thorn bushes, and giant thistles as hardy and dry as the thorns had made their home. Their presence did not enhance the appearance of hospitality. Beneath them may be lurking the poisonous toad, lizards of shape and humor ugly, and other disgusting vermin. They may even conceal a creature more hostile to man than the weird creeping dwellers of darkness - a hostile brother-man.