Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/108

 exclaimed Maurice. “One would think it was the Grand Lama himself from all the fuss that’s being made.”

“Perhaps he’s frozen,” I suggested, cheerfully.

“Shouldn’t wonder! It must be frightful to ride in this temperature in an arrangement like that. Look, George! Look! Why they are taking him out by the heels. It’s just as you say, he must be frozen. Merciful heaven! That is what the fellow meant by a guest who would not crowd us off  the k’ang. They are bringing us a corpse!”

We pushed forward, elbowed by the camel drivers who seemed just as curious as ourselves.

Between them the six men who had pressed around the litter were carrying a human form, so enveloped in sheep-skins that we could not tell at first whether it was man or  woman. Only the face was exposed and as yet we were not near enough to see that.

Slowly they walked toward the inn door, the camel drivers moving aside as they advanced.

“Now is our chance for a look, George!” whispered Maurice, as they came past the spot where we had stationed ourselves. “Tell you what, old fellow, if we are to be housed up for the rest of the night with a dead man and a gang  like this, I’m for taking to the road again, unless—great  God! Look there!”

“What?”

“The corpse—the face!”

“I can’t see the face; it is covered with a cloth!”

“No, no! Not all covered! Look! Look!”

I leaned forward, for now the long haired bearers were in the act of passing us.

Had I been blind that I had not seen before—that I had not guessed?

The corpse was that of a man, the face was one which I, least of all men in the world should ever forget.

“Oh, Maurice!”

I could say no more, for the face seen among the sheep-skins was the face of our Mr. Mirrikh, the man from the planet Mars.