Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/70

56 The American smiled. "Mystery has always been my weak point," he observed; "you bid me beware the island and thus make a mystery of the danger at the start. 'Scenting mystery is like the first bite at a piece of scandal and holy souls do not wholly detest it,' I think I quote the words of Victor Hugo in 'Les Miserables,' If you want a person to leave you alone, don't arouse his curiosity. It's as useless as holding a piece of meat to a starving mongrel and commanding him not to eat."

Menehem Sorcha shrugged his shoulders. "Young men are generally venturesome," he observed. "I see you are no exception to the rule. However, there is no reason for keeping you any longer in ignorance of the facts, since you have come unbidden to the island, evidently intent to stay." He cleared his throat, puffed languidly at his kalyan several times as though in deep reflection, and then resumed, "A quarter of a century ago I, like you, was a wanderer. I had considerable money left me by an old uncle who had the good grace to die when I was a mere child, and finding myself rich and without family, I left Persia for East Africa. I joined a hunting expedition in Abyssinia, and one day we had the good luck to slay two monstrous elephants. As they lay dead, the party of hunters gathered around, commenting on their great size and estimating their value. One of the guides put the figure for the tusks alone down at twenty-five hundred ruppesrupees [sic]. Instantly my interest was aroused, as likewise was the rest of the hunters'. 'How do you make that out?' I asked. 'Each one of those