Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/133

 "He who knows the sickness of the spirit has tended Dono-van Khan skillfully. We have come in time."

Edith glanced swiftly at the Mohammedan physician. He was regarding her steadily, his dried lips framing soundless words. The other two, heavier men, bearing the stamp of authority, waited patiently. Edith's keen wit told her that they expected something of her, particularly the physician.

"Mahmoud el Dar," Iskander spoke her thought, "the hakim. He is wise, very wise. There is no wisdom like to his."

A breath of air passed through the stone chamber. The candles in the lamps flickered. And the shrouded light by the couch went out. It left the face of Donovan dark.

"Hai!" muttered Iskander and two of the three watchers echoed his exclamation. The fatalism inbred in all followers of the Prophet had taken fire at the darkening of the lamp. Edith was alert, sensitive to all that passed in the chamber. She understood that her own life, to these men, was a slight thing beside the life of John Donovan.

In the stone room of the garden house, isolated in the impenetrable hills, Mahmoud and those with him had treasured the life in the sick man, guarding it against her coming. Why?

Mahmoud spoke.

"He says," interpreted Iskander, "that the lamp was truly an omen. Yet not, of itself, an omen of death. Mahmoud is very wise. He says that a new lamp must be lit by your hand. Obey."

As if she had been a child obedient to an older person, Edith took the bronze lamp the Arab gave her, and with a wisp of cotton ignited it from another