Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/56

 —to tell him that she was held a captive above the carpets. In the queer fantasy of the dream, Monsey bowed politely and passed on, unheeding. Sheer terror gripped the girl, and she fell to weeping—not so much, she thought, on her own behalf as because of what lay under the carpets. She was very, very sorry for the things, whatever they were.

She could no longer see Iskander, although his hands still held her. But the face of the tall native of Baramula peered into hers. He spoke, and never had Edith felt such utter distress as at the sounds of his heavy words.

"These are no longer alive!" And at the words, the man with the scar pointed to the forms covered by the rugs. Edith felt that in some manner he was kin to the passive figures. Then he stooped to raise one of the rugs with a gigantic hand, and Edith cried out frantically She was awake, her forehead moist, and her thin nightgown cold with perspiration. Huddled, the girl brushed back the damp hair from her brow and stared up into the blackness of her room.

The nightmare had been very real. She still heard the terrific words—so they seemed to her—of the strange native ringing in her ears. With a whimper of subsiding fear the girl cuddled down in her bed, listening to the stentorian breathing of the sleeping Miss Rand.

Awake in the dark, Edith was thankful to hear the quiet footsteps of Rawul Singh on the veranda below her, and to know that the orderly was keeping his nightly post.