Page:Henry rideout--The siamese cat.djvu/83

 One: all measured the duration and marked the repose of his dream.

They were dismounting, when Laura cried in a startled voice:

"What was that?"

"Where?" asked Owen, beside her.

"Behind that wall. Some one dodged out of sight—Just then—"

Owen strode forward, but saw only a pair of bare feet whisk round the corner of a distant thicket.

"Some native," he laughed. "He had a worse fright than you."

Borkman had gone ahead with their coolie.

"Tiffin-basket here, I take it, madam?" he inquired, returning. At a glance he had chosen the only possible corner in the stifled clearing—a ruinous archway, under which the travellers found both shade from the truculent sun, and a draught of air, in faint, hot