Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/147

 His voice held menace and power and warning. They murmured. Merritt's eyes flashed; he sprang from the low hillock of earth. He was unarmed, but they shrank back. And it was then that a sound broke in upon them; and Ibraheem, wheeling to look, cried aloud, and ran to Merritt and shook his arm, shouting:

"Look see, saar! Oh, Lord-God, look see!"

Behind them, so that they turned to see it, a figure was racing over the sands rapidly, stumbling with staggering steps, a gaunt skeleton with fluttering rags; and as it came it cried three times, hoarsely: "Merritt, Merritt, Merritt!" and stumbled on past Merritt, looking neither to the right nor left, reeling drunkenly,