Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/92

 very light, beckoning men to follow. Tarfa, he who went and came not back, saw and said it is the god of that altar we have profaned. The desert has swallowed him; for it is three days since he hath gone." Then he called Allah to witness—for he was a good Mohammedan—that he intended no meddling with unseen things, that he was forced to obey orders, and that he was a flower in Allah's hands.

"I don't understand what's got into the brutes," Holloway said fretfully.

"They're just a bit nervous," Merritt assured him. "It seems as though this place always had a bad name, from the earliest times. The men are superstitious, and they don't know exactly what they're up against. I think Tarfa is responsible for the mummy, and invented the tale of