Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/297

 satirically addressed to the universe the remark that this was Africa, the land of torrid heat.

At a little after nine o'clock he heard Mme. Momoro return, her rich voice sounding cheerfully from the hallway in conversation with several unmistakably English voices. Evidently, other tourists had been forth for the moonlit view, and she had made acquaintances. One of the English voices, a man's, he had somewhere heard before, he thought, though for the moment he could not identify it. It was a tenor voice of a tinny quality, and easily ran into falsetto. "Most remarkable!" it exclaimed. "Most indeed! Quite an experience for my wife and my secret'ry, Miss Crewe, as well as myself. Quite indeed—Teen-Kah."

At least that was what Ogle understood the English voice to say; and he supposed "Teen-Kah" to be the name of one of the moonlit Djurdjurra snowpeaks the party had just been observing. "Teen-Kah" was probably what the Kabyles called the highest and most outrageous of their mountains. "Teen-Kah sounds like what such people would call a mountain!" he thought sourly; and toward them and all their mountains and Teen-Kah in particular—since it was probably for the view of Teen