Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/423

 window, he found himself drifting back into his nightmare fancies and again condemned to clear all the sand from the Sahara with a child's tin shovel; then, looking out of the window, he saw standing below, across the roadway, the big white camel Tinker had ridden into Biskra on his return from Sidi Okba in the rosy sunset of the day before. The sight of the great beast, placidly waiting for tourists, made Ogle shiver: he saw long and cruel tusks projecting from this innocent camel. For a weight as of horror was upon the young man's soul; and beneath it were layers of emotion, all uncomfortable: resentment, jealousy, the hot sense of being not only used but ill-used; and, hardest to bear, a furious kind of shame brought about by remembering that he had once thought himself a "man of the world"!

At noon he went for a walk eastward toward the Desert, hoping to dispel some portion of these humours in the strong sunshine; but, being alone, he was presently so beset by beggars and the pedlars of daggers that he turned back toward the hotel, more wretched than when he set forth. The Arabs turned back with him, increasing their importunities with every step; and although he gave money to the beggars and bought knives of the pedlars, the beggars whined the