Page:The tragedy of the Korosko (IA tragedyofkorosko00doylrich).pdf/114

 silently at attention upon one side of this forlorn group of castaways.

The chief stood for some minutes, stroking his black beard, while his fierce eyes glanced from one pale face to another along the miserable line of his captives. In a harsh, imperious voice he said something which brought Mansoor, the dragoman, to the front, with bent back and outstretched supplicating palms. To his employers there had always seemed to be something comic in that flapping skirt and short cover-coat above it; but now, under the glare of the mid-day sun, with those faces gathered round them, it appeared rather to add a grotesque horror to the scene. The dragoman salaamed and salaamed like some ungainly automatic doll, and then, as the chief rasped out a curt word or two, he fell suddenly upon his face, rubbing his forehead into the sand, and flapping upon it with his hands.

“What’s that, Cochrane?” asked Belmont. “Why is he making an exhibition of himself?”

“As far as I can understand, it is all up with us,” the Colonel answered.

“But this is absurd,” cried the Frenchman