Page:The tragedy of the Korosko (IA tragedyofkorosko00doylrich).pdf/76

 his right hand. In this corner you see little pile—all right hands.”

“My sakes, I shouldn’t have liked to be here in those days,” said Miss Adams.

“Why, there’s nothing altered,” remarked Cecil Brown. “The East is still the East. I’ve no doubt that within a hundred miles, or perhaps a good deal less, from where you stand—”

“Shut up!” whispered the Colonel, and the party shuffled on down the line of the wall with their faces up and their big hats thrown backwards. The sun behind them struck the old grey masonry with a brassy glare, and carried on to it the strange black shadows of the tourists, mixing them up with the grim, high-nosed, square-shouldered warriors, and the grotesque, rigid deities who lined it. The broad shadow of the Reverend John Stuart, of Birmingham, smudged out both the heathen King and the god whom he worshipped.

“What’s this?” he was asking in his wheezy voice, pointing up with a yellow Assouan cane.

“That is a hippopotamus,” said the dragoman; and the tourists all tittered, for there