Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/139

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The One Who Went Away


"But it is the place, my master, where one hour ago my eyes did see it. By Allah, it is the place! It has gone, and because I tracked it, its wrath shall come upon me, and I shall perish as did my master and my friends. Oh, master, come away! The place is cursed. It is the lair of the evil soul, which we have freed from death to lure us into death. Ai, master, come!"

"Get along With you, you chicken-heart!" Merritt muttered in wrathful Anglo-Saxon, and waved him off. The man knew not the words, but took the hint and fled. For an hour Merritt patiently searched the mounds, the abandoned trenches, the deserted tombs. Once he looked up, feeling eyes upon him, and said with annoyance:

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