CHAPTER XIII
HE PROVES HIMSELF MASTER OF MEN
Presently, the boat scraped and bumped against the side; the first to ascend was Soly, the second the Tawarek.
O'Rourke was awaiting him at the head of the gangway, respectfully, as befitted the welcomer of a man of rank and place in his country—as the Irishman suspected the visitor to be. To none else than a head man, he considered, would such an errand be intrusted—a matter which affected the interests of a whole tribe.
Nor was he wrong, as he realized when the Tawarek stalked past him without deigning him a glance or a word. The man Soly himself had jumped at once to the threshold of the saloon door, where he stood at attention, his keen eyes furtively alternating between the faces of the Irishman, the native envoy and those in the interior of the cabin.
To him, evidently content to recognize in the man who spoke his native Tamahak his only friend, the Tawarek went direct, and when the soldier stepped to one side, accepted the implied invitation and entered the saloon.
O'Rourke followed,—himself a large man, but dwarfed for the moment by the huge stature of the enormous Tawarek.
Fully six feet six inches in height (a tallness not unusual among his kin, however), and broad and heavy in proportion, he stood with his shoulders well back and proudly, as became a free lord of the Sahara, one who neither bows the
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