CHAPTER XXIII
THE PLEDGE IS BROKEN
"Excellency, the night was coming and the garden was a place of shadows. Even so, for the trumpets had blown. An owl could have seen. I am not an owl. How was I to know? All unworthy, thou despisest me. Truly, my sorrow has gripped me—here."
Aravang was speaking in his own tongue. As he ended he smote his muscled chest with a knotted fist that made the hollow within his bones echo like a drum. Air escaped his bearded lips in a long, hissing breath.
Impatiently, Donovan moved. He was standing, feet planted wide, at the edge of the balcony overlooking the garden and the gray expanse that was the lake's surface. Under impulse of a fresh breeze the water's margin lapped against the stones.
"From the beginning," he said slowly, "tell me what you did and what you saw. I do not blame you. But I must know."
Aravang squatted on his heels, facing the lake, struggling with the need of intelligent speech. Unlike Iskander, he was a man of few words, and fewer ideas. While the native talked, the white man bent nearer to catch each syllable. His brain was afire with the need of action. Yet men who have commanded others in the armies of the world know the folly of action upon insufficient information.
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