This page has been validated.
THE LURKER IN THE RUINS
One: all measured the duration and marked the repose of his dream.
They were dismounting, when Laura cried in a startled voice:
"What was that?"
"Where?" asked Owen, beside her.
"Behind that wall. Some one dodged out of sight—Just then—"
Owen strode forward, but saw only a pair of bare feet whisk round the corner of a distant thicket.
"Some native," he laughed. "He had a worse fright than you."
Borkman had gone ahead with their coolie.
"Tiffin-basket here, I take it, madam?" he inquired, returning. At a glance he had chosen the only possible corner in the stifled clearing—a ruinous archway, under which the travellers found both shade from the truculent sun, and a draught of air, in faint, hot
[ 67 ]