THE SIAMESE CAT
ily in that direction; shouted, listened, shouted again, but with no answering sight or sound.
"Foolishness!" he muttered, angry and chagrined. "Wouldn't run in this heat for twenty coolies with twenty cats."
Yet when he had scouted fruitlessly for Borkman, and through the bewildering sameness of jungle and ruins had toiled back to the archway by the great Buddha, it was with a downcast face that he reported failure.
"Lost him," he said, gloomily. "Stupid."
"What a shame!" said Laura. "You've run till you're half dead. Good-bye, Chao Phya! It's all my fault for bringing him. You poor man—but there's blood on you!"
"Thorns," he explained. "Perhaps the guide has caught him."
Aunt Julia roused, with a weary stir.
"I hope not," she said grimly, and again collapsed.
[ 72 ]
