Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/119

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THE BANDAGED BEGGAR
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the American listened with eyes fixed upon that unmoving figure, while Mahomet Mansour hurried across the sands, entered like a fluttering shadow, and said something to his master.

"Good! Colonel Spottiswoode, here's the carriage with your black man."

Lykoff and Gargarin were sitting much nearer to the sheikh, but Lykoff was not interested in desert problems. Through the gap in the low partition he could still see the beggar, and was the first to hear the crunch of wheels which toiled through muffling sand. The carriage halted and a British soldier stepped out.

"Here you are," he said, and Old Reliable climbed down from the box where he had been sitting beside the driver.