spaces of the air, leaving no trace behind. She might then have
departed, have faded into the scented silence and darkness of this land
so strange and desolate. Renfrew supposed the departure an actual fact.
What a loneliness would fill his night then; if that little tent stood
empty, if that slim sleeper were removed from the camp round which the
jackals sat on their tiny haunches, whining like peevish spirits. He
trembled beneath the weight of this absurd supposition, revelling in the
intolerable with the folly of worship. Gradually he forced himself on
step by step along the fanciful path till he had assured his imagination
that Claire was really gone, and that he was just such a travelling
Englishman as may come alone across the Straits, take out a camp, and
spend his days in stalking wild boar, or shooting duck, his nights in
the heavy slumber of complete weariness. And, at length, having gained a
ghastly summit of imaginative despair, he suddenly stretched forth his
hand, unhooked the canvas that shrouded Claire's tent door, and peeped
cautiously in, courting the delicious revulsion of feeling which he
would secure when he saw her half defined form in the shadow of the
leaning roof that hid her from the stars.

He bent forward with greedy anxiety. But the pale and tragic face he
looked for, did not greet his eyes. The tent was empty.

Renfrew stood for a moment holding back the canvas flap with one hand.
This denial calmly offered to his expectation bewildered him. He was
confused, and for a moment scarcely thought at all. Then his mind broke
away with the violence of a dog unleashed, and ran a wild course of
surmises. He thought first of rousing the camp and organising an
immediate search. Then he remembered the absence of the two soldiers who
ought to be guarding the tents and the mules. Claire gone, those
soldiers absent! He linked the two facts together, and turned white and
sick. But he did not rouse the camp. Indeed, he thanked God that all the
men were sleeping. He sprang softly back from the tent, turned on his
heel, and stole out of the camp so silently that he scarcely seemed a
living thing. The ground towards the water was boggy and spongy, and the
scent of the thickly growing myrtles was heavy in the air. Renfrew
brushed through them swiftly. He heard the harsh snuffling of a boar,
and the tread of its feet in the mud at the water-side. And these sounds
filled the night with a sense of unknown dangers.