Heywood
stooped above the quivering flame, lighted a cigar, and sinking loosely
into a chair, blew the smoke upward in slow content.
"Luxury!" he yawned. "Nothing to do, nothing to fret about, till the
compradore reports. Wonderful--too good to be true."
For a long time, lying side by side, they might have been asleep.
Through the dim light on the white walls dipped and swerved the drunken
shadow of a bat, who now whirled as a flake of blackness across the
stars, now swooped and set the humbler flame reeling. The flutter of his
leathern wings, and the plash of water in the dark, where a coolie still
drenched the flags, marked the sleepy, soothing measures in a nocturne,
broken at strangely regular intervals by a shot, and the crack of a
bullet somewhere above in the deserted chambers.
"Queer," mused Heywood, drowsily studying his watch. "The beggar puts
one shot every five minutes through the same window.--I wonder what he's
thinking about? Lying out there, firing at the Red-Bristled Ghosts. Odd!
Wonder what they're all"--He put back his cigar, mumbling. "Handful of
poor blackguards, all upset in their minds, and sweating round.
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