Your blindness may be merely temporary." The Syrian doctor, however, pursed up his lips and shook his head.

He advised an immediate departure to Cairo.

It was a case for a specialist.
He himself would hesitate to pronounce an opinion; though, to be sure, there was always hope of a cure.
"Have you ever suffered an injury in the head ?" he asked.

"Were you ever thrown from your horse?
Were you wounded ?" "No," said Durrance.
The Syrian did not disguise his conviction that the case was grave; and after he had departed both men were silent for some time.

Calder had a feeling that any attempt at consolation would be futile in itself, and might, moreover, in betraying his own fear that the hurt was irreparable, only discourage his companion.