[The Ivory Child by H. Rider Haggard]@TWC D-Link bookThe Ivory Child CHAPTER XVIII 8/21
Well, I am glad the brute is coming as I have an account to settle with him." "As he, Lord, who does not forget, has an account to settle with you and your servant, Light-in-Darkness," commented Harut in an unpleasant and suggestive tone. Then after we had taken a few measurements and Ragnall, who understands such matters, had drawn a rough sketch of the place in his pocket-book to serve as data for our proposed scheme of fortifications, we pursued our journey back to the town, where we had left all our stores and there were many things to be arranged.
It proved to be quite a long ride, down the eastern slope of the mountain which was easy to negotiate, although like the rest of this strange hill it was covered with dense cedar forests that also seemed to me to have defensive possibilities.
Reaching its foot at length we were obliged to make a detour by certain winding paths to avoid ground that was too rough for the camels, so that in the end we did not come to our own house in the Town of the Child till about midday. Glad enough were we to reach it, since all three of us were tired out with our terrible night journey and the anxious emotions that we had undergone.
Indeed, after we had eaten we lay down and I rejoiced to see that, notwithstanding the state of mental excitement into which the discovery of his wife had plunged him, Ragnall was the first of us to fall asleep. About five o'clock we were awakened by a messenger from Harut, who requested our attendance on important business at a kind of meeting-house which stood at a little distance on an open place where the White Kendah bartered produce.
Here we found Harut and about twenty of the headmen seated in the shade of a thatched roof, while behind them, at a respectful distance, stood quite a hundred of the White Kendah.
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