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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Desert Air, by Robert Hichens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Desert Air
+       1905
+
+Author: Robert Hichens
+
+Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23418]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESERT AIR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+DESERT AIR
+
+By Robert Hichens
+
+Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers
+
+Copyright, 1905
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+On an evening of last summer I was dining in London at the Carlton with
+two men. One of them was an excellent type of young England, strong,
+healthy, athletic, and straightforward. The other was a clever London
+doctor who was building up a great practice in the West End. At dessert
+the conversation turned upon a then recent tragedy in which a great
+reputation had gone down, and young England spoke rather contemptuously
+of the victim, with the superior surprise human beings generally express
+about the sin which does not happen to be theirs.
+
+"I can't understand it!" was his conclusion. "It's beyond me."
+
+"Climate," said the doctor quietly.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Climate. Air."
+
+Young England looked inexpressively astonished.
+
+"But hang it all!" he exclaimed, "you don't mean to say change of air
+means change of nature?"
+
+"Not to everyone. Not to you, perhaps. Have you travelled much?"
+
+"Well, I've been to Paris for the Grand Prix, and to Monte----"
+
+"For the gambling. That's hardly travelling. Now, I've studied this
+subject a little, quietly in Harley Street. I'm no traveller myself,
+but I have dozens of patients who are. And I'm convinced that the modern
+facilities for travel, besides giving an infinity of pleasure, bring
+about innumerable tragedies."
+
+He turned to me.
+
+"You go abroad a great deal. What do you say?"
+
+"That you're perfectly right. And I'm prepared to affirm that, in
+highly-strung, imaginative, or over-worked people change of climate does
+sometimes actually cause, or seem to cause, change of nature."
+
+Young England, who was by no means highly-strung or imaginative, looked
+politely dubious, but the doctor was evidently pleased.
+
+"An ally!" he cried.
+
+He glanced at me for an instant, then added:
+
+"You've got a case that proves it, at any rate to you, in your mind."
+
+"Quite true."
+
+"Can you give it us?"
+
+"Jove! let's have it!" exclaimed young England.
+
+"Certainly, if you like," I said. "I don't know whether you ever heard
+of the Marnier affair?"
+
+Young England shook his head, but the doctor replied at once.
+
+"Three years ago, wasn't it?"
+
+"Four."
+
+"And it happened in some remote place in the Sahara Desert?"
+
+"In Beni-Kouidar. I was with Henry Marnier in Beni-Kouidar at the time."
+
+"Go ahead!" said young England more eagerly.
+
+"Poor Marnier was not an old friend of mine, but an acquaintance whom I
+had met casually at Beni-Mora, which is known as a health resort."
+
+"I send patients there sometimes," said the doctor.
+
+"The railway stops at Beni-Mora. To reach Beni-Kouidar one must go on
+horse or camel back over between three and four hundred kilometres of
+desert, sleeping on the way at Travellers' Houses--Bordjs as they are
+called there. Beni-Kouidar lies in the midst of immeasurable sands,
+and the air that blows through its palm gardens, and round its mosque
+towers, and down its alleys under the arcades, is startling: dry as the
+finest champagne, almost fiercely pure and fresh, exhilarating--well,
+too exhilarating for certain people."
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"Champagne goes very quickly to some heads," he interjected.
+
+"Beni-Kouidar has nothing to say to modern civilisation. It is a wild
+and turbulent city, divided into quarters--the Arab quarter, the Jews'
+quarter, the freed negroes' quarter, and so on--and furthermore, is
+infested at certain seasons by the Sahara nomads, who camp in filthy
+tents on the huge sand dunes round about, and sell rugs, burnouses, and
+Touareg work to the inhabitants, buying in return the dates for which
+the palms of Beni-Kouidar are celebrated.
+
+"I wanted to see a real Sahara city to which the Cook's tourist had not
+as yet penetrated, and I resolved to ride there from Beni-Mora. When
+Henry Marnier heard of it he asked if he might accompany me.
+
+"Marnier was a young man who had recently left Oxford, and who had come
+out to Beni-Mora only a week before to see his mother, who was
+going through the sulphur cure. He was what is generally called a
+'serious-minded young man'; intellectual, inclined to grave reading and
+high thinking, totally devoid of frivolity, a little cold in manner and
+temperament, one would have sworn; in fact, a type of a very well-known
+kind of Oxford undergraduate, the kind that takes a good tutorship for a
+year or so after leaving the University, and then becomes a schoolmaster
+or a clergyman. Marnier, by the way, intended to take orders.
+
+"Now, this sort of young man is not precisely my sort, and especially
+not my sort in the Sahara Desert. But I did not want to be rude to
+Marnier, who was friendly and agreeable, and obviously anxious to
+increase his already considerable store of knowledge. So I put my
+inclinations in my pocket, and, with inward reluctance, I agreed.
+
+"We set off with Safti, my faithful one-eyed Arab guide, and after three
+long days of riding and talking--as I had feared--Maeterlink and
+Tolstoy, Henley and Verlaine (this last being utterly condemned by
+Marnier as a man of weak character and degraded life) we saw the towers
+of Beni-Kouidar aspiring above the shifting sands, the tufted summits of
+the thousands of palm-trees, and heard the dull beating of drums and the
+cries of people borne to us over the spaces of which silence is the
+steady guardian.
+
+"We were all pretty tired, but Marnier was, especially done up. He had
+recently been working very hard for the 'first' with which he had left
+Oxford, and was not in good condition. We were, therefore, glad enough
+when we rode through the wide street thronged with natives, turned the
+corner into the great camel market, and finally dismounted before
+the door of the one inn, the 'Rendezvous des Amis,' a mean, dusty,
+one-storey building, on whose dirty white wall was a crude painting of a
+preposterous harridan in a purple empire gown, pouring wine for a Zouave
+who was evidently afflicted with elephantiasis. Yet, tired as I was,
+I stepped out into the camel market for a moment before going into the
+house, emptied my lungs, and slowly filled them.
+
+"'What air!' I said to Marnier, who had followed me.
+
+"'It is extraordinary,' he answered in his rather dry tenor voice.
+'I should say like the best champagne, if I did not happen to be a
+teetotaller.'
+
+"(The market, I must explain, was not at that moment in active
+operation.)
+
+"After a _bain de siege_--we both longed for total immersion--and some
+weak tea, in which I mingled a spoonful of rum, we felt better, but
+we reposed till dinner, and once again Marnier, in his habitually
+restrained and critical manner, discussed contemporary literature, and
+what Plato and Aristotle, judging by; their writings, would have been
+likely to think of it. And once again I felt as if I were in the 'High'
+at Oxford, and was almost inclined to wish that Marnier was the rowdy
+type of undergrad, who ducks people in water troughs and makes bonfires
+in quads."
+
+"H'm!" said the doctor gravely. "Better, perhaps, if he had been."
+
+"Much better," I answered. "At seven o'clock we ate a rather tough
+dinner in the small, bare _salle-a-manger_, on the red brick floor of
+which sand grains were lying. Our only companion was a bearded priest in
+a dirty soutane, the aumonier of Beni-Kouidar, who sat at a little table
+apart, and greeted our entrance with a polite bow, but did not then
+speak to us.
+
+"When the meal was ended, however, he joined us as we stood at the inn
+door looking out into the night. A moon was rising above the palms, and
+gilding the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe on the far side of the Market
+Square. A distant noise of tomtoms and African pipes was audible.
+And all down the hill to our left--for the land rose to where the inn
+stood--fires gleamed, and we could see half-naked figures passing and
+repassing them, and others squatting beside, looking like monks in their
+hooped burnouses.
+
+"'You are going out, messieurs?' said the aumonier politely.
+
+"I looked at Marnier.
+
+"'You're too done up, I expect?' I said to him.
+
+"His face was pale, and he certainly had the demeanour of a tired man.
+
+"'No,' he answered. 'I should like to stroll in this wonderful air.'
+
+"I turned to the priest.
+
+"'Yes, monsieur,' I said.
+
+"'I come here to take my meals, but I live at the edge of the town.
+Perhaps you will permit me to accompany you for a little way.'
+
+"'We shall be delighted, and we know nothing of Beni-Kouidar.'
+
+"As we stepped out into the market Marnier paused to light his pipe. But
+suddenly he threw away the match he had struck.
+
+"'No, it's a sin to smoke in this air,' he said.
+
+"And he drew a deep breath, looking at the round moon.
+
+"The priest smiled.
+
+"'I have lived here for four years,' he said, 'and cannot resist my
+cigar. But you are right. The air of Beni-Kouidar is extraordinary. When
+first I came here it used to mount to my head like wine.'
+
+"'Bad for you, Marnier!' I said, laughing.
+
+"Then I added, to the aumonier:
+
+"'My friend never drinks wine, and so ought to be peculiarly susceptible
+to such an influence.'"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+"Opposite to the aumonier's dwelling was the great dancing-house of the
+town, and when we had bade him good-night, and turned to go back to the
+inn, I rather tentatively suggested to Marnier that, perhaps, it would
+be interesting to look in there for a moment.
+
+"'All right,' he responded, with his most donnish manner. 'But I expect
+it will be rather an unwashed crowd.'
+
+"A quantity of native soldiers--the sort that used to be called
+Turcos--were gathered round the door. We pushed our way through them,
+and entered. The cafe was large, with big white pillars and a double row
+of divans in the middle, and divans rising in tiers all round. On the
+left was a large doorway, in which gorgeously-dressed painted women,
+with gold crowns on their heads, were standing, smoking cigarettes,
+and laughing with the Arabs; and at the end farthest from the street
+entrance was a raised platform, on which sat three musicians--a
+wild-looking demon of a man blowing into an instrument with an immense
+funnel, and two men beating tomtoms. The noise they made was terrific.
+The piper wore a voluminous burnouse, and as the dancers came in in
+pairs from the big doorway, which led into the court where they all live
+together, each in her separate little room with her own front door, they
+threw their door keys into the hood that was attached to it. As soon as
+they had finished dancing they went to the hood, and rummaged violently
+for them again. And all the time the piper blew frantically into his
+instrument, and rocked himself about like a man in a convulsion.
+
+"We sat on one of the raised divans, with coffee before us on a
+wooden stool, and Marnier observed it all with a slightly supercilious
+coldness. The women, who were dressed in different shades of red, and
+were the most amazing trollops I ever set eyes on, came and went in
+pairs, fluttered their painted fingers, twittered like startled birds,
+jumped and twirled, wriggled and revolved, and inclined their greasy
+foreheads to the impenetrable spectators, who stuck silver coins on
+to the perspiring flesh. And Marnier sat and gazed at them with the
+aloofness of one who watches the creatures in puddle water through a
+microscope. I could scarcely help laughing at him, but I wished him
+away. For to me there was excitement, there was even a sort of ecstasy,
+in the utter barbarity of this spectacle, in the moving scarlet figures
+with their golden crowns and tufts of ostrich plumes, in the serried
+masses of turbaned and hooded spectators, in the rocking forms of the
+musicians, in the strident and ceaseless uproar that they made.
+
+"And through the doorway where the Tur-cos--I like the old name--crowded
+I saw the sand filtering in from the desert, and against the black
+leaves of a solitary palm-tree, with leaves like giant Fatma hands, I
+saw the silver disc of the moon.
+
+"'I vote we go,' said Marnier's light tenor voice in my ear. 'The
+atmosphere's awful in here.' "'Very well,' I said.
+
+"I got up; but just then a girl, dressed in midnight purple embroidered
+with silver, came in from the doorway, and began to dance alone. She was
+very young--fourteen, I found out afterwards--and, in contrast to the
+other women, extremely beautiful. There were grace, seduction, mystery,
+and coquetry in her face and in all her movements. Her long black eyes
+held fire and dreams. Her fluttering hands seemed beckoning us to the
+realms of the thousand and one nights. I stood where I had got up, and
+watched her.
+
+"'I say, aren't we going?' said Marnier's voice in my ear.
+
+"I cursed the day when I had agreed to take him with me, leaped down
+to the earth, and struggled towards the door. As we neared it the girl
+sidled down the room till she was exactly in front of Marnier. Then
+she danced before him, smiling with her immense eyes, which she fixed
+steadily upon him, and bending forward her pretty head, covered with a
+cloth of silver handkerchief.
+
+"'Give her something,' I said to him, laughing, as he stared back at her
+grimly.
+
+"He thrust his hand into his pocket, found a franc, stuck it awkwardly
+against her oval forehead, and followed me out.
+
+"When we were in the sandy street he walked a few steps in silence, then
+stood still, and, to my surprise, stared back at the dancing-house. Then
+he put his hand to his head.
+
+"'Is the air having its alcoholic effect?' I asked in joke.
+
+"As I spoke a handsome Arab, splendidly dressed in a pale blue robe,
+red gaiters and boots, and a turban of fine muslin, spangled with gold,
+passed us slowly, going towards the dancing-house. He cast a glance full
+of suspicion and malice at Marnier.
+
+"'What's up with that fellow?' I said, startled.
+
+"The Arab went on, and at that moment the faithful Safti joined us. He
+never left me long out of his sight in these outlandish places.
+
+"'That is the Batouch Sidi, the brother of the Caid of Beni-Kouidar,' he
+said. 'Algia, the dancer to whom Monsieur Henri has just given money,
+is his _chere amie_. But as the government has just made him a sheik, he
+dares not have her in his house for fear of the scandal. So he has put
+her with the dancers. That is why she dances, to deceive everyone, not
+to make money. She is not as the other dancers. But everyone knows, for
+Batouch is mad with jealousy. He cannot bear that Algia should dance
+before strangers, but what can he do? A sheik must not have a scandal in
+his dwelling.'
+
+"We walked on slowly. When we got to the door of the 'Rendezvous des
+Amis' Marnier stood still again, and looked down the deserted, moonlit
+camel market.
+
+"'I never knew air like this,' he said in a low voice.
+
+"And once more he expelled the air from his lungs, and drew in a long,
+slow breath, as a man does when he has finished his dumbbell exercise in
+the morning.
+
+"'Don't drink too much of it,' I said. 'Remember what the aumonier told
+us!'
+
+"Marnier looked at me. I thought there was something apprehensive in his
+eyes. But he said nothing, and we turned in.
+
+"The next day I rode out with Safti into the desert to visit a sacred
+personage of great note in the Sahara, Sidi El Ahmed Ben Daoud
+Abderahmann. To my relief Marnier declined to come. He said he was
+tired, and would stroll about the city. When we got back at sundown the
+innkeeper handed me a note. I opened it, and found it was from the
+aumonier, saying that he would be greatly obliged if I would call and
+see him on my return, as he had various little curiosities which he
+would be glad to show me. Marnier was not in the inn, and, as I had
+nothing particular to do, I walked at once to the aumonier's house. As I
+have said, it was the last in the town. The dancing-house was on the
+opposite side of the way; but the aumonier's dwelling jutted out a
+little farther into the desert, and looked full on a deep depression of
+soft sand bounded by a big dune, which loomed up like a couchant beast
+in the fading yellow light.
+
+"The aumonier met me at his door, and escorted me into a pleasant room,
+where his collection of Arab weapons, coins, and old vases, cups, and
+various utensils, dug up, he told me, at Tlemcen, was arranged. But to
+my surprise he scarcely took time to show it to me before he said:
+
+"'Though a stranger, may I venture to speak rather intimately to you,
+monsieur?'
+
+"'Certainly,' I replied, in some astonishment.
+
+"'Your friend is young.'
+
+"'Marnier?'
+
+"'Is that his name? Well, I would not leave him to stroll about too much
+alone, if I were you.'
+
+"'Why, monsieur?'
+
+"'He is likely to get into trouble. The people here are a wild and
+violent race. He would do well to bear in mind the saying of a traveller
+who knew the desert men better than most people:
+
+"If you want to be friendly with them, and safe among them, give
+cigarettes to the men, and leave the women alone.
+
+"'I see a good deal, monsieur, owing to the situation of my little
+house.'
+
+"I looked at him in silence. Then I said:
+
+"'What have you seen?'
+
+"He led me to the door, and pointed towards the great dune beyond the
+dancing-house.
+
+"I saw your friend this afternoon talking there with one whom it is
+especially unsafe to be seen with in Beni-Koujtlar.'
+
+"'With whom?'
+
+"'A dancer called Algia.'
+
+"'Talking, monsieur! Marnier knows no Arabic.'
+
+"The aumonier pursed his lips in his black beard.
+
+"'The conversation appeared to be carried on by signs,' he responded.
+'That did not make it less but more dangerous.'
+
+"I'm afraid I was rude, and whistled softly.
+
+"'Monsieur l'Aumonier,' I said, 'you must forgive me, but this air is
+certainly the very devil.'
+
+"He smiled, not without irony.
+
+"'I became aware of that myself, monsieur, when first I came to live in
+Beni-Kouidar. But I am a priest, and--well, monsieur, I was given the
+strength to say: "Get thee behind me, Satan."'
+
+"A softer look came into his sunburnt, wrinkled face.
+
+"'Better take your friend away as soon as possible,' he added, 'or there
+will be trouble.'"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+"That night I found myself confronted by a Marnier whom I had never seen
+before. The desert wine had gone to the lad's brain. That was certain.
+No intonations of the Oxford don lurked in the voice. No reminiscences
+of the Oxford 'High' clung about the manner. A man sober and the same
+man drunk are scarcely more different than the Marnier who had ridden
+with me up the sandy street of Beni-Kouidar the previous day and the
+man who sat opposite to me at dinner in the 'Rendezvous des Amis' that
+night. I knew in a moment that the aumonier was right, and that I must
+get the lad away at once from the intoxicant which nature poured out
+over this far-away city. His eyes were shining feverishly, and when I
+mentioned Mr. Ruskin in a casual way he looked unutterably bored.
+
+"'Ruskin and all those fellows seem awfully slow and out of place here,'
+he exclaimed. 'One doesn't want to bother about them in the Sahara.'
+
+"I changed the subject.
+
+"'There doesn't seem very much to see here,' I said carelessly. 'We
+might get away the day after to-morrow, don't you think?'
+
+"He drew his brows down.
+
+"'The horses won't be sufficiently rested,' he said curtly.
+
+"'Oh yes; I fancy they will.'
+
+"'Well, I don't fancy I shall. The long ride took it out of me.'
+
+"'Turn in to-night, then, directly after dinner.'
+
+"He looked at me with sharp suspicion. I met his gaze blandly.
+
+"'I mean to,' he said after a short pause.
+
+"I knew he was telling me a lie, but I only said: 'That's right!' and
+resolved to keep an eye on him.
+
+"Directly dinner was over he sprang up from the table.
+
+"'Good-night,' he said.
+
+"And before I could reply he was out of the _salle-a-manger_, and I
+heard him tramp along the brick floor of the passage, go into his room,
+and bang the door.
+
+"The aumonier was getting up from his little table, and shaking the
+crumbs from his soutane.
+
+"'You are quite right, monsieur,' I said to him. 'I must get my friend
+away.'
+
+"'I shall be sorry to lose you,' replied the good priest. 'But--desert
+air, desert air!'
+
+"He shook his head, half wistfully, half laughingly, bowed, put on his
+broad-brimmed black hat, and went out.
+
+"After a moment I followed him. I stood in the doorway of the inn, and
+lit a cigar. I knew Marnier was not going to bed, and meant to catch him
+when he came out, and join him. In common politeness he could scarcely
+refuse my company, since he had asked me as a favour to let him come
+with me to Beni-Kouidar. I waited, watching the moon rise, till my cigar
+was smoked out. Then I lit another. Still he did not come. I heard the
+distant throb of tomtoms beyond the Bureau Arabe in the quarter of the
+freed negroes. They were having a fantasia. I began to think that I must
+have been mistaken, and that Marnier had really turned in. So much the
+better. The ash dropped from the stump of my second cigar, and the
+deserted camel market was flooded with silver from the moon-rays. I knew
+there was only one door to the inn. Slowly I lit a third cigar.
+
+"A large cloud went over the face of the moon. A gust of wind struck my
+face. Suddenly the night had changed. The moon looked forth again, and
+was again obscured. A second gust struck me like a blow, and my face
+was stung by a multitude of sand grains. I heard steps behind me in the
+brick passage, turned swiftly, and saw the landlord.
+
+"'I must shut the door, m'sieu,' he said. 'There's a bad sandstorm
+coming up.'
+
+"As he spoke the wind roared, and over the camel market a thick fog
+seemed to fall abruptly. It was a sheet of sand from the surrounding
+dunes. I threw away my cigar, stepped into the passage, and the landlord
+banged the door, and drove home the heavy bolts.
+
+"Then I went to Marnier's room, and knocked. I felt sure, but I thought
+I would make sure before going to my room.
+
+"No answer.
+
+"I knocked again loudly.
+
+"Again no answer.
+
+"Then I turned the handle, and entered.
+
+"The room was empty. I glanced round quickly. The small window was open.
+All the windows of the inn were barred, but, as I learned later, a bar
+in Marnier's had been broken, and was not yet replaced when we arrived
+at Beni-Kouidar. In consequence of this it was possible to squeeze
+through into the arcade outside. This was what Marnier had done.
+My precise, gentlemanly, reserved, and methodical acquaintance had
+deliberately given me the slip by sneaking out of a window like a
+schoolboy, and creeping round the edge of the inn to the _fosse_ that
+lay in the shadow of the sand dimes. As I realised this I realised his
+danger.
+
+"I ran to my room, fetched my revolver, slipped it into my pocket, and
+hurried to the front door. The landlord heard me trying to undo the
+bolts, and came out protesting.
+
+"'M'sieu cannot go out into the storm.'
+
+"'I must.'
+
+"'But m'sieu does not know what Beni-Kouidar is like when the sand
+is blown on the wind. It is _enfer_. Besides, it is not safe. In the
+darkness m'sieu may receive a _mauvais coup_.'
+
+"'Make haste, please, and open the door. I am going to fetch my friend.'
+
+"He pulled the bolts, grumbling and swearing, and I went out into
+_enfer_. For he was right. A sandstorm at night in Beni-Kouidar is hell.
+
+"Luckily, Safti joined me mysteriously from the deuce knows where, and
+we staggered to the dancing-house somehow, and struggled in, blinded,
+our faces scored, our clothes heavy with sand, our pockets, our very
+boots, weighed down with it.
+
+"The tomtoms were roaring, the pipe was yelling, blown by the frantic
+demon with his hood full of latch keys, the impassible, bearded faces
+were watching the painted women who, in their red garments and their
+golden crowns, promenaded down the earthen floor, between the divans,
+fluttering their dyed fingers, smiling grotesquely like idols, bending
+forward their greasy foreheads to receive the tribute of their admirers.
+
+"I ran my eyes swiftly over the mob. Marnier was not in it. I pushed my
+way towards the doorway on the left which gave on to the court of the
+dancers.
+
+"Safti caught hold of my arm.
+
+"'It is not safe to go in there on such a night, Sidi. There are no
+lamps. It is black as a tomb. And no one can tell who may be there.
+Nomads, perhaps, men of evil from the south. Many murders have been done
+in the court on black nights, and no one can say who has done them. For
+all the time men go in and out to the rooms of the dancers.'
+
+"'Nevertheless, Safti, I must----'
+
+"I stopped speaking, for at this moment Batouch, the brother of the Caid
+of Beni-Kouidar, came slowly in through the doorway from the blackness
+of the sand-swept court. There was a strange smile on his handsome face,
+and he was caressing his black beard gently with one delicate hand. He
+saw me, smiled more till I caught the gleam of his white teeth, passed
+on into the dancing-house, sat down on a divan, and called for coffee.
+I could not take my eyes from him. Every movement he made fascinated me.
+He drew from his pale blue robe a silver box, opened it, lifted out a
+pinch of tobacco, and began carefully to roll a cigarette. And all the
+time he smiled.
+
+"A glacial cold crept over my body. As he lit his cigarette I caught
+hold of Safti, and hurried through the doorway into the blackness of the
+whirling sand."
+
+*****
+
+Here I stopped.
+
+"Well?" said young England. "Well?"
+
+The doctor did not speak.
+
+"Well," I answered. "Algia danced that night. While she was dancing
+we found a dead body in the court. It was Marnier's. A knife had been
+thrust into him from behind!"
+
+"Ah!" said the doctor.
+
+"But--" exclaimed young England, "it was that fellow? It was Batouch?"
+
+I shrugged my shoulders.
+
+"Nobody ever found out who did it."
+
+"Well, but of course----"
+
+He checked himself, and an expression of admiration dawned slowly over
+his healthy, handsome face.
+
+"I say," he said, "to be able to roll a cigarette directly afterwards!
+What infernal cheek!"
+
+"Desert air!" I replied. "My dear chap--desert air!"
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Desert Air, by Robert Hichens
+
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