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The visitors paused to see Fenwick standing between them and a large canvas covered with the first 'laying-in' of an important subject. The model, a thin, dark-faced fellow, was standing meekly on the spot to which Fenwick had motioned him, while the artist, palette on thumb, stood absorbed and frowning, his keen eye travelling from the man's head to the canvas behind it. Lord Findon smiled.
Jean glanced desperately that way. It was very close. She could see the features of the Mexican soldiers lounging before the cantina over there; through the lighted window of the customhouse she could see a dark-faced officer bending over a littered desk. The guard over there spoke to a friend, and she could hear the words he said. Jean thought swiftly.
The wind of the punkahs eddied down on the heads, on the dark-faced natives wound about in voluminous draperies, on the Europeans sitting together very hot and in drill suits that seemed to fit them as close as their skins, and holding their round pith hats on their knees; while gliding along the walls the court peons, buttoned tight in long white coats, flitted rapidly to and fro, running on bare toes, red-sashed, red turban on head, as noiseless as ghosts, and on the alert like so many retrievers.
Joseph Tuggs—a little dark-faced man, with shiny hair, twinkling eyes, short legs, and a body of very considerable thickness, measuring from the centre button of his waistcoat in front, to the ornamental buttons of his coat behind. The figure of the amiable Mrs.
Dark-faced porters in rags carried on their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers, embroidered shirts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary.
The stairs were worn and sagged a little. Two flights of stairs did the man climb, and then, in a significant manner, he rapped on a door at the back of the house. There was a stir within the room. The door was flung open by a slender, dark-faced, dark-eyed boy, who joyously exclaimed: "Welcome, Señor Hagan! You were a great time coming."
In their forefront went the two signs of the Battle-shaft and the War-spear. But moreover, in front of all was borne a great staff with the cloth of a banner wrapped round about it, and tied up with a hempen yarn that it might not be seen. Stark and mighty men they looked; tall and lean, broad-shouldered, dark-faced.
Instantly, in the emptiness of the landscape, a cry arose whose shrillness pierced the still air like a sharp arrow flying straight to the very heart of the land; and, as if by enchantment, streams of human beings of naked human beings with spears in their hands, with bows, with shields, with wild glances and savage movements, were poured into the clearing by the dark-faced and pensive forest.
Then the arabeah turned, and dashed wildly off according to the custom of arabeahs, back in the direction whence it had been crawling. The two dark-faced men in the vehicle talked rapidly in low voices, speaking the language not only of the country but the patois of Luxor itself. "Your brother passed you in his arabeah?"
The latter, with the exception of the boatswain, who was a dark-faced, ear-ringed Greek, and the four new hands brought on board by the captain, were all natives of various islands of the Equatorial Pacific. Seven of the twelve, with two of the white men, were in Barry's watch; Barradas had the rest.
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