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Most of us would have slacked out after two years in the hell hole of Central Mongolia. But not Charlie Tavor. He got down to Arabia somehow; God knows, I never asked him, and he went right on into the Great Sandy Desert of Roba El Khali. The oldest caravan route known runs straight across the desert from Muscat to Mecca.
As he did so Vere came out of the house, her hands full of Khali Targa cigarettes, her face eager at the thought of giving pleasure to Ruffo. "This is my daughter, Vere," Hermione said. "Vere, this is the Marchese Isidoro Panacci, a friend of Monsieur Emile's." The Marchesino went to kiss Vere's hand, but she said: "I'm very sorry look!"
He smiled as he thought of her rush into the room with her hair streaming down, of her shrieks of laughter over his absurdity. But she was full of changes. The door opened, and Vere came in holding some manuscript in her hand. She had done up her hair while she had been away. When Artois saw that he heaved himself up from the sofa. "I must smoke," he said. "Oh yes. I'll get the Khali Targas."
"You have seen him, then?" "Smoking ten of my special Khali Targa cigarettes, with his bare toes cocked up, and one hand drooping into the Saint's Pool." Hermione smiled. "My cigarettes! They're common property here," she said. "That boy can't be a pure-bred Neapolitan, surely. And yet he speaks the language. There's no mistaking the blow he gives to the last syllable of a sentence."
He had said nothing about returning to the islet, but she had felt sure he would return, if only in the hope of being given some more cigarettes. Boys in his position, she knew well, do not get a present of Khali Targa cigarettes every day of the week. How happy he had looked when he was smoking them!
The young man started. "It's nothing." "Vere, run in and get the Marchese a Khali Targa." The girl got up quickly. "No, no! I cannot permit I have another here." He opened his case. It was empty. Vere laughed. "You see!" She went off before he could say another word, and the Marchesino was alone for a moment with Hermione.
What do you mean, Emile?" "I was only wondering. The sea breeds a great many boys like Ruffo, you know. But they don't all get Khali Targa cigarettes given to them, for all that." "That's true. I have never seen Vere pay any particular attention to the fishermen who come to the island. In a way she loves them all because they belong to the sea, she loves them as a décor. But Ruffo is different.
They and we all of us we changed the course of history for more than two hundred million human beings. And as for you and me " He turned, looking at the map. Then he got up from the table, went to that map and laid a hand on the vast, blank expanse across which was printed only "Ruba el Khali" the Empty Abodes. "It would wreck the whole structure of civilization if we told," said he.
Instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a proselyte to paganism, and the only shred of Christianity thereafter remarkable in him was the burying of her decently when she was removed by death; but Charnock is said to have observed in true pagan manner each anniversary of her demise, even to making animal sacrifices before the image of the goddess Khali.
At last he aroused himself to make answer: "The treasure, Master, is far to the south-east in another city." "Ah! So there is another city far out in Ruba el Khali, the Empty Abodes!" "Yea, M'almé, that is so." "Then the ancient rumor is true? And it is from near that city that thou didst come, eh? By Allah's power, I command thee to tell me of this hidden city of the central deserts!"
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