The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 1 — page 96: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

96 A MONTH IN ‘THE MOON. Virgil received orders to double the guard outside the prison room, and to be on watch against the certain attempt of the prisoner, once afoot again, to make good his escape. ‘Do not fear but that I shall keep my eye on him,’’ he answered, when Norbert gave him his instructions; ‘‘] am not going to be done by a misera- ble insect like that !’’ CHAPTER XX.—THE DWARF AT Bay. SEATED at the telescope on the Peak of Tehbali, Gertrude each morning surveyed the plain in the direction of Khartoum, hoping to see a group of travelers coming toward the peak. But though her great impatience to see her father was very natural, she was too well bred to obtrude it upon her host, and kept to herself the bitter disappointment of each day as it came bringing no news. It was with a heavy heart often that she took her seat at the. breakfast table. Her traveling companions, for their part, did their best to distract her thoughts, and were careful not to touch upon the subject uppermost in the minds of all. ‘The doctor, especially, tried to amuse them with a daily ac- count of his clinical observations. . | ‘“The dwarf,’’ said he one morning, as he seated himself beside his niece at breakfast, ‘‘is one of the most singular beings I have ever seen. He has been conscious now for forty eight hours, and I have not been able to extract a word from him! Can it be that his speaking faculties are injured by some lesion of the brain? Or is he shamming dumbness, as he did on the two first occasions of our meeting him? It is impossible to say. And I have not been able to discover whether he is black or white (as he might very well be after what Gertrude witnessed during her imprisonment). I should not be at all surprised if he were dyed from head to foot, for his skin is of a slate color, quite unlike those of other Nubians. But many things that we in Europe cannot do are but child’s play to the Eastern magicians, and I should not be at all surprised if this were of the number !’’ , As soon as he was on his feet again, the dwarf was permitted to take the air twice a day in the circular passage, under the eye of the sentinel at his door, and of the body guard, who were about twenty yards distant. All communications between him and the soldiers were forbidden; but the pro- hibition seemed unnecessary, for Kaddour never said a word, nor made the least sign; he merely dragged himself about, wrapped in a huge white bur- nouse. 7 : More frequently he would spend the whole hour allotted for exercise upright in a corner, some distance from the soldiers and perfectly motionless, his forehead supported by his right hand, as if absorbed in meditation. At other times, seating himself on a stone, he would take off his left sandal and grasp his foot in both hands, considering it attentively, after the fashion of the fakirs. But never, not even bya glance, did he evince the least wish to converse with his keepers. Virgil, who kept a sharp eye upon him at these times, ended by being | Eomichbooks