Lost trumpet

102
THE LOST TRUMPET
immensity of moustache. We would watch him go,
clambering and threading the wrinkled agonies of
the field, then growing to a dot. And presently,
remote from that direction which he had taken,
would arise a sound that seemed to me like the soul
of a stuck pig wailing its immemorial griefs by the
side of some porcine Styx. Marrot, with objurgations
inelegant but justifiable, would cover his ears.
“If only he’d be sick and have done with it!”
The great Huebsch would listen with his head
slightly leant towards one shoulder. “There’s a kind
of rhythm in it, though. Listen : So : Oh—ahee—
oo—ah ”
“For the love of Sabaios and all the other gods of
Jewry, give it a rest, Huebsch ! Georgios is bad
enough on his own, but an interpreter as well ”
“Well, well, well.” The huge Jew would con¬
tinue to listen with unabated seriousness. The dead
pig was being beaten over the head by Charon; it
was in flight; it had fallen into the brimstone lake ;
it was being flayed alive; it had lapsed into uncon¬
sciousness—blessedly re-dead ? ; revived again ;
remembering its wife and children
I would rise. “I think I shall take a short walk.
I cannot abide this post-mortem torture of a useful
and harmless animal.”
“Pretty bad, pretty bad,” Huebsch would agree,
and would turn his great eyes, that were on occasion
so oddly restless, upon me. “Which way are you
walking, Colonel ?”
I would gesture towards Abu Zabal, conscious