Lost trumpet

2 I 8
THE LOST TRUMPET
shadows, and so up those stairs to the roof and the
stars and her touch and the secret journeyings of that
rose-petal
Somewhere, out in the wastes, a jackal was baying
and I listened to that baying and smiled. Jackal.
The Death of the old Egyptians. No lion or eagle
or wild and tremendous, dark and sombre beast,
did they envisage it. Only carrion and a carrion-
grubber. So this desire of mine, as Quaritch’s. The
mean whining of carrion-starved animals under the
jeering indifference of the stars . . .
Quaritch. I switched my mind to that young
satyr face and the tale from its lips of knowing Huth
Rizq. What was to be done in the matter ? Tell
Aslaug Simonssen ? She would report the fact to
the Cairene police and have the woman arrested.
Provided Quaritch would reveal the refugee’s where¬
abouts.
Which, if I could prevent him, he would not do.
For that embodiment of heavy, unimaginative
girlhood had long ceased to rouse my sympathy.
How could it have aroused in Quaritch something
stronger ? She had better, and speedily, return to
her England or Scotland and there wed with some
bourgeois of her own type and class than stray in
Egyptian deserts in search of a clownish revenge
and in danger from such amoral possessive obses¬
sions as the young novelist’s
I rose again, and searched for my pipe and matches,
and saw, looking out, a thing I did not expect. Some¬
one, clearly enough to be discerned, was approaching