A DISTANT EPISODE
39
"Not possible. But wait until later and come with me. You can
give me what you like. And you will get camel-udder boxes if there
are any."
He went out into the front room, leaving the Professor to drink
his tea and listen to the growing chorus of dogs that barked and
howled as the moon rose higher into the sky. A group of customers
came into the front room and sat talking for an hour or so. When
they had left, the caouadji put out the fire and stood in the doorway
putting on
his
burnous. "Come," he said.
Outside in the street there was very little movement. The booths
were all closed and the only light came from the moon. An occasional
pedestrian passed, and grunted a brief greeting to the caouadji.
"Everyone knows you," said the Professor, to cut the silence
between them.
"Yes."
"I wish everyone knew me," said the Professor, before he real–
ized how infantile such a remark must sound.
uNo
one knows you," said his companion gruffly.
They had come to the other side of the town, on the promontory
above the desert, and through a great rift in the wall the Professor saw
the white endlessness, broken in the foreground by dark spots of
oasis. They walked through the opening and followed a winding road
between rocks, downward toward the nearest small forest of palms.
The Professor thought: "He may cut my throat. But his cafe-he
would surely be found out."
"Is it far?" he asked, casually.
"Are you tired?" countered the caouadji.
"They are expecting me back at the Hotel Saharien," he lied.
"You can't be there and here," said the caouadji.
The Professor laughed. He wondered if it sounded uneasy to
the other.
"Have you owned Ramani's cafe long?"
"I work there for a friend." The reply made the Professor more
unhappy than he had imagined it would.
·
"Oh. Will you work tomorrow?"
"That is impossible to say."
The Professor stumbled on a stone, and fell, scraping his hand.
The caouadji said : "Be careful."
The sweet black odor of rotten meat hung in the air suddenly.
"Agh
!"
said the Professor, choking. "What is it?"
