had left off.

"It may be that our Central Asian ancestors had not the custom of
burial. In that case it is easy to understand their fear of the
dead, who really were a menace and an evil. They bred pestilences.
Children were taught to avoid the places where they lay, and to run
away if by inadvertence they came near a corpse. I think, indeed,
I'd better go away from this chap."

He half rose to do so, then remembered that he had told his men in
front and the officer in the rear who was to relieve him that he
could at any time be found at that spot. It was a matter of pride,
too. If he abandoned his post he feared they would think he feared
the corpse. He was no coward and he was unwilling to incur anybody's
ridicule. So he again seated himself, and to prove his courage
looked boldly at the body. The right arm--the one farthest from him-
-was now in shadow. He could barely see the hand which, he had
before observed, lay at the root of a clump of laurel. There had
been no change, a fact which gave him a certain comfort, he could not
have said why. He did not at once remove his eyes; that which we do
not wish to see has a strange fascination, sometimes irresistible.
Of the woman who covers her eyes with her hands and looks between the
fingers let it be said that the wits have dealt with her not
altogether justly.

Byring suddenly became conscious of a pain in his right hand. He
withdrew his eyes from his enemy and looked at it. He was grasping
the hilt of his drawn sword so tightly that it hurt him. He
observed, too, that he was leaning forward in a strained attitude--
crouching like a gladiator ready to spring at the throat of an