Paul Harley resumed his seat, staring at me with unseeing eyes. A sound
reached us through the drawing room which told us that Madame de
Staemer's chair was being taken upstairs, a task always performed when
Madame desired to visit the upper floors by Manoel and Pedro's
daughter, Nita, who acted as Madame's maid. These sounds died away, and
I thought how silent everything had become. Even the birds were still,
and presently, my eye being attracted to a black speck in the sky
above, I learned why the feathered choir was mute. A hawk was hovering
loftily overhead.

Noting my upward glance, Paul Harley also raised his eyes.

"Ah," he murmured, "a hawk. All the birds are cowering in their nests.
Nature is a cruel mistress, Knox."




CHAPTER XVI

RED EVE



Over the remainder of that afternoon I will pass in silence. Indeed,
looking backward now, I cannot recollect that it afforded one incident
worthy of record. But because great things overshadow small, so it may
be that whereas my recollections of quite trivial episodes are sharp
enough up to a point, my memories from this point onward to the