His jaw set hard. Then with a kind of half-comprehension, he turned
quickly toward the window.
Yes, there were traces on the sill, that could not be mistaken. The
Master's keen eyes detected them, under the morning sun. He stepped to
his desk, dropped the dagger into a drawer, and pressed the button for
his orderly.
No one appeared. The Master rang again. Quite in vain. With more
precipitation than was customary with him, he dressed and went to
Rrisa's cabin.
Its emptiness confirmed his suspicions. Returning along the outer
gallery, a little pale, he reached the railing opposite his own
window. Here a scratch on the metal drew his attention. Closely he
scrutinized this scratch. A hint of whitish metal told the tale--metal
the Master recognized as having been abraded from a ring the Master
himself had given him; a ring of aluminum alloy, fashioned from part
of a Turkish grenade at Gallipoli.
The Master's face contracted painfully. In his mind he could
reconstitute the scene--Rrisa's hands gripping the rail, his climb
over it, his leap. For a moment the Master stood there with blank
eyes, peering out over the burning, tawny desolation of the great
sand-barrens that stretched away, away, to boundless immensity.
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