"Very well," said Sir Louis. He rose from his chair to intimate
that the precise moment had arrived when I might leave without
indiscretion. It was not until I was outside the door that I
realized that my permission was simply verbal, and that the only
document that had changed hands had been signed by me. Grim
followed me into the ante-room after a minute.

"Hadn't I better go back and ask for something in writing from
him?" I suggested.

"You wouldn't get it. Anyhow, you're dealing with a gentleman.
You needn't worry. I was afraid once or twice you might be going
to ask him questions. He'd have canned you if you had. Why
didn't you?"

I was not going to help Grim dissect my mental processes.

"There's a delightful air of mystery," I said, "I'd hate to
spoil it!"

"Come up on the tower," he said. "There's just time before
sunset. If you've good eyes, I'll show you El-Kerak."

It is an enormous tower. The wireless apparatus connected with
it can talk with Paris and Calcutta. From the top you feel as if
you were seeing "all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of
time." There are no other buildings to cut off the view or
tamper with perspective. The Dead Sea was growing dark. The
Moab Hills beyond it looked lonely and savage in silhouette.

"Down there on your left is Jericho," said Grim. "That winding
creek beyond it is the Jordan. As far eastward as that there's
some peace. Beyond that, there is hardly a rock that isn't used
for ambush regularly. Let your eye travel along the top of the
hills--nearly as far as the end of the Dead Sea. Now--d'you see
where a touch of sunlight glints on something? That's the top of
the castle-wall of El-Kerak. Judge what strategists those old
crusaders were. That site commands the ancient high road from
Egypt. They could sit up there and take toll to their hearts'
content. The Turks quartered troops in the castle and did the
same thing. But the Turks overdid it, like everything else.
They ruined the trade. No road there nowadays that amounts
to anything."

"It looks about ten miles away."

"More than eighty."

The sun went down behind us while we watched, and here and there
the little scattered lights came out among the silent hills in
proof that there were humans who thought of them in terms of
home.

Venus and Mars shone forth, yellow and red jewels; then the
moon, rising like a stage effect, too big, too strongly lighted
to seem real, peer