So
he rode back to the cavalry camp and went
peacefully to sleep on the sod. He awoke in the
morning with chattering teeth to find his dragoman
saying that the major had unaccountably withdrawn
his loan of the two troop horses. Coleman of course
immediately said to himself that the dragoman was
lying a-gain in order to prevent another expedition
into ominous Turkey, but after all if the commander,
of the cavalry had suddenly turned the light of his
favour from the correspondent it was only a proceeding
consistent with the nature which Coleman now
thought he was beginning to discern, a nature which
can never think twice in the same place, a gageous
mind which drifts, dissolves, combines, vanishes with
the ability of an aerial thing until the man of the
north feels that when he clutches it with full knowledge of his
senses he is only the victim of his ardent
imagination. It is the difference in standards, in
creeds, which is the more luminous when men call out that
they are all alike.
So Coleman and his dragoman loaded their traps and moved
out to again invade Turkey. It was not yet clear daylight, but
they felt that they might well start early since they were no
longer mounted men.
On the way to the bridge, the dragoman, although he was
curiously in love with his forty francs a day and his
opportunities, ventured a stout protest, based apparently upon
the fact that after all this foreigner, four days out from Athens
was somewhat at his mercy.
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