The bone-dry, hot-weather wind had shriveled
up verdure and ambition together.
But in the mud-walled cottages, where men were wont to doze through
the long, hot days, there were murmurings and restless movement.
Men lay on thong-strung beds, and talked instead of dreaming, and
the women listened and said nothing--which is the reverse of custom.
Hanadra was what it always had been, thatched, sun-baked lassitude;
but underneath the thatch there thrummed a beehive atmosphere of tension.
In the center of the village, where the one main road that led from
the main gate came to an abrupt end at a low mud wall, stood a house
that was larger than the others and somewhat more neatly kept; there
had been an effort made at sweeping the enclosure that surrounded
it on all four sides, and there was even whitewash, peeling off in
places but still comparatively white, smeared on the sun-cracked walls.
Here, besides murmurings and movement, there was evidence of real
activity. Tethered against the wall on one side of the house stood
a row of horses, saddled and bridled and bearing evidence of having
traveled through the heat; through the open doorway the sunshine
glinted on a sword-hilt and amid the sound of many voices rang the
jingling of a spur as some one sat cornerwise on a wooden table and
struck his toe restlessly against the leg.
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