A soft sun, clouded with the haze of
autumn, shone over it.
"You know how the faint moisture in the bare foot will make an
impression."
He paused as though there was some compelling force in the
reflection. It was impossible to say, with accuracy, to what
race the man belonged. He came from some queer blend of Eastern
peoples. His body and the cast of his features were Mongolian.
But one got always, before him, a feeling of the hot East lying
low down against the stagnant Suez. One felt that he had risen
slowly into our world of hard air and sun out of the vast
sweltering ooze of it.
He spoke English with a certain care in the selection of the
words, but with ease and an absence of effort, as though
languages were instinctive to him - as though he could speak any
language. And he impressed one with this same effortless
facility in all the things he did.
It is necessary to try to understand this, because it explains
the conception everybody got of the creature, when they saw him
in charge of Rodman. I am using precisely the descriptive words;
he was exclusively in charge of Rodman, as a jinn in an Arabian
tale might have been in charge of a king's son.
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