XIV
HALL OF THE MISSING FOOTSTEPS
So I saw in my dream that the man began to run.
--_Pilgrim's Progress_.
I
As the first-class carriage rolled languidly out of Balak's only railway
station on a sultry February evening, Pobloff, the composer, was not
sorry.
"I wish it were Persia instead of Ramboul," he reflected. Luga, his
wife, he had left weeping at the station; but since the day she
disappeared with his orchestra for twenty-four hours, Pobloff's
affection had gradually cooled; he was leaving the capital without a
pang on a month's leave of absence--a delicate courtesy of the king's
extended to a brother ruler, though a semi-barbarous one, the khedive of
Ramboul.
Pobloff was not sad nor was he jubilantly glad. The journey was an easy
one; a night and day and the next night would see him, God willing,--he
crossed himself,--in the semi-tropical city of Nirgiz. From Balak to
Nirgiz, from southeastern Europe to Asia Minor!
The heir-apparent was said to be a music-loving lad, very much under
the cunning thumb of his grim old aunt, who, rumour averred, wore a
black beard, and was the scourge of her little kingdom.
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