"Of course," assented the District Attorney.
"But as soon as he reaches this place, Holcombe," continued Carroll,
"he begins to show just how bad he is. It all comes out--all his
viciousness and rottenness and blackguardism. There is nothing to
shame it, and there is no one to blame him, and no one is in a
position to throw the first stone." Carroll dropped his voice and
pulled his chair forward with a glance over his shoulder. "One of
those men you saw riding in from the meet to-day. Now, he's a German
officer, and he's here for forging a note or cheating at cards or
something quiet and gentlemanly, nothing that shows him to be a brute
or a beast. But last week he had old Mulley Wazzam buy him a slave
girl in Fez, and bring her out to his house in the suburbs. It seems
that the girl was in love with a soldier in the Sultan's body-guard at
Fez, and tried to run away to join him, and this man met her quite by
accident as she was making her way south across the sand-hills. He was
whip that day, and was hurrying out to the meet alone. He had some
words with the girl first, and then took his whip--it was one of those
with the long lash to it; you know what I mean--and cut her to pieces
with it, riding her down on his pony when she tried to run, and
heading her off and lashing her around the legs and body until she
fell; then he rode on in his damn pink coat to join the ladies at
Mango's Drift, where the meet was, and some Riffs found her bleeding
to death behind the sand-hills.
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