As the party had neared the top their ears had been greeted by the sound of numerous voices uplifted in unison; on gaining this point of vantage the source of these cries could be seen. Evidently death had visited the village that day, for the courtyard of one of the largest of the small houses was filled with women wailing and lamenting, while little knots of females were approaching with all speed from the entire countryside. Clad in their shapeless and voluminous black robes, with trailing ends leaving clouds of dust in their wake, their heads veiled, their faces hidden in the yashmak, they formed a strange, weird spectacle as they advanced, all uttering concerted cries of mourning that grew louder as they neared the village in which the dead man lay. The European witnesses of this phase of native life were convinced that only the departure to another world of one of the male half of humanity would have sufficed to create such a stir in the surrounding district. A band of mourners reached their goal. Their arrival was the signal for the already assembled women of the village to wax yet more demonstrative in their display of anguish. The long shuddering moans, the shrill piercing cries, grew louder and more insistent, while dozens of lean brown arms were raised in despairing appeal to heaven, then descended with force upon head or face, and others of the mourners tore frantically at the garments over their breasts. "It's just as it is drawn on the ancient monuments, the very same; they haven't changed a bit in all these thousands of years," cried Evarne. She was far more thrilled by this illustration of the realism of Egyptian art and of this justification for that romantic term--The Unchanging East--than moved to sorrow by the conventional mourning of the many wailers. Evidently the news had spread widely. From all directions black figures bore down upon the village, sometimes in groups of six or eight, sometimes in bodies of thirty or more. Each one on her arrival passed into the low hut wherein the corpse lay, then came out after a minute or so to add her quota to the increasing lamentation for the dead. This business of mourning was clearly still the prerogative of the female sex. No men took any share in it--indeed, the only two existing in the whole place, as far as could be seen, were squatting calmly in a neighbouring yard, unconcernedly holding and milking a buffalo. Evarne looked round for Morris. He stood just at the top of the slope, Lucinda still clinging to his arm. "Come along to where I am, Morris," the girl called out to him. "You can see everything much better from here." He made a movement as if to follow her suggestion, but Lucinda said something in a low voice, whereupon he replied-- "Mrs. Belmont feels too giddy either to walk or to be left alone; but don't you bother about us, my dear. We can really witness all the fun of the fair quite nicely."