He stretched himself upon the ground beneath the
dense foliage of the biggest tree and abandoned himself to the languor
that was creeping over him.
"I'll wait until that army of the desert arrives," he thought,
sleepily. "They either belong in this city or have come to capture it,
so I can tell better what to dance when I find out what the band plays."
The next moment he was sound asleep, sprawling upon his back in the
shade and slumbering as peacefully as an infant.
And while he lay motionless three men dropped in quick succession from
the top of the city wall and hid among the low bushes, crawling
noiselessly from one to another and so approaching, by degrees, the
little group of trees.
They were Turks, and had been sent by those in authority within the
city to climb the tallest tree of the group and discover if the enemy
was near. For Rob's conjecture had been correct, and the city of
Yarkand awaited, with more or less anxiety, a threatened assault from
its hereditary enemies, the Tatars.
The three spies were not less forbidding in appearance than the horde
of warriors Rob had passed upon the desert.
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