So he prattled nothings while he meditated; and you would have thought that he cared for the nothings.
He had that faculty; he could mentally ride two horses at once; he would have made a good diplomatist.
His mind glanced at the past while it peered into the future.

What a sinuous underground plot the superficial incidents of this journey covered! To his fellow-travellers it was a straight line; to him it was a complicated and endless labyrinth.

How much more he had to think of than they! Only he knew that Pedro Munoz was dead, that Clara Van Diemen was an heiress, that she was in danger of being abandoned to the desert, that Thurstane was in danger of assassination.

Nothing that he had set out to do was yet done, and some of it he must absolutely accomplish, and that shortly.

How much?
That depended upon this girl.