ed to the Colonel
to be something heroic and almost inhuman in that white calm, and those
abstracted eyes. His coat was already open, and the negro's great black
paw flew up to his neck and tore his shirt down to the waist. And at
the sound of that r-r-rip, and at the abhorrent touch of those coarse
fingers, this man about town, this finished product of the nineteenth
century, dropped his life-traditions and became a savage facing a
savage.

His face flushed, his lips curled back, he chattered, his teeth like
an ape, and his eyes --those indolent eyes which had always twinkled so
placidly--were gorged and frantic. He threw himself upon the negro, and
struck him again and again, feebly but viciously, in his broad, black
face. He hit like a girl, round arm, with an open palm. The man winced
away for an instant, appalled by this sudden blaze of passion. Then with
an impatient, snarling cry he slid a knife from his long loose sleeve
and struck upwards under the whirling arm. Brown sat down at the blow
and began to cough--to cough as a man coughs who has choked at dinner,
furiously, ceaselessly, spasm after spasm. Then the angry red cheeks
turned to a mottled pallor, there were liquid sounds in his throat, and,
clapping his hand to his mouth, he rolled over on to his side.

[Illustration: He rolled over on to his side p130]

The negro, with a brutal grunt of contempt, slid his knife up his sleeve
once more, while the Colonel, frantic with impotent anger, was seized
by the bystanders, and dragged, raving with fury, back to his forlorn
party. His hands were lashed with a camel-halter, and he lay at last, in
bitter silence, beside the delirious Nonconformist.

So Headingly was gone, and Cecil Brown was gone, and their haggard eyes
were turned from one pale face to another, to know which they should
lose next of that frieze of light-hearted riders who had stood out so
clearly against the blue morning sky, when viewed from the deck-chairs
of the _Korosko_. Two gone out of ten, and a third out of his mind. The
pleasure trip was drawing to its climax.

Fardet, the Frenchman, was sitting alone with his chin resting upon his
hands, and his elbows upon his knees, staring miserably out over the
desert, when Belmont saw him start suddenly and prick up his head like
a dog who hears a strange step. Then, with clenched fingers, he bent his
face forward and stared fixedly towards the black eastern hills through
which they had passed. B