ill only a faint, heavy
throbbing, like the beating of a heart, I fancied, was audible in the
darkness. Then I spoke, as silence fell.

"Who is it?"

"Monsieur, it is no one."

The Spain's voice was dry and soft.

"What is it?"

"Monsieur, it is the desert drum. There will be death in Sidi-Massarli
to-night."

I felt myself turn cold. He spoke with such conviction. The murderer was
still smiling, and I noticed that the tired look had left him. He stood
in an alert attitude, and the sweat had dried on his broad forehead.

"The desert drum?" I repeated.

"Monsieur has not heard of it?"

"Yes, I have heard--but--it can't be. There must have been someone."

I looked at the white teeth of the murderer, white as the saltpetre
which makes winter in the desert.

"I must get back to the Bordj," I said abruptly.

"I will accompany monsieur."

The old formula, and this time the voice which spoke it sounded natural.
We went forward together. I walked very fast. I wanted to catch up that
music, to prove to myself that it was produced by human fists and sticks
upon an instrument which, however barbarous, had been fashioned by human
hands. But we entered Sidi-Massarli in a silence, only broken by the
soughing of the wind and the heavy shuffle of the murderer's feet upon
the sand.

Outside the Cafe Maure D'oud was standing with the white hood of his
burnous drawn forward over his head; one or two ragged Arabs stood with
him.

"They've been playing tom-toms in the village, D'oud?"

"Monsieur asks if----"

"Tom-toms. Can't you understand?"

"Ah! Monsieur is laughing. Tom-toms here! And dancers, too, perhaps!
Monsieur thinks there are dancers? Fatma and Khadija and Aichouch------"

I glanced quickly at the murderer as D'oud mentioned the last name, a
name common to many dancers of the East. I think I expected to see upon
his face some tremendous expression, a revelation of the soul of the man
who had run for one whole day through the sand behind the Spahi's horse,
cursing at the end of the cord which dragged him onward from Tunis.

But I only met the gentle smile of eyes so tender, so submissive, that
they were as the eyes of a woman who had always been a slave, while the
ragged Arabs laughed at the idea of tom-toms in Sidi-Massarli.

*****

When we reached the Bordj I found that it contained only one good-sized
room, quite bare, with stone floor and white walls. Here, upon a deal
table, was set forth my repa