st; the foods I had brought with me, and a
red Arab soup served in a gigantic bowl of palmwood. A candle guttered
in the glass neck of a bottle, and upon the floor were already spread my
gaudy striped quilt, my pillow, and my blanket. The Spahi surveyed
these preparations with a deliberate greediness, lingering in the narrow
doorway.

I sat down on a bench before the table. My attendants were to eat at the
Cafe Maure.

"Where are you going to sleep?" I asked of D'oud.

"At the Cafe Maure, monsieur, if monsieur is not afraid to sleep alone.
Here is the key. Monsieur can lock himself in. The door is strong."

I was helping myself to the soup. The rising wind blew up the skirts of
the Spahi's scarlet robe. In the wind--was it imagination?--I seemed to
hear some thin, passing echoes of a tom-tom's beat.

"Come in," I said to the Spahi. "You shall sup with me to-night,
and--and you shall sleep here with me."

D'oud's expressive face became sinister. Arabs are almost as jealous as
they are vain.

"But, monsieur, he will sleep in the Cafe Maure. If monsieur wishes for
a companion, I----"

"Come in," I repeated to the Spahi. "You can sleep here to-night."

The Spahi stepped over the lintel with a jingling of spurs, a rattling
of accoutrements. The murderer stepped in softly after him, drawn by the
cord. D'oud began to look as grim as death. He made a ferocious gesture
towards the murderer.

"And that man? Monsieur wishes to sleep in the same room with him?"

I heard the sound of the tom-tom above the wail of the wind.

"Yes," I said.

Why did I wish it? I hardly know. I had no fear for, no desire to
protect myself. But I remembered the smile I had seen, the Spahi's
saying, "There will be death in Sidi-Massarli to-night," and I was
resolved that the three men who had heard the desert drum together
should not be parted till the morning. D'oud said no more. He waited
upon me with his usual diligence, but I could see that he was furiously
angry. The Spahi ate ravenously. So did the murderer, who more than
once, however, seemed to be dropping to sleep over his food. He was
apparently dead tired. As the wind was now become very violent I did not
feel disposed to stir out again, and I ordered D'oud to bring us three
cups of coffee to the Bordj. He cast a vicious look at the Spahi and
went out into the darkness. I saw him no more that night. A boy from the
Cafe Maure brought us coffee, cleared the remains of our supper