ng a mile or
so to the south? Perhaps we had better go there."

"Ah! ha!" said Ducardanoy, looking through a field-glass; "it is an old
Roman tower. Undoubtedly it is, for there is nothing Moorish about it,
and the Romans and French are the only people who have erected anything
more substantial than tents in this part of Algeria."

"I think we had better go there," said Bouchardy, "and go rapidly, too.
Look behind you."

Away off to the west, galloping along in the track of the setting sun,
was a cavalcade of horsemen.

"Spahis," said Ducardanoy, calmly.

"Perhaps so," said Bouchardy. "Perhaps French cavalry, and perhaps Arab
robbers. Who knows? It is best to be prepared. If you choose you may
stay here to sleep in the sand to-night, and perhaps for all the nights
thereafter forever; but as for me, I am going to the Roman castle," and
he spurred on his horse and arrived at the tower some minutes after the
learned Ducardanoy, who was better mounted than he, and, moreover, was
not burdened with a magic-lantern and other appliances used in the free
entertainment. They found the tower to be nothing more than a plain
round edifice with a single upper chamber in it, reached by a flight of
narrow winding stairs ascending in a gentle incline. Up these stairs
they led their horses, as the Roman frontier guards had done centuries
before, and then looked out of the loop-holes for the approaching enemy.

"We can easily keep any of them from coming up the stairs," said
Bouchardy.

"And they can easily keep us from coming down," said Ducardanoy. "But
perhaps they have not seen us."

They were soon satisfied on that score, for the cavalcade of
horsemen--thirty-five wild desert Arabs--halted before the tower, and in
broken French commanded the chiropodist and his assistant to surrender.
This command was not obeyed. The Arabs laughed and picketed their
horses, and after a little a caravan of camels bearing tents and women
and children arrived, and the Arabs went into camp for the night.

"If they kill us, the French government will wipe them from the face of
the earth," said Ducardanoy, along toward the middle of the night.

"If the French government finds it out. But the death of those
scoundrels will not bring me to life," said Bouchardy. "I think it will
be well to make a sortie."

"They would hear us taking the horses down; and if we start on foot we
can't get so far away before daylight that they could not soon discove