XLIX

The boy Mohammed was proud and very happy. He had not been in a

motor-car, for he had not got to Touggourt; but it was glorious to have

travelled far north, almost out of the dunes, and not only to have seen

giant women in short skirts with bare legs, but not to be afraid of

them, as the grown-up Arabs were. The giant women were Hamish and Angus,

and it was a great thing to know them, and to be able to explain them to

his father's men from the Zaouïa.

He was a handsome little fellow, with a face no darker than old ivory,

and heavily lashed, expressive eyes, like those which looked over the

marabout's mask. His dress was that of a miniature man; a white silk

burnous, embroidered with gold, over a pale blue vest, stitched in many

colours; a splendid red cloak, whose embroidery of stiff gold stood out

like a bas-relief; a turban and chechia of thin white muslin; and

red-legged boots finer than those of the Spahis. Though he was but

eleven years old, and had travelled hard for days, he sat his horse with

a princely air, worthy the son of a desert potentate; and like a prince

he received the homage of the marabout's men who rushed to him with

guttural cries, kissing the toes of his boots, in their short stirrups,

and fighting for an end of his cloak to touch with their lips. He did

not know that he had been "kidnapped." His impression was that he had

deigned to favour a rather agreeable Roumi with his company. Now he was

returning to his own people, and would bid his Roumi friend good-bye

with the cordiality of one gentleman to another, though with a certain

royal condescension fitted to the difference in their positions.

Nevill was in wild spirits, though pale with heat and fatigue. He had

nothing to say of himself, but much of his aunt and of the boy Mohammed.

"Ripping little chap," he exclaimed, when Saidee had gone indoors. "You

never saw such pluck. He'd die sooner than admit he was tired. I shall

be quite sorry to part from him. He was jolly good company, a sort of

living book of Arab history. And what do you say to our surprise,--the

twins? My aunt sent them off at the same time with the telegram, but of

course they put in an appearance much later. They caught me up this

morning, riding like devils on racing camels, with one guide. No horses

could be got big enough for them. They've frightened every Arab they've

met--but they're used to that and vain of it. They've got rifles--and

bagpipes too, for all I know. They're capable of them."

"I can't tell you how glad I am to see you, Wings," said Stephen, "and

only a little less glad to see those big fellows with their brave

faces." Then he mentioned to Nevill the apparition of that mysterious

caravan which had appeared, and vanished. Also he described the

behaviour of the Zaouïa men when they had looked south, instead of

north.

"Oh, that's all right, I'll bet," exclaimed Nevill, exuberant with the

joy of success, and in the hope of coolness, food and rest. "Might have

been any old caravan, on its own business--nothing to do with us. That's

the most likely thing. But if the marabout's mixed up with it, I should

say it's only because he couldn't bear to stop at home and wait in

suspense, and I don't blame him, now I've made acquaintance with the

kid. He'd be too proud to parade his anxiety under our noses, but would

lurk in the distance, out of our sight, he probably flatters himself, to

welcome his son, and take him back to Oued Tolga. Not unnatural--and in

spite of all, I can't help being a little sorry for the man. We've

humiliated and got the better of him, because we happen to have his

secret. It's a bit like draining a chap's blood, and then challenging

him to fight. He's got all he can expect now, in receiving the child

back and if I can judge him by myself, he'll be so happy, that he'll be

only too thankful to see our backs for the last time."

"He might feel safer to stick a knife in them."

"Oh, lord, I'm too hot to worry!" laughed Nevill. "Let's bid the boy

Godspeed, or the Mussulman equivalent, which is a lot more elaborate,

and then turn our thoughts to a bath of sorts and a dinner of sorts. I

think Providence has been good to us so far, and we can afford to trust

It. I'm sure Miss Ray would agree with me there." And Nevill glanced

with kind blue eyes toward the shut door behind which Victoria had

disappeared with her sister.

When at last the little Mohammed had been despatched with great ceremony

of politeness, as well as a present of Stephen's gold watch, the two

Englishmen watched him fade out of sight with his cavalcade of men from

the Zaouïa, and saw that nothing moved in the southern distance.

"All's right with the world, and now for a wash and food!" cried Nevill,

turning in with a sigh of relief at the gate of the bordj. "But oh, by

the way--Hamish has got a letter for you--or is it Angus? Anyhow, it's

from my fairy aunt, which I would envy you, if she hadn't sent me on

something better--a post-card from Tlemcen. My tyrant goddess thinks

letters likely to give undue encouragement, but once in a while she

sheds the light of a post-card on me. Small favours thankfully

received--from that source!"

Inside the courtyard, the Highlanders were watching the three Arabs who

had travelled with them and their master, attending to the horses and

camels. These newcomers were being shown the ropes by the one servant of

the bordj, Stephen's men helping with grave good-nature. They all seemed

very friendly together, as is the way of Arabs, unless they inhabit

rival districts.

Hamish had the letter, and gave it to Stephen, who retired a few steps

to read it, and Nevill, seeing that the twins left all work to the

Arabs, ordered them to put his luggage into the musty-smelling room

which he was to share with Stephen, and to get him some kind of bath, if

it were only a tin pan.

Stephen did not listen to these directions, nor did he hear or see

anything that went on in the courtyard, for the next ten minutes. There

was, indeed, a short and characteristic letter from Lady MacGregor, but

it was only to say that she had finished and named the new game of

Patience for Victoria Ray, and that, after all, she enclosed him a

telegram, forwarded from Algiers to Touggourt. "I know Nevill told me

that everything could wait till you got back," she explained, "but as I

am sending the twins, they might as well take this. It may be of

importance; and I'm afraid by the time you get it, the news will be

several days old already."

He guessed, before he looked, whence the telegram came; and he dreaded

to make sure. For an instant, he was tempted to put the folded bit of

paper in his pocket, unread until Touggourt, or even Biskra. "Why

shouldn't I keep these few days unspoiled by thoughts of what's to come,

since they're the only happy days I shall ever have?" he asked himself.

But it would be weak to put off the evil moment, and he would not yield.

He opened the telegram.

"Sailing on Virginian. Hope you can meet me Liverpool May 22nd.

Love and longing. Margot."

To-day was the 25th.

* * * * * * *

When he looked up, the courtyard was empty, and quiet, save for the

quacking of two or three forlorn ducks. Nevill had gone inside, and the

Highlanders were waiting upon him, no doubt--for Nevill liked a good

deal of waiting upon. The Arabs had left the animals peacefully feeding,

and had disappeared into the kitchen, or perhaps to have a last look at

the vanishing escort of the marabout's sacred son.

Stephen was suddenly conscious of fatigue, and a depression as of great

weariness. He envied Nevill, whose boyish laugh he heard. The girl

Nevill loved had refused to marry him, but she smiled when she saw him,

and sent him post-cards when he was absent. There was hope for Nevill.

For him there was none; although--and it was as if a fierce hand seized

and wrenched his heart--sometimes it had seemed, in the last few hours,

that in Victoria Ray's smile for him there was the same lovely,

mysterious light which made the eyes of Josette Soubise wonderful when

she looked at Nevill. If it were not for Margot--but there was no use

thinking of that. He could not ask Margot to set him free, after all

that had passed, and even if he should ask, she would refuse. Shuddering

disgustfully, the thought of a new family scandal shot through his mind:

a breach-of-promise case begun by Margot against him, if he tried to

escape. It was the sort of thing she would do, he could not help

recognizing. Another _cause célèbre_, more vulgar than the fight for his

brother's title! How Victoria would turn in shocked revulsion from the

hero of such a coarse tragi-comedy. But he would never be that hero. He

would keep his word and stick to Margot. When he should come to the

desert telegraph station between Toudja and Touggourt, he would wire to

the Carlton, where she thought of returning, and explain as well as he

could that, not expecting her quite yet, he had stayed on in Africa, but

would see her as soon as possible.

"Better hurry up and get ready for dinner!" shouted Nevill, through a

crack of their bedroom door. "I warn you, I'm starving!"

By this time the Highlanders were out in the courtyard again--two

gigantic figures, grotesque and even fearful in the eyes of Arabs; but

there were no Arabs to stare at them now. All had gone about their

business in one direction or other.

Stephen said nothing to his friend about the enclosure in Lady

MacGregor's letter, mentioning merely the new game of cards named in

honour of Miss Ray, at which they both laughed. And it seemed rather

odd to Stephen just then, to hear himself laugh.

The quick-falling twilight had now given sudden coolness and peace to

the desert. The flies had ceased their persecutions. The whole air was

blue as the light seen through a pale star-sapphire, for the western sky

was veiled with a film of cloud floating up out of the sunset like the

smoke of its fire, and there was no glow of red.

As the two friends made themselves ready for dinner, and talked of such

adventures as each had just passed through, they heard the voice of the

landlord, impatiently calling, "Abdallah! Abdallah!"

There was no reply, and again he roared the name of his servant, from

the kitchen and from the courtyard, into which he rushed with a huge

ladle in his hand; then from farther off, outside the gate, which

remained wide open. Still there came no answer; and presently Stephen,

looking from his bedroom, saw the Frenchman, hot and red-faced, slowly

crossing the courtyard, mumbling to himself.

Nevill had not quite finished his toilet, for he had a kind of boyish

vanity, and wished to show how well and smart he could look after the

long, tiresome journey. But Stephen was ready, and he stepped out,

closing the door behind him.

"Can't you find your servant?" he asked the keeper of the bordj.

"No," said the man, adding some epithets singularly unflattering to the

absent one and his ancestors. "He has vanished as if his father, the

devil, had dragged him down to hell."

"Where are the others?" inquired Stephen. "My men and my friend's men?

Are they still standing outside the gates, watching the boy and his

caravan?"

"I saw them nowhere," returned the Frenchman. "It is bad enough to keep

one Arab in order. I do not run after others. Would that the whole

nation might die like flies in a frost! I hate them. What am I to do

for my dinner, and ladies in the bordj for the first time? It is just my

luck. I cannot leave the kitchen, and that brute Abdallah has not laid

the table! When I catch him I will wring his neck as if he were a hen."

He trotted back to the kitchen, swearing, and an instant later he was

visible through the open door, drinking something out of a bottle.

Stephen went to the door of the third and last guest-room of the bordj.

It was larger than the others, and had no furniture except a number of

thick blue and red rugs spread one on top of the other, on the floor.

This was the place where those who paid least were accommodated, eight

or ten at a time if necessary; and it was expected that Hamish and Angus

would have to share the room with the Arab guides of both parties.

Stephen looked in at the twins, as they scornfully inspected their

quarters.

"Where are the Arabs?" he asked, as he had asked the landlord.

"We dinna ken whaur they've ta'en theirsel's," replied Angus. "All we

ken is, we wull not lie in the hoose wi' 'em. Her leddyship wadna expect

it, whateffer. We prefair t' sleep in th' open."

Stephen retired from the argument, and mounted a steep, rough stairway,

close to the gate, which led to the flat top of the wall, and had

formerly been connected by a platform with the ruined heliograph tower.

The wall was perhaps two feet thick, and though the top was rough and

somewhat broken, it was easy to walk upon it. Once it had been defended

by a row of nails and bits of glass, but most of these were gone. It was

an ancient bordj, and many years of peace had passed since it was built

in the old days of raids and razzias.

Stephen looked out over the desert, through the blue veil of twilight,

but could see no sign of life anywhere. Then, coming down, he mounted

into each squat tower in turn, and peered out, so that he might spy in

all directions, but there was nothing to spy save the shadowy dunes,

more than ever like waves of the sea, in this violet light. He was not

reassured, however, by the appearance of a vast peace and emptiness.

Behind those billowing dunes that surged away toward the horizon, north,

south, east, and west, there was hiding-place for an army.

As he came down from the last of the four towers, his friend sauntered

out from his bedroom. "I hope the missing Abdallah's turned up, and

dinner's ready," said Nevill gaily.

Then Stephen told him what had happened, and Nevill's cheerful face

settled into gravity.

"Looks as if they'd got a tip from the marabout's men," he said slowly.

"It can be nothing else," Stephen agreed.

"I blame myself for calling the twins inside to help me," said Nevill.

"If I'd left them to moon about the courtyard, they'd have seen those

sneaks creeping away, and reported."

"They wouldn't have thought it strange that the Arabs stood outside,

watching the boy go. You're not to blame, because you didn't see the sly

look in my fellows' faces. I had the sign, and neglected it, in spite of

my resolutions. But after all, if we're in for trouble, I don't know

that it isn't as well those cowards have taken French leave. If they'd

stayed, we'd only have had an enemy inside the gates, as well as out.

And that reminds me, we must have the gates shut at once. Thank heaven

we brought those French army rifles and plenty of cartridges from

Algiers, when we didn't know what we might be in for. Now we _do_ know;

and all are likely to come handy. Also our revolvers."

"Thank heaven and my aunt for the twins, too," said Nevill. "They might

be better servants, but I'll bet on them as fighters. And perhaps you

noticed the rifles her 'leddyship' provided them with at Touggourt?"

"I saw the muzzles glitter as they rode along on camel-back," Stephen

answered. "I was glad even then, but now----" He did not need to finish

the sentence. "We'd better have a word with our host," he said.

To reach the dining-room, where the landlord was busy, furiously

clattering dishes, they had to pass the door of the room occupied by the

sisters. It was half open, and as they went by, Victoria came out.

"Please tell me things," she said. "I'm sure you're anxious. When we

heard the landlord call his servant and nobody answered, Saidee was

afraid there was something wrong. You know, from the first she thought

that her--that Cassim didn't mean to keep his word. Have the Arabs all

gone?"

Nevill was silent, to let Stephen take the responsibility. He was not

sure whether or no his friend meant to try and hide their anxiety from

the women. But Stephen answered frankly. "Yes, they've gone. It may be

that nothing will happen, but we're going to shut the gates at once, and

make every possible preparation."

"In case of an attack?"

"Yes. But we have a good place for defence here. It would be something

to worry about if we were out in the open desert."

"There are five men, counting your Highlanders," said Victoria, turning

to Nevill. "I think they are brave, and I know well already what you

both are." Her eyes flashed to Stephen's with a beautiful look, all for

him. "And Saidee and I aren't cowards. Our greatest grief is that we've

brought you into this danger. It's for our sakes. If it weren't for us,

you'd be safe and happy in Algiers."

Both men laughed. "We'd rather be here, thank you," said Stephen. "If

you're not frightened, that's all we want. We're as safe as in a fort,

and shall enjoy the adventure, if we have any."

"It's like you to say that," Victoria answered. "But there's no use

pretending, is there? Cassim will bring a good many men, and Si

Maïeddine will be with them, I think. They couldn't afford to try, and

fail. If they come, they'll have to--make thorough work."

"Yet, on the other hand, they wouldn't want to take too many into their

secret," Stephen tried to reassure her.

"Well, we may soon know," she said. "But what I came out to say, is

this. My sister has two carrier pigeons with her. One has hurt its wing

and is no use. But the other is well, and--he comes from Oued Tolga. Not

the Zaouïa, but the city. We've been thinking, she and I, since the Arab

servant didn't answer, that it would be a good thing to send a letter

to--to Captain Sabine, telling him we expected an attack."

"It would be rather a sell if he got the message, and acted on it--and

then nothing happened after all," suggested Nevill.

"I think we'll send the message," said Stephen. "It would be different

if we were all men here, but----"

Victoria turned, and ran back to the open door.

"The pigeon shall go in five minutes," she called over her shoulder.

Stephen and Nevill went to the dining-room.

The landlord was there, drunk, talking to himself. He had broken a dish,

and was kicking the fragments under the table. He laughed at first when

the two Englishmen tried to impress upon him the gravity of the

situation; at last, however, they made him understand that this was no

joke, but deadly earnest. They helped him close and bar the heavy iron

gates; and as they looked about for material with which to build up a

barrier if necessary, they saw the sisters come to the door. Saidee had

a pigeon in her hands, and opening them suddenly, she let it go. It

rose, fluttered, circling in the air, and flew southward. Victoria ran

up the dilapidated stairway by the gate, to see it go, but already the

tiny form was muffled from sight in the blue folds of the twilight.

"In less than two hours it will be at Oued Tolga," the girl cried,

coming down the steep steps.

At that instant, far away, there was the dry bark of a gun.

They looked at each other, and said nothing, but the same doubt was in

the minds of all.

It might be that the message would never reach Oued Tolga.

Then another thought flashed into Stephen's brain. He asked himself

whether it would be possible to climb up into the broken tower. If he

could reach the top, he might be able to call for help if they should be

hard-pressed; for some years before he had, more for amusement than

anything else, taken a commission in a volunteer battalion and among

many other things which he considered more or less useless, had learned

signalling. He had not entirely forgotten the accomplishment, and it

might serve him very well now, only--and he looked up critically at the

jagged wall--it would be difficult to get into that upper chamber, a

shell of which remained. In any case, he would not think of so extreme a

measure, until he was sure that, if he gave an alarm, it would not be a

false one.

"Let's have dinner," said Nevill. "If we have fighting to do, I vote we

start with ammunition in our stomachs as well as in our pockets."

Saidee had gone part way up the steps, and was looking over the wall.

"I see something dark, that moves," she said. "It's far away, but I am

sure. My eyes haven't been trained in the desert for nothing. It's a

caravan--quite a big caravan, and it's coming this way. That's where the

shot came from. If they killed the pigeon, or winged it, we're all lost.

It would only be childish to hope. We must look our fate in the face.

The men will be killed, and I, too. Victoria will be saved, but I think

she'd rather die with the rest of us, for Maïeddine will take her."

"It's never childish to hope, it seems to me," said Nevill. "This little

fort of ours isn't to be conquered in an hour, or many hours, I assure

you."

"And we have no intention of letting you be killed, or Miss Ray carried

off, or of dying ourselves, at the hands of a few Arabs," Knight added.

"Have confidence."

"In our star," Victoria half whispered, looking at Stephen. They both

remembered, and their eyes spoke, in a language they had never used

before.

In England, Margot Lorenzi was wondering why Stephen Knight had not come

to meet her, and angrily making up her mind that she would find out the

reason.

L

Somehow, they all contrived to take a little food, three watching from

the wall-towers while the others ate; and Saidee prepared strong,

delicious coffee, such as had never been tasted in the bordj of Toudja.

When they had dined after a fashion, each making a five-minute meal,

there was still time to arrange the defence, for the attacking party--if

such it were--could not reach the bordj in less than an hour, marching

as fast as horses and camels could travel among the dunes.

The landlord was drunk. There was no disguising that, but though he was

past planning, he was not past fighting. He had a French army rifle and

bayonet. Each of the five men had a revolver, and there was another in

the bordj, belonging to the absent brother. This Saidee asked for, and

it was given her. There were plenty of cartridges for each weapon,

enough at all events to last out a hot fight of several hours. After

that--but it was best not to send thoughts too far ahead.

The Frenchman had served long ago in the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and had

risen, he said, to the rank of sergeant; but the fumes of absinthe

clouded his brain, and he could only swagger and boast of old exploits

as a soldier, crying from time to time "Vive l'entente cordiale," and

assuring the Englishmen that they could trust him to the death. It was

Stephen who, by virtue of his amateur soldiering experience, had to take

the lead. He posted the Highlanders in opposite watch-towers, placing

Nevill in one which commanded the two rear walls of the bordj. The next

step was the building of bonfires, one at each corner of the roof, so

that when the time for fighting came, the defenders might confound the

enemy by lighting the surrounding desert, making a surprise impossible.

Old barrels were broken up, therefore, and saturated with oil. The

spiked double gates of iron, though apparently strong, Stephen judged

incapable of holding out long against battering rams, but he knew heavy

baulks of wood to be rare in the desert, far from the palms of the

oases. What he feared most was gunpowder; and though he was ignorant of

the marabout's secret ambitions and warlike preparations, he thought it

not improbable that a store of gunpowder might be kept in the Zaouïa.

True, the French Government forbade Arabs to have more than a small

supply in their possession; but the marabout was greatly trusted, and

was perhaps allowed to deal out a certain amount of the coveted treasure

for "powder play" on religious fête days. To prevent the bordj falling

into the hands of the Arabs if the gate were blown down, Stephen and his

small force built up at the further corner of the yard, in front of the

dining-room door, a barrier of mangers, barrels, wooden troughs, iron

bedsteads and mattresses from the guest-rooms. Also they reinforced the

gates against pressure from the outside, using the shafts of an old cart

to make struts, which they secured against the side walls or frame of

the gateway. These formed buttresses of considerable strength; and the

landlord, instead of grumbling at the damage which might be done to his

bordj, and the danger which threatened himself, was maudlin with delight

at the prospect of killing a few detested Arabs.

"I don't know what your quarrel's about, unless it's the ladies," he

said, breathing vengeance and absinthe, "but whatever it is, I'll make

it mine, whether you compensate me or not. Depend upon me, _mon

capitaine_. Depend on an old soldier."

But Stephen dared not depend upon him to man one of the watch-towers.

Eye and hand were too unsteady to do good service in picking off

escaladers. The ex-soldier was brave enough for any feat, however, and

was delighted when the Englishman suggested, rather than gave orders,

that his should be the duty of lighting the bonfires. That done, he was

to take his stand in the courtyard, and shoot any man who escaped the

rifles in the wall-towers.

It was agreed among all five men that the gate was to be held as long as

possible; that if it fell, a second stand should be made behind the

crescent-shaped barricade outside the dining-room door; that, should

this defence fall also, all must retreat into the dining-room, where the

two sisters must remain throughout the attack; and this would be the

last stand.

Everything being settled, and the watch-towers well supplied with food

for the rifles, Stephen went to call Saidee and Victoria, who were in

their almost dismantled room. The bedstead, washstand, chairs and table

had ceased to be furniture, and had become part of the barricade.

"Let me carry your things into the dining-room now," he said. "And your

bed covering. We can make up a sort of couch there, for you may as well

be comfortable if you can. And you know, it's on the cards that all our

fuss is in vain. Nothing whatever may happen."

They obeyed, without objection; but Saidee's look as she laid a pair of

Arab blankets over Stephen's arm, told how little rest she expected. She

gathered up a few things of her own, however, to take from the bedroom

to the dining-room, and as she walked ahead, Stephen asked Victoria if,

in the handbag she had brought from the Zaouïa there was a mirror.

"Yes," she answered. "There's quite a good-sized one, which I used to

have on my dressing-table in the theatre. How far away that time seems

now!"

"Will you lend the mirror to me--or do you value it too much to risk

having it smashed?"

"Of course I'll lend it. But----" she looked up at him anxiously, in

the blue star-dusk. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing particular, unless we've reason to believe that an attack will

be made; that is, if a lot of Arabs come near the bordj. In that case, I

want to try and get up into the tower, and do some signalling--for fear

the shot we heard hit your sister's messenger. I used to be rather a

nailer at that sort of thing, when I played at soldiering a few years

ago."

"But no one could climb the tower now!" the girl exclaimed.

"I don't know. I almost flatter myself that I could. I've done the Dent

Blanche twice, and a Welsh mountain or two. To be sure, I must be my own

guide now, but I think I can bring it off all right. I've been searching

about for a mirror and reflector, in case I try the experiment; for the

heliographing apparatus was spoilt in the general wreckage of things by

the storm. I've got a reflector off a lamp in the kitchen, but couldn't

find a looking-glass anywhere, and I saw there was only a broken bit in

your room. My one hope was in you."

As he said this, he felt that the words meant a great deal more than he

wished her to understand.

"I hate being afraid of things," said Victoria. "But I am afraid to have

you go up in the tower. It's only a shell, that looks as if it might

blow down in another storm. It could fall with you, even if you got up

safely to the signalling place. And besides, if Cassim's men were near,

they might see you and shoot. Oh, I don't think I could bear to have you

go!"

"You care--a little--what becomes of me?" Stephen had stammered before

he had time to forbid himself the question.

"I care a great deal--what becomes of you."

"Thank you for telling me that," he said, warmly. "I--" but he knew he

must not go on. "I shan't be in danger," he finished. "I'll be up and

back before any one gets near enough to see what I'm at, and pot at me."

As he spoke, the sound of a strange, wild singing came to them, with the

desert wind that blew from the south.

"That's a Touareg song," exclaimed Saidee, turning. "It isn't Arab. I've

heard Touaregs sing it, coming to the Zaouïa."

"Madame is right," said the landlord. "I, too, have heard Touaregs sing

it, in their own country, and also when they have passed here, in small

bands. Perhaps we have deceived ourselves. Perhaps we are not to enjoy

the pleasure of a fight. I feared it was too good to be true."

"I can see a caravan," cried Nevill, from his cell in a wall-tower.

"There seem to be a lot of men."

"Would they come like that, if they wanted to fight?" asked the girl.

"Wouldn't they spread out, and hope to surprise us?"

"They'll either try to rush the gate, or else they'll pretend to be a

peaceful caravan," said Stephen.

"I see! Get the landlord to let their leaders in, and then.... That's

why they sing the Touareg song, perhaps, to put us off our guard."

"Into the dining-room, both of you, and have courage! Whatever happens,

don't come out. Will you give me the mirror?"

"Must you go?"

"Yes. Be quick, please."

On the threshold of the dining-room Victoria opened her bag, and gave

him a mirror framed in silver. It had been a present from an

enthusiastic millionairess in New York, who admired her dancing. That

seemed very odd now. The girl's hand trembled as for an instant it

touched Stephen's. He pressed her fingers, and was gone.

"Babe, I think this will be the last night of my life," said Saidee,

standing behind the girl, in the doorway, and pressing against her.

"Cassim will kill me, when he kills the men, because I know his secret

and because he hates me. If I could only have had a little happiness! I

don't want to die. I'm afraid. And it's horrible to be killed."

"I love being alive, but I want to know what happens next," said

Victoria. "Sometimes I want it so much, that I almost long to die. And

probably one feels brave when the minute comes. One always does, when

the great things arrive. Besides, we're sure it must be glorious as soon

as we're out of our bodies. Don't you know, when you're going to jump

into a cold bath, you shiver and hesitate a little, though you know

perfectly well it will be splendid in an instant. Thinking of death's

rather like that."

"You haven't got to think of it for yourself to-night. Maïeddine

will----"

"No," the girl broke in. "I won't go with Maïeddine."

"If they take this place--as they must, if they've brought many men,

you'll have to go, unless----"

"Yes; 'unless.' That's what I mean. But don't ask me any more. I--I

can't think of ourselves now."

"You're thinking of some one you love better than you do me."

"Oh, no, not better. Only----" Victoria's voice broke. The two clung to

each other. Saidee could feel how the girl's heart was beating, and how

the sobs rose in her throat, and were choked back.

Victoria watched the tower, that looked like a jagged black tear in the

star-strewn blue fabric of the sky. And she listened. It seemed as if

her very soul were listening.

The wild Touareg chant was louder now, but she hardly heard it, because

her ears strained for some sound which the singing might cover: the

sound of rubble crumbling under a foot that climbed and sought a

holding-place.

From far away came the barking of Kabyle dogs, in distant camps of

nomads. In stalls of the bordj, where the animals rested, a horse

stamped now and then, or a camel grunted. Each slightest noise made

Victoria start and tremble. She could be brave for herself, but it was

harder to be brave for one she loved, in great danger.

"They'll be here in ten minutes," shouted Nevill. "Legs, where are you?"

There was no answer; but Victoria thought she heard the patter of

falling sand. At least, the ruin stood firm so far. By this time Stephen

might have nearly reached the top. He had told her not to leave the

dining-room, and she had not meant to disobey; but she had made no

promise, and she could bear her suspense no longer. Where she stood, she

could not see into the shell of the broken tower. She must see!

Running out, she darted across the courtyard, pausing near the

Frenchman, Pierre Rostafel, who wandered unsteadily up and down the

quadrangle, his torch of alfa grass ready in his hand. He did not know

that one of the Englishmen was trying to climb the tower, and would not

for an instant have believed that any human being could reach the upper

chamber, if suddenly a light had not flashed out, at the top, seventy

feet above his head.

Dazed already with absinthe, fantastic ideas beat stupidly upon his

brain, like bats that blunder against a lamp and extinguish it with

foolish, flapping wings. He thought that somehow the enemy must have

stolen a march upon the defenders: that the hated Arabs had got into the

tower, from a ladder raised outside the wall, and that soon they would

be pouring down in a swarm. Before he knew what he was doing, he had

stumbled up the stairs on to the flat wall by the gate. Scrambling along

with his torch, he got on to the bordj roof, and lit bonfire after

bonfire, though Victoria called on him to stop, crying that it was too

soon--that the men outside would shoot and kill him who would save them

all.

The sweet silence of the starry evening was crashed upon with lights and

jarring sounds.

Stephen, who had climbed the tower with a lantern and a kitchen

lamp-reflector slung in a table-cover, on his back, had just got his

makeshift apparatus in order, and standing on a narrow shelf of floor

which overhung a well-like abyss, had begun his signalling to the

northward.

Too late he realized that, for all the need of haste, he ought to have

waited long enough to warn the drunken Frenchman what he meant to do. If

he had, this contretemps would not have happened. His telegraphic

flashes, long and short, must have told the enemy what was going on in

the tower, but they could not have seen him standing there, exposed like

a target to their fire, if Rostafel had not lit the bonfires.

Suddenly a chorus of yells broke out, strange yells that sprang from

savage hearts; and one sidewise glance down showed Stephen the desert

illuminated with red fire. He went on with his work, not stopping to

count the men on horses and camels who rode fast towards the bordj,

though not yet at the foot of that swelling sand hill on which it stood.

But a picture--of uplifted dark faces and pointing rifles--was stamped

upon his brain in that one swift look, clear as an impression of a seal

in hot wax. He had even time to see that those faces were half enveloped

in masks such as he had noticed in photographs of Touaregs, yet he was

sure that the twenty or thirty men were not Touaregs. When close to the

bordj all flung themselves from their animals, which were led away,

while the riders took cover by throwing themselves flat on the sand.

Then they began shooting, but he looked no more. He was determined to

keep on signalling till he got an answer or was shot dead.

There were others, however, who looked and saw the faces, and the rifles

aimed at the broken tower. The bonfires which showed the figure in the

ruined heliographing-room, to the enemy, also showed the enemy to the

watchers in the wall-towers, on opposite sides of the gates.

The Highlanders open fire. Their skill as marksmen, gained in the glens

and mountains of Sutherlandshire, was equally effective on different

game, in the desert of the Sahara. One shot brought a white mehari to

its knees. Another caused a masked man in a striped gandourah to wring

his hand and squeal.

The whole order of things was changed by the sudden flashes from the

height of the dark ruin, and the lighting of the bonfires on the bordj

roof.

Two of the masked men riding on a little in advance of the other twenty

had planned, as Stephen guessed, to demand admittance to the bordj,

declaring themselves leaders of a Touareg caravan on its way to

Touggourt. If they could have induced an unsuspecting landlord to open

the gates, so much the better for them. If not, a parley would have

given the band time to act upon instructions already understood. But

Cassim ben Halim, an old soldier, and Maïeddine, whose soul was in this

venture, were not the men to meet an emergency unprepared. They had

calculated on a check, and were ready for surprises.

It was Maïeddine's camel that went down, shot in the neck. He had been

keeping El Biod in reserve, when the splendid stallion might be needed

for two to ride away in haste--his master and a woman. As the mehari

fell, Maïeddine escaped from the saddle and alighted on his feet, his

blue Touareg veil disarranged by the shock. His face uncovered, he

bounded up the slope with the bullets of Angus and Hamish pattering

around him in the sand.

"She's bewitched, whateffer!" the twins mumbled, each in his

watch-tower, as the tall figure sailed on like a war-cloud, untouched.

And they wished for silver bullets, to break the charm woven round the

"fanatic" by a wicked spirit.

Over Maïeddine's head his leader was shooting at Stephen in the tower,

while Hamish returned his fire, leaving the running man to Angus. But

suddenly Angus wheeled after a shot, to yell through the tower door into

the courtyard. "Oot o' the way, wimmen! He's putten gunpowder to the

gate if I canna stop him." Then, he wheeled into place, and was

entranced to see that the next bullet found its billet under the Arab's

turban. In the orange light of the bonfires, Angus could see a spout of

crimson gush down the bronze forehead and over the glittering eyes. But

the wounded Arab did not fall back an inch or drop a burden which he

carried carefully. Now he was sheltering behind the high, jutting

gate-post. In another minute it would be too late to save the gate.

But Angus did not think of Victoria. Nor did Victoria stop to think of

herself. Something seemed to say in her heart, "Maïeddine won't let them

blow up the gate, if it means your death, and so, maybe, you can save

them all."

This was not a thought, since she had no time for thought. It was but a

murmur in her brain, as she ran up the steep stairway close to the gate,

and climbed on to the wall.

Maïeddine, streaming with blood, was sheltering in the narrow angle of

the gate-post where the firing from the towers struck the wall instead

of his body. He had suspended a cylinder of gunpowder against the gate,

and, his hands full of powder to sprinkle a trail, he was ready to make

a dash for life when a voice cried his name.

Victoria stood on the high white wall of the bordj, just above the gate,

on the side where he had hung the gunpowder. A few seconds more--his

soul sickened at the thought. He forgot his own danger, in thinking of

hers, and how he might have destroyed her, blotting out the light of his

own life.

"Maïeddine!" she called, before she knew who had been ready to lay the

fuse, and that, instead of crying to a man in the distance, she spoke to

one at her feet. He stared up at her through a haze of blood. In the red

light of the fire, she was more beautiful even than when she had danced

in his father's tent, and he had told himself that if need be he would

throw away the world for her. She recognized him as she looked down, and

started back with an impulse to escape, he seemed so near and so

formidable. But she feared that, if the gate were blown up, the ruined

tower might be shaken down by the explosion. She must stay, and save

the gate, until Stephen had reached the ground.

"Thou!" exclaimed Maïeddine. "Come to me, heart of my life, thou who art

mine forever, and thy friends shall be spared, I promise thee."

"I am not thine, nor ever can be," Victoria answered him. "Go thou, or

thou wilt be shot with many bullets. They fire at thee and I cannot stop

them. I do not wish to see thee die."

"Thou knowest that while thou art on the wall I cannot do what I came to

do," Maïeddine said. "If they kill me here, my death will be on thy

head, for I will not go without thee. Yet if thou hidest from me, I will

blow up the gate."

Victoria did not answer, but looked at the ruined tower. One of its

walls and part of another stood firm, and she could not see Stephen in

the heliographing-chamber at the top. But through a crack between the

adobe bricks she caught a gleam of light, which moved. It was Stephen's

lantern, she knew. He was still there. Farther down, the crack widened.

On his way back, he would see her, if she were still on the wall above

the gate. She wished that he need not learn she was there, lest he lose

his nerve in making that terrible descent. But every one else knew that

she was trying to save the gate, and that while she remained, the fuse

would not be lighted. Saidee, who had come out from the dining-room into

the courtyard, could see her on the wall, and Rostafel was babbling that

she was "une petite lionne, une merveille de courage et de finesse." The

Highlanders knew, too, and were doing their best to rid her of

Maïeddine, but, perhaps because of the superstition which made them

doubt the power of their bullets against a charmed life, they could not

kill him, though his cloak was pierced, and his face burned by a bullet

which had grazed his cheek. Suddenly, however, to the girl's surprise

and joy, Maïeddine turned and ran like a deer toward the firing line of

the Arabs. Then, as the bullets of Hamish and Angus spattered round

him, he wheeled again abruptly and came back towards the bordj as if

borne on by a whirlwind. With a run, he threw himself towards the gate,

and leaping up caught at the spikes for handhold. He grasped them

firmly, though his fingers bled, got a knee on the wall, and freeing a

hand snatched at Victoria's dress.