The desolation here was complete. All around us lay the dunes, monstrous
as still leviathans. Here and there, between their strange, suggestive
shapes, under the dark sky one could see the ghastly whiteness of the
saltpetre in the arid plains beyond, where the low bushes bent in
the chilly breeze. I thought of London--only a few days’ journey
from me--revelled for a moment in my situation, which, contrary to my
expectation, was rather emphasised by the presence of my companions. The
gorgeous Spahi, with his scarlet cloak and hood, his musket and sword,
his high red leggings, the ragged, sweating captive in his patched
burnous, ex-butcher looking, despite his cord emblem of bondage, like
reigning Emperor--they were appropriate figures in this desert place. I
had just thought this, and was regarding my Sackville Street suit with
disgust, when a low, distinct and near sound suddenly rose from behind a
sand dune on my left. It was exactly like the dull beating of a tom-tom.
The silence preceding it had been intense, for the breeze was as yet too
light to make more than the faintest sighing music, and in the gathering
darkness this abrupt and gloomy noise produced, I supposed, by some
hidden nomad, made a very unpleasant, even sinister impression upon me.
Instinctively I put my hand on the revolver which was slung at my side
in a pouch of gazelle skin. As I did so, I saw the Spahi turn sharply
and gaze in the direction of the sound, lifting one hand to his ear.
The low thunder of the instrument, beaten rhythmically and persistently,
grew louder and was evidently drawing nearer. The musician must be
climbing up the far side of the dune. I had swung round to face him, and
expected every moment to see some wild figure appear upon the summit,
defining itself against the cold and gloomy sky. But none came.
Nevertheless, the noise increased till it was a roar, drew near till it
was actually upon us. It seemed to me that I heard the sticks striking
the hard, stretched skin furiously, as if some phantom drummer were
stealthily encircling us, catching us in a net, a trap of horrible,
vicious uproar. Instinctively I threw a questioning, perhaps an
appealing, glance at my two companions. The Spahi had dropped his hand
from his ear. He stood upright, as if at attention on the parade-ground
of Biskra. His face was set--afterwards I told myself it was fatalistic.
The murderer, on the other hand, was smiling. I remember the gleam
of his big white teeth. Why was he smiling? While I asked myself the
question the roar of the tom-tom grew gradually less, as if the man
beating it were walking rapidly away from us in the direction of
Sidi-Massarli. None of us said a word till 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 Café 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 Aïchouch------”
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 repast; 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
Café Maure.
“Where are you going to sleep?” I asked of D’oud.
“At the Café 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 Café 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?”