“There will be death in Sidi-Massarli tonight, monsieur. It is the will
of Allah. Blessed be Allah.”
I got up, locked the heavy door of the Bordj, and put the key in the
inner pocket of my coat. As I did so, I fancied I saw the heavy black
lids of the murderer’s closed eyes flutter for a moment. But I cannot
be sure. My head was aching with fatigue. The Spahi, too, looked stupid
with sleep. He jerked the cord, the murderer awoke with a start, glanced
heavily round, stood up. Pulling him as one would an obstinate dog, the
Spahi made him lie down on the bare floor in the corner of the Bordj,
ere he himself curled up in the thick quilt which had been rolled
up behind his high saddle. I made no protest, but when the Spahi was
asleep, his lean brown hand laid upon his sword, his musket under his
shaven head, I pushed one of my blankets over to the murderer, who lay
looking like a heap of rags against the white wall. He smiled at me
gently, as he had smiled when the desert drum was beating, and drew the
blanket over his mighty limbs and face.
I did not mean to sleep that night. Tired though I was my brain was so
excited that I felt I should not. I blew out the candle without even the
thought that it would be necessary to struggle against sleep. And in the
darkness I heard for an instant the roar of the wind outside, the heavy
breathing of my two strange companions within. For an instant--then it
seemed as if a shutter was drawn suddenly over the light in my brain.
Blackness filled the room where the thoughts develop, crowd, stir in
endless activities. Slumber fell upon me like a great stone that strikes
a man down to dumbness, to unconsciousness.
Far in the night I had a dream. I cannot recall it accurately now. I
could not recall it even the next morning when I awoke. But in this
dream, it seemed to me that fingers felt softly about my heart. I was
conscious of their fluttering touch. It was as if I were dead, and as if
the doctor laid for a moment his hand upon my heart to convince himself
that the pulse of life no longer beat. And this action wove itself
naturally into the dream I had. The fingers so soft, so surreptitious,
were lifted from my breast, and I sank deeper into the gulf of sleep,
below the place of dreams. For I was a tired man that night. At the
first breath of dawn I stirred and woke. It was cold. I put out one hand
and drew up my quilt. Then I lay still. The wind had sunk. I no longer
heard it roaring over the desert. For a moment I hardly remembered where
I was, then memory came back and I listened for the deep breathing of
the Spahi and the murderer. Even when the wind blew I had heard it.
I did not hear it now. I lay there under my quilt for some minutes
listening. The silence was intense. Had they gone already, started on
their way to El Arba? The Bordj was in darkness, for the windows were
very small, and dawn had scarcely begun to break outside and had not yet
filtered in through the wooden shutters which barred them. I disliked
this complete silence, and felt about for the matches I had laid beside
the candle before turning in. I could not find them. Someone had
moved them, then. The heaviness of sleep had quite left me now, and I
remembered clearly all the incidents of the previous evening. The roll
of the desert drum sounded again in my ears. I threw off my quilt, got
up, and moved softly over the stone floor towards the corner where the
murderer had lain down to sleep. I bent down to touch him and touched
the stone. They had gone, then! It was strange that I had not been waked
by their departure. Besides, I had the key of the door. I thrust my hand
into the breast-pocket of my coat which I had worn while I slept. The
key was no longer there. Then I remembered my dream and the fingers
fluttering round my heart. Stumbling in the blackness I came to the
place where the Spahi had lain, stretched out my hands and felt naked
flesh. My hands recoiled from it, for it was very cold.
Half-an-hour later the one-eyed Arab who kept the Bordj, roused by my
beating upon the door with the butt end of my revolver, came with D’oud
to ask what was the matter. The door had to be broken in. This took some
time. Long before I could escape, the light of the sun, entering through
the little arched windows, had illumined the nude corpse of the Spahi,
the gaping red wound in his throat, the heap of murderer’s rags that lay
across his feet.
M’hammed Bouaziz, in the red cloak, the red boots, sword at his side,
musket slung over his shoulder, was galloping over the desert on his way
to freedom.
But six months later he was taken at night outside a café by the lake at
Tunis. He was gazing through the doorway at a girl who was posturing to
the sound of pipes between two rows of Arabs. The light from the café
fell upon his face, the dancer uttered a cry.
“M’hammed Bouaziz!”
“Aïchouch!”
The law avenged the Spahi, and this time it was not to prison they
led my friend of Sidi-Massarli, but to an open space before a squad of
soldiers just when the dawn was breaking.