"Too dark, Effendi," Abdul said. "If we go out now, they will not only chase us; they will catch us, for they are able to see very well in the dark." "_Who_ will catch us?" "These people. They are worse than Tuaregs. For all I know, they may be descended from the Tuaregs, and everyone knows that a Tuareg would as soon cut a man's throat as kiss the hem of his burnoose." "So now they are Tuaregs." Colonel Glinka nodded, with a slow, ferocious smile. "Yet you have hinted that they are the spawn of Comrade Stefanik's genius, the children of genetical science, stamped with 'Made in the Seychelles' upon their bottoms. Perhaps they were grown in the conservatory, from Tuareg seed." Abdul grimaced. "I do not remember saying that, though sometimes I say things that I don't remember later. Perhaps they are not Tuaregs, then. To tell the truth, they were already living here when I came to work for the Sidi Doctor Stephens, and so naturally I thought that he had made them, for there were no people upon this island in the old days. Only the seabirds and a few wild goats, perhaps." Colonel Glinka clasped his hand to his forehead. "Stop, stop, or I shall go mad!" Abdul Hakkim obediently sat down and crossed his legs, starting to light the second of the very bad cigarettes that he had cadged. "What are you doing?" Colonel Glinka said softly. "Nothing, Effendi." "Get up! Get up and get moving, my boy, or make your peace with Allah! Did you suppose for one moment that I had forgotten what we were talking about?" * * * * * It was quite dark by the time they had reached the summit of the ridge, but Colonel Glinka still marched along behind Abdul, high good humor restored, prodding him from time to time with the Malacca cane and lecturing him upon social equalities and other Party doctrine. "Are we nearly there?" he would interrupt himself to ask from time to time. "I do not know." "Call out, then." "I am afraid." A savage poke with the cane, a war whoop from Abdul Hakkim ben Salazar. No answer. "We'll get him," Colonel Glinka would say. "Oh, my, yes." But an hour had passed and still they had encountered no living thing upon the path. At last Abdul stopped abruptly. They were in a little, narrow ravine, high above the sea, with looming red cliffs all about them, and the booming of the surf upon the distant, windward shore of the island plainly audible. "Why have we stopped here?" Colonel Glinka said, bumping into him. "Look there, Effendi!" Abdul whispered, gesturing toward a ledge not ten yards above their heads, where a burnoosed figure stood looking down upon them. "And there--and there--and there!" Abdul pointed at other little ledges where similar ghostly sentries stood, barely visible in the gloom.