Perfidious fate! I had been tricked by her, and all her declarations of love were false. Heartsick and jaded, I sat beside the smouldering embers, thinking over the hopelessness of my future. The discovery of Valerie's baseness had crushed me. With the exception of the crackling of the fire, and the measured tread of the sentry beyond, all was still in the bright, clear night. Around the well our men were lying, wrapped in their cloaks, but not sleeping. Each man, with his revolver in one hand and the bridle of his horse in the other, was ready at any moment to spring up, mount, and ride straight into the irregular column of brown-faced, white-burnoused foe, who had sworn on their Koran to exterminate us Christian dogs. The moments passed, breathless and exciting. "_Qui est la_?" suddenly demanded a sentry, causing us to start. "_Ami. Pour la France_!" was the response, and in a moment later Colonel Chadoume joined us. "There will be fighting to-night," he said briefly. "There are thousands of those black devils." "There will not be so many when our sabres have whirled through them," observed Lavigniac grimly. "We are caught like rats in a trap," whispered the colonel in a low tone, so that the men should not overhear his misgivings. "The only way in which we can save ourselves is to apprise Le Pelletier of our position, and give him a plan of the country between In Zize and Chikh Salah from the survey we have made." "But how can we?" asked Maurel. "Whoever went would have to pass the lines of the enemy at the risk of being shot." We were silent for several minutes. "I will go," I said at last. "You?" exclaimed the three men in surprise. I nodded. "I will make the attempt," I added. "But you must carry the plan as well as the letter, and start before daybreak," said the colonel. "I am ready," I replied. I set but little value upon my life, for, truth to tell, I was utterly reckless now Valerie was false to me. In the grey hour before the dawn I left the camp. I had exchanged my scarlet trousers and gilt-braided tunic for a shapeless white burnouse, and about my head wore a haick, around which was twisted many yards of brown camel's hair; my face had been effectually dyed a deep brown, I had assumed a flowing black beard, and my bare feet were thrust into rough slippers. Any one who had met the inoffensive Arab trader from El Biodh, would scarcely have suspected him to be an officer of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and a well-known figure in drawing-rooms of the Avenue de Champs Elysees. Mounted on a camel, with well-filled bags across my saddle, I rode slowly along, over the rough stony desert, eastward, guided only by the streak of yellow light that heralded the dawn. Far away upon the horizon was a low range of hills, at the foot of which the Kel-Ahamellen were encamped.