“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.”