Ourida pressed a second cup of tea on him. He drank it off at a gulp and lay down at her side. “Rest here and be comfortable,” said she, drawing his head to her. “Tell me again about that battle with the Bou Khari.” He told her in detail, omitting the salient fact that his horse had bolted with him, though, in truth, he had almost forgotten it himself by now. “All alone you faced them! Small wonder Sidi Mahomet holds thee in high honor, my hero. And the fight in the Rif?” He told her all about the guerrilla campaign among the rock fastnesses of the Djebel Tiziren, of a single mountaineer with a knife crawling through the troop-lines at night and sixty ham-strung horses in the morning. Ourida was entranced. “Go on, my lord, go on.” Ortho went on. He didn’t want to talk. He was most comfortable lying out on the cushions, his head on the girl’s soft lap. Moreover, his heavy day in the sun and wind had made him extraordinarily drowsy—but he went on. He told her of massacres and burnt villages, of ambushes and escapes, of three hundred rebels rising out of a patch of cactus no bigger than a sheep pen and rushing in among the astonished lancers, screaming and slashing. The survivors of that affair had fled up the opposite hillside flat on their horses’ necks and himself among the foremost, but he did not put it that way; he said he “organized the retreat.” “More,” breathed Ourida. He began to tell her of five fanatics with several muskets and quantities of ammunition shut up in a saint’s shrine and defying the entire Shereefian forces for two days, but before he had got halfway his voice tailed off into silence. “You do not speak, light of my life?” “I am sleepy—and comfortable, dearest.” Ourida smoothed his cheek. “Sleep then with thy slave for pillow.” He felt her lips touch his forehead, her slim fingers running through his curls, through and through . . . through . . . and . . . through . . . “My lord sleeps?” came Ourida’s voice from miles away, thrilling strangely. “Um . . . ah! . . . almost,” Ortho mumbled. “Where . . . you . . . going?” She had slipped from under him; he had an impulse to grasp her hand, then felt it was too much trouble. “Listen, Saïd el Ingliz,” said Ourida in his ear, enunciating with great clarity. “You are going to sleep for_ever_, you swine!” He forced his weighted lids apart. She was bending right over him. He could see her face by the glow of the brazier, transformed, exultant; her teeth were locked together and showing; her eyes glittered. “For_ever_,” she hissed. “Do you hear me?” “Drugged, by God!” thought Ortho. “Drugged, poisoned, fooled like a fat palace eunuch!” Fury came upon him. He fought the drowse with all the power that was in him, sat up, fell back again. The girl laughed shrilly. He tried to shout for help, for the negress, achieved a whisper.