In silence, but with a wave of the hand, Perinaud dispersed his men into open order and doubled towards the sounds of conflict. Aylmer ran with them, making more noise in his heavy boots than the whole of the party made in their _souliers_. He heard Perinaud whisper an emphatic oath of disgust as he tripped over a fallen branch and smashed heavily through a cactus bush. The next instant both of them fell together, over a soft, woolly obstruction, which stirred faintly under their feet. Meanwhile, half a dozen rifles were flashing red in the night, and the woodland echoes tossed the reports from thicket to thicket. Perinaud swore again viciously, scrambled to his feet, and shouted. "Imbeciles! Cease fire!" he thundered. "They are sheep, these Moors of yours, sheep! A pretty night's work! You have killed probably a dozen, and we have no means of transport." Shamefacedly the Goumiers crowded round to feel the fatness of the victim which had lain in Aylmer's path. As they felt and appraised it, their voices resumed a note of philosophic content. It was indeed a slur upon the collectedness of the Goumiers as a whole that Hassan el Fehmi, the sentry, had been betrayed into this indiscretion. But the dead sheep, look you, was of an unlooked-for plumpness, and breakfast must be partaken of sooner or later. There would be cutlets, and room might be found on a saddle or two for a couple of _gigots_. No, this was not all loss, this night alarm. There were compensations. Perinaud declined to meet these representations in the spirit in which they were made. "Looters! Robbers of hen roosts!" he cried. "The whole of your thoughts are centered, as ever, on your unworthy stomachs. The compensation for this outrage will be made to the owners from your pay, let me tell you, from your pay! You have raised the country on us with your shootings; within a matter of minutes we shall have the Moors here in earnest, be assured of that!" Wrathfully he led the way back to the bivouac and carefully extinguished every cinder of the fire. "And now," he ordered, "our duty is to wait--beside our horses. If it will not inconvenience Monsieur, I should be obliged if he will defer sleeping, for the present. If we are not molested for the next hour or two, it will be different. The moon rises before midnight and after that a couple of sentries will amply suffice." It was a memory which stayed by Aylmer for many a month--that long, silent, and very weary vigil of the next few hours. He sat, with his back supported by a palm trunk, the haltering rein of his horse in his hand, his eyes trying vainly to pierce the gloom which surrounded him, and his ears strained to attention.