On the ground floor dwelt a horrible old negress called Coura n’diaye, once the favourite of a great negro monarch. There she had her collection of grotesque tatters, her little slave girls, decked with beads of blue glass, her goats, her big-horned sheep, her half-starved, yellow curs. In the upper storey there was a large, lofty room, square in shape, to which an outside staircase of worm-eaten wood gave access. IV Every evening at sunset, a man in a red jacket, with a Mussulman fez on his head—in a word, a spahi—entered Samba-Hamet’s house. Coura n’diaye’s two marabout cranes used to watch him from a distance as he approached. From the farther end of the dead-alive town they would recognise his gait, his step, the striking colours of his uniform, and would show no nervousness at his entry—so long had they known him. He was a tall man, of proud, erect carriage; he was of pure European race, although the African sun had already deeply embrowned his face and chest. This spahi was a remarkably fine-looking man, a grave and manly type of beauty, with large clear eyes, almond-shaped like an Arab’s. From under his fez, which was pushed to the back of his head, a lock of brown hair had escaped and hung in disorder over his broad, unsullied brow. The red jacket was admirably becoming to his well-moulded figure, and his whole build was a compound of litheness and muscular strength. As a rule he was serious and thoughtful, but his smile had a seductive charm, and gave a glimpse of teeth of remarkable whiteness. V One evening, the man in the red jacket could be seen climbing Samba-Hamet’s wooden staircase with more than his customary air of abstraction. He entered the lofty chamber, his own, and seemed surprised at finding no one in it. It was a curious place, this lodging of the spahi’s. It was a bare room, furnished with mat-covered benches. Strips of parchment, written upon by the priests of Maghreb, and talismans of various kinds hung from the ceiling. He went to a large casket, raised on feet, ornamented with strips of copper and variegated with brilliant colours, a box such as is used by the Yolofs for locking up their valuables. He tried it and found it locked. Thereupon he lay down on a _tara_, a kind of sofa made of light laths, the work of negroes of the Gambia shore. Then he took from his pocket a letter, and began to read it, first kissing the corner with the signature. VI It was without doubt a love-letter, written by some fair one—an elegant Parisienne, perhaps, or possibly a romantic senora—to this handsome spahi _d’Afrique_, who seems of the very mould for playing leading rôles as the lover in melodrama. This letter will perchance furnish us with the clue to some highly dramatic adventure, which will serve as prelude to our tale. VII