The Desert Drum | Page 4

musician must be climbing up the far side of the dune. I had swung round to face him, and expected every moment to see some wild figure appear upon the summit, defining itself against the cold and gloomy sky. But none came. Nevertheless, the noise increased till it was a roar, drew near till it was actually upon us. It seemed to me that I heard the sticks striking the hard, stretched skin furiously, as if some phantom drummer were stealthily encircling us, catching us in a net, a trap of horrible, vicious uproar. Instinctively I threw a questioning, perhaps an appealing, glance at my two companions. The Spahi had dropped his hand from his ear. He stood upright, as if at attention on the parade-ground of Biskra. His face was set--afterwards I told myself it was fatalistic. The murderer, on the other hand, was smiling. I remember the gleam of his big white teeth. Why was he smiling? While I asked myself the question the roar of the tom-tom grew gradually less, as if the man beating it were walking rapidly away from us in the direction of Sidi-Massarli. None of us said a word till only a faint, heavy throbbing, like the beating of a heart, I fancied, was audible in the darkness. Then I spoke, as silence fell.
"Who is it?"
"Monsieur, it is no one."
The Spain's voice was dry and soft.
"What is it?"
"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 A?chouch------"
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."
I was helping myself to the soup. The rising wind blew up the skirts of the Spahi's scarlet robe. In the wind--was it imagination?--I seemed to hear some thin, passing echoes of a tom-tom's beat.
"Come in," I said to the Spahi. "You shall sup with me to-night, and--and you shall sleep here with me."
D'oud's expressive face became sinister. Arabs are almost as jealous as they are vain.
"But, monsieur, he will sleep in the Café Maure. If monsieur wishes for a companion, I----"
"Come in," I