The Desert Drum | Page 5

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 repeated to the Spahi. "You can sleep here to-night."
The Spahi stepped over the lintel with a jingling of spurs, a rattling of
accoutrements. The murderer stepped in softly after him, drawn by the
cord. D'oud began to look as grim as death. He made a ferocious
gesture towards the murderer.
"And that man? Monsieur wishes to sleep in the same room with him?"
I heard the sound of the tom-tom above the wail of the wind.
"Yes," I said.

Why did I wish it? I hardly know. I had no fear for, no desire to protect
myself. But I remembered the smile I had seen, the Spahi's saying,
"There will be death in Sidi-Massarli to-night," and I was resolved that
the three men who had heard the desert drum together should not be
parted till the morning. D'oud said no more. He waited upon me with
his usual diligence, but I could see that he was furiously angry. The
Spahi ate ravenously. So did the murderer, who more than once,
however, seemed to be dropping to sleep over his food. He was
apparently dead tired. As the wind was now become very violent I did
not feel disposed to stir out again, and I ordered D'oud to bring us three
cups of coffee to the Bordj. He cast a vicious look at the Spahi and
went out into the darkness. I saw him no more that night. A boy from
the Café Maure brought us coffee, cleared the remains of our supper
from the table, and presently muttered some Arab salutation, departed,
and was lost in the wind.
The murderer was now frankly asleep with his head upon the table, and
the Spahi began to blink. I, too, felt very tired, but I had something still
to say. Speaking softly, I said to the Spahi:
"That sound we heard to-night----"
"Monsieur?"
"Have you ever heard it before?"
"Never, monsieur. But my brother heard it just before he had a stroke
of the sun. He fell dead before his captain beside the wall of Sada. He
was a tirailleur."
"And you think this sound means that death is near?
"I know it, monsieur. All desert people know it. I was born at
Touggourt, and how should I not know?"
"But then one of us----"
I looked from him to the sleeping murderer.

"There will be death in Sidi-Massarli tonight, monsieur. It is the will of
Allah. Blessed be Allah."
I got up, locked the heavy door of the Bordj, and put the key in the
inner pocket of my coat. As I did so, I fancied I saw the heavy black
lids of the murderer's closed eyes flutter for a moment. But I cannot be
sure. My head was aching with fatigue. The Spahi, too, looked stupid
with sleep. He jerked the cord, the murderer awoke with a start, glanced
heavily round, stood up. Pulling him as one would an obstinate dog, the
Spahi made him lie down on the bare floor in the corner of the Bordj,
ere he himself curled up in the thick quilt which had been rolled up
behind his high saddle. I made no protest, but when the Spahi was
asleep, his lean brown hand laid upon his sword, his musket under his
shaven head, I pushed one of my blankets over to the murderer, who
lay looking like a heap of rags against the white wall. He smiled at me
gently, as he had smiled when the desert drum was beating, and drew
the blanket over his mighty limbs and face.
I did not mean to sleep that night. Tired though I was my brain was so
excited that I felt I should not. I blew out the candle without even the
thought that it would be necessary to struggle against sleep. And in the
darkness I heard for an instant the roar of the wind outside, the heavy
breathing of my two strange companions within. For an instant--then it
seemed as if a shutter was drawn suddenly over the light in my brain.
Blackness filled the room where the thoughts develop, crowd, stir in
endless activities. Slumber fell upon me like a great stone that strikes a
man down to dumbness, to unconsciousness.
Far in the night I had a dream.