The Desert Drum | Page 6

I cannot recall it accurately now. I could
not recall it even the next morning when I awoke. But in this dream, it
seemed to me that fingers felt softly about my heart. I was conscious of
their fluttering touch. It was as if I were dead, and as if the doctor laid
for a moment his hand upon my heart to convince himself that the pulse
of life no longer beat. And this action wove itself naturally into the
dream I had. The fingers so soft, so surreptitious, were lifted from my
breast, and I sank deeper into the gulf of sleep, below the place of
dreams. For I was a tired man that night. At the first breath of dawn I

stirred and woke. It was cold. I put out one hand and drew up my quilt.
Then I lay still. The wind had sunk. I no longer heard it roaring over
the desert. For a moment I hardly remembered where I was, then
memory came back and I listened for the deep breathing of the Spahi
and the murderer. Even when the wind blew I had heard it. I did not
hear it now. I lay there under my quilt for some minutes listening. The
silence was intense. Had they gone already, started on their way to El
Arba? The Bordj was in darkness, for the windows were very small,
and dawn had scarcely begun to break outside and had not yet filtered
in through the wooden shutters which barred them. I disliked this
complete silence, and felt about for the matches I had laid beside the
candle before turning in. I could not find them. Someone had moved
them, then. The heaviness of sleep had quite left me now, and I
remembered clearly all the incidents of the previous evening. The roll
of the desert drum sounded again in my ears. I threw off my quilt, got
up, and moved softly over the stone floor towards the corner where the
murderer had lain down to sleep. I bent down to touch him and touched
the stone. They had gone, then! It was strange that I had not been
waked by their departure. Besides, I had the key of the door. I thrust my
hand into the breast-pocket of my coat which I had worn while I slept.
The key was no longer there. Then I remembered my dream and the
fingers fluttering round my heart. Stumbling in the blackness I came to
the place where the Spahi had lain, stretched out my hands and felt
naked flesh. My hands recoiled from it, for it was very cold.
Half-an-hour later the one-eyed Arab who kept the Bordj, roused by my
beating upon the door with the butt end of my revolver, came with
D'oud to ask what was the matter. The door had to be broken in. This
took some time. Long before I could escape, the light of the sun,
entering through the little arched windows, had illumined the nude
corpse of the Spahi, the gaping red wound in his throat, the heap of
murderer's rags that lay across his feet.
M'hammed Bouaziz, in the red cloak, the red boots, sword at his side,
musket slung over his shoulder, was galloping over the desert on his
way to freedom.

But six months later he was taken at night outside a café by the lake at
Tunis. He was gazing through the doorway at a girl who was posturing
to the sound of pipes between two rows of Arabs. The light from the
café fell upon his face, the dancer uttered a cry.
"M'hammed Bouaziz!"
"Aïchouch!"
The law avenged the Spahi, and this time it was not to prison they led
my friend of Sidi-Massarli, but to an open space before a squad of
soldiers just when the dawn was breaking.

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