He Finds Himself in Deep Waters
execute his commands; and small wonder that Madame la Princesse, when at last she found him standing absorbed and intent by the side of a sharpshooter, forbore to interfere.
She could not understand, but she knew that now expostulation would prove as vain as it would have been on the previous day when he had prepared to start upon his marvelous race.
Almost timidly she crept to his side, and tentatively she touched his sleeve; and abstracted as the man was, he knew the featherweight of her fingers on his arm and found time to revel in the thrill of it. Nevertheless, it was with a countenance informed with concern that he turned to greet her. For they stood directly exposed to the fire of the Tawareks.
"Madame!" he cried. "Why, this is madness! Ye should be—back there"—indicating the center of the camp.
"As well one place as another, monsieur," she said, as brightly as she might. "There is no security here. Only a moment ago"—her expression saddened—"Monsieur d'Ervy was struck down in his tent by a stray bullet."
"Struck?" he demanded. "Where? Killed?"
She nodded affirmatively.
Mahmud approached to report, saluting.
"Well?" inquired O'Rourke impatiently.
"The desert is alive with Tawareks, master."
"Yes, yes; I knew that. Where are they concentrating?"
"To the north and the east, monsieur. To the west—along the way to the coast—they are very few."
O'Rourke nodded. "So I thought. Listen—"
Madame could hear, above the din of firing, an endless series of the peculiar wailing calls which she had come to know so well as essentially characteristic of the Tawareks.
"They have been signaling to one another for half an
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