e night I had a dream. 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. T