saw the faces, and the rifles
aimed at the broken tower. The bonfires which showed the figure in the
ruined heliographing-room, to the enemy, also showed the enemy to the
watchers in the wall-towers, on opposite sides of the gates.

The Highlanders open fire. Their skill as marksmen, gained in the glens
and mountains of Sutherlandshire, was equally effective on different
game, in the desert of the Sahara. One shot brought a white mehari to
its knees. Another caused a masked man in a striped gandourah to wring
his hand and squeal.

The whole order of things was changed by the sudden flashes from the
height of the dark ruin, and the lighting of the bonfires on the bordj
roof.

Two of the masked men riding on a little in advance of the other twenty
had planned, as Stephen guessed, to demand admittance to the bordj,
declaring themselves leaders of a Touareg caravan on its way to
Touggourt. If they could have induced an unsuspecting landlord to open
the gates, so much the better for them. If not, a parley would have
given the band time to act upon instructions already understood. But
Cassim ben Halim, an old soldier, and Maieddine, whose soul was in this
venture, were not the men to meet an emergency unprepared. They had
calculated on a check, and were ready for surprises.

It was Maieddine's camel that went down, shot in the neck. He had been
keeping El Biod in reserve, when the splendid stallion might be needed
for two to ride away in haste--his master and a woman. As the mehari
fell, Maieddine escaped from the saddle and alighted on his feet, his
blue Touareg veil disarranged by the shock. His face uncovered, he
bounded up the slope with the bullets of Angus and Hamish pattering
around him in the sand.

"She's bewitched, whateffer!" the twins mumbled, each in his
watch-tower, as the tall figure sailed on like a war-cloud, untouched.
And they wished for silver bullets, to break the charm woven round the
"fanatic" by a wicked spirit.

Over Maieddine's head his leader was shooting at Stephen in the tower,
while Hamish returned his fire, leaving the running man to Angus. But
suddenly Angus wheeled after a shot, to yell through the tower door into
the courtyard. "Oot o' the way, wimmen! He's putten gunpowder to the
gate if I canna stop him." Then, he wheeled into place, and was
entranced to see that the next bullet found its billet under the Arab's
turban. In the orange light of the bonfires, Angus could see a spout of