CHAPTER XIII
THE TRAP
"That our friends have left is obvious," said Daoud. "The question ishow long ago and whither."
The litter of a recently disturbed encampment cumbered the ground. Rags,the feathers of lately plucked chickens, the ashes of recentlyextinguished fires abounded. But whether the camp had been struck daysor only hours before it was impossible to determine. Night as well asday had been rainless, and the dry dust left no trail perceptible toEuropean eyes. Daoud, however, examined the soil carefully.
"They have gone south," he declared at last. "They have struck out ofthe forest and back towards the plain. This grows interesting."
Perinaud gave a sniff.
"The reason is obvious," he said a little contemptuously. "Where didthey obtain water? From the spring which welled up at the foot of thatcactus to the left. But now it is dry and cracking mud."
Daoud nodded grudgingly.
"Possibly," he allowed. "The nearest wells are at Ain Djemma."
"Held in force by two companies of the Legion," said Perinaud. "They arehardly likely to show themselves there. No, if they have gone south theyare seeking the Wad el Mella. They will follow the stream through thegorge towards their own foothills from which it issues."
"This river? How far is it?" asked Aylmer.
"Eight kilometres, possibly ten," said Perinaud. "There are _duars_ andencampments along its banks in a dozen places. We ought to get news ofour men, even if we do not overtake them."
"Our horses have come a matter of thirty kilometres already," saidAylmer.
"Then as soon as possible they must do ten more," answered the sergeant,energetically. "Without water we cannot camp, any more than our friendsof the Beni M'Geel. _En avance!_"
Aylmer drew his horse up beside Perinaud's as for the second time theyleft the shelter of the trees and ambled out on to the plain. Thewestering sun was turning it to broad belts of dun, and yellow, andgreen, as the slanting beams fell upon earth, or marigold weed, orcrops. Four or five miles distant to their front the rolling uplandsculminated in a belt of squat but far-branching trees.
"There, one may suppose, are the river and the gorge," he suggested."The inhabitants of these _duars_, of which you speak? How will theygreet us?"
Perinaud shrugged his shoulders.
"It remains for Fate to show us, Monsieur. There were some drasticwhippings of the Moors within this district a few weeks back. How wellthey have learned the lesson taught them then we shall have to prove."
Aylmer hesitated.
"It is not with the purpose of getting embroiled in skirmishes that Ihave come," he said quietly. "You understand that my duty, for themoment, is to keep myself alive until my object is achieved."
Perinaud grinned drily.
"That is a remark which a poltroon would not have dared to make,Monsieur, and shows you to be a brave man. Be assured that my effortstowards maintaining an unperforated skin will be as energetic as yourown. Hysterical madness, such as we were involved in in the forest,shall not recur, if I can help it. My purpose is to camp, as soon as wereach water, and then to allow your omniscient Monsieur Daoud to conducthis investigations under cover of the darkness."
As the red disk of the sun sank below the seaward horizon, they toppedthe gentle rise which terminated in a belt of trees. Not far below them,belling musically through the dusk, came the song of the ripples. Half amile away, on the far side of the gorge, a dim light twinkled in thegrowing darkness.
Perinaud pointed towards a group of palms.
"Here, Monsieur," he explained, "you will find dry earth. You have yourcloak. Your saddle is a practical pillow. I have bread, a ration or twoof preserved soup, some beans, coffee, a tin of milk, sugar. At the_duar_, where we see that light, are--possibly--chickens. But we arequite as likely to receive a bullet. What does Monsieur advise?"
Aylmer smiled.
"An immediate picnic. In the friendliest of _duars_ cannibal hordesthirsting for our blood would await us, if we were reckless enough tosleep among them. I prefer to housekeep _a la belle etoile_."
The sergeant nodded and gave his orders. Sentries slipped right and leftinto the night. A tiny fire was kindled in a hollow between twoboulders. The tins of preserved soup gave up their secrets, and theration bread proved that the military bakers of France have discoveredthe secret of making loaves which will remain fresh and eatable througha whole week of desert marches. Coffee succeeded--coffee made in theempty vegetable tin, and worthy of Maxim's or the Ritz.
Daoud drank his portion, shrugged his shoulders fatalistically at thesleeping places which the Goumiers were preparing, and then, withoutcomment, vanished into the night.
Aylmer lay back upon his cloak, his head pillowed upon his arm, his pipebetween his teeth. He was enjoying to the full the sensations of apleasantly weary and well-fed horseman. The first drowsy challenge ofsleep touched his eyes and brain.
The very next instant, as it seemed to him, he was on his feet, revolverin hand, searching the dark aisles of the forest on either side. A shouthad echoed from one of the sentries, a hoarse challenge followed almoston the instant by a shot.
The cry was repeated, shriller this time with the insistence of anxiety."_Au secours!_" came the Goumier's voice. "_Au secours!_ There are ascore of them; they are all around me!"
In silence, but with a wave of the hand, Perinaud dispersed his men intoopen order and doubled towards the sounds of conflict. Aylmer ran withthem, making more noise in his heavy boots than the whole of the partymade in their _souliers_. He heard Perinaud whisper an emphatic oath ofdisgust as he tripped over a fallen branch and smashed heavily through acactus bush. The next instant both of them fell together, over a soft,woolly obstruction, which stirred faintly under their feet. Meanwhile,half a dozen rifles were flashing red in the night, and the woodlandechoes tossed the reports from thicket to thicket.
Perinaud swore again viciously, scrambled to his feet, and shouted.
"Imbeciles! Cease fire!" he thundered. "They are sheep, these Moors ofyours, sheep! A pretty night's work! You have killed probably a dozen,and we have no means of transport."
Shamefacedly the Goumiers crowded round to feel the fatness of thevictim which had lain in Aylmer's path. As they felt and appraised it,their voices resumed a note of philosophic content. It was indeed a slurupon the collectedness of the Goumiers as a whole that Hassan el Fehmi,the sentry, had been betrayed into this indiscretion. But the deadsheep, look you, was of an unlooked-for plumpness, and breakfast must bepartaken of sooner or later. There would be cutlets, and room might befound on a saddle or two for a couple of _gigots_. No, this was not allloss, this night alarm. There were compensations.
Perinaud declined to meet these representations in the spirit in whichthey were made.
"Looters! Robbers of hen roosts!" he cried. "The whole of your thoughtsare centered, as ever, on your unworthy stomachs. The compensation forthis outrage will be made to the owners from your pay, let me tell you,from your pay! You have raised the country on us with your shootings;within a matter of minutes we shall have the Moors here in earnest, beassured of that!"
Wrathfully he led the way back to the bivouac and carefully extinguishedevery cinder of the fire.
"And now," he ordered, "our duty is to wait--beside our horses. If itwill not inconvenience Monsieur, I should be obliged if he will defersleeping, for the present. If we are not molested for the next hour ortwo, it will be different. The moon rises before midnight and after thata couple of sentries will amply suffice."
It was a memory which stayed by Aylmer for many a month--that long,silent, and very weary vigil of the next few hours. He sat, with hisback supported by a palm trunk, the haltering rein of his horse in hishand, his eyes trying vainly to pierce the gloom which surrounded him,and his ears strained to attention.
The forest, though in the windless calm not a leaf fluttered, was fullof disquieting noises. There were rustlings, faint, half perceptiblecrackings of twigs, dull, muf
fled, resistant sounds from the earth whichmust surely be caused by human footfall. Once his whole frame sprunginto startled alertness as a night bird shrieked in the cork branchesnot twenty yards away. The faint but distinct after-echo of a chorussedsigh told him how a dozen other pulses had leaped with his. The quick,irregular darting run of a small animal--a jerboa or a forestrat--produced a little less disturbing effect. But the soft, stolidbreathing of his horse, as its breath beat past his shoulder, was asoothing, soporific sound which his nerves welcomed, yet seemed toprotest against as tending to lull him into an unalert insecurity. Witha sudden qualm of reproach he found his head dropping sideways andsmiting lightly the trunk of the palm. He drew himself up with a quick,decisive tautening of his muscles. He would not sleep; his eyelidsalmost ached with the intensity with which he held them apart.
Sleep, like fate, is a tricky jade to defy. It was Perinaud's voice,level and stolid, but with a faint note of sarcasm, which aroused him.
"Monsieur may now sleep in comfort if he will," suggested the sergeant."There is little fear from surprise with such a moon."
Aylmer blinked. The round white orb was sending its rays in full floodthrough the broad fans of the palm leaves overhead. It tinged the corktrees with silver radiance; it produced an effect of grateful coolnessin the cinder-dry thickets and powdery earth. It was as if dew hadfallen, a dew of light. And the shadows of the gorge were of a velvetblackness in contrast.
Aylmer looked carefully round. It was as Perinaud said. The forestspaces were clear; one could trace them almost as distinctly as in thedaylight. No enemy could steal upon them unseen.
And so it was with a little sigh of content that he laid his head backupon his saddle, pulled his cloak more disposedly about him, andprepared to give nature freely what during the past three hours she hadstolen.
With the usual result. Sleep deserted him. He closed his eyesresolutely; he breathed with exact precision; he even counted animaginary flock of sheep as they passed sedately between twosupposititious hurdles. He remained broadly awake, his eyes rebellingagainst their imprisonment till at last he gave up trying to coercethem. He searched his pocket, found tobacco and a pipe, and smoked. Hisbrain became suddenly active.
He reviewed the circumstances of the last few days. He debated hisposition, appraised his progress. It was typical of his temperamentequability that he did this; it was part of the dogged resolution withwhich he approached the vital problems of his career. He knew that forthe first time he had encountered passion, and that it had mastered him.He had seen Claire Van Arlen perhaps half a dozen times before herealized this, and realized it, too, with a certain ingenuous wonder atthe thing which had such power over him. But he had made no attempt tocombat it. He knew that this girl had become for him the pivot ofexistence. As matters had gone, he had scarcely had the opportunity forintrospection. Passion had gripped him, and now passion's authority hadgone beyond the limits of question. He set his face unswervingly towardshis goal. The days of debating an alternative path had gone by.
He sighed. Up the path he had chosen had he made any progress? Yes, onegreat step had been taken. She knew the goal he sought; he had made itabsolutely plain. He had read repulse in her eyes as she first divinedit. He had read it again, but tinged with a thrill of curiosity, at hissecond allusion. The third time? There he was beaten. She had seemed tofling him a sort of encouragement. Why? What was her intention here? Shehad not softened towards him; instinct told him that. And yet--and yet.He sighed again. There were many barriers in this road he had set outupon--barriers which must be levelled one by one. Dislike, suspicion,but not, thank God, apathy. No--from the first he had interestedher--from the moment of their first meeting he had been forced intoprominence in her regard.
A hand fell lightly upon his shoulder, bringing him back with a startfrom the possibilities of romance to the facts of an everyday Africanworld. The most engrossing of these, for the moment, was Daoud's face.
There was a sense of importance in the Moor's aspect, the importance ofdiscovery. Aylmer realized this at once.
"You have discovered--what?" he asked sharply.
Daoud waved his hand with a magnificent and comprehensive gesture.
"All, Sidi," he answered. "The two we seek, with the child, are in anencampment of Berber tribesmen within an hour's march."
Aylmer scrambled to his feet. He made but little noise as he did so, butthere was a corresponding movement in the half-dozen recumbent figuresbeside him. Perinaud, raising himself upon his elbow, lookedthoughtfully at the scout.
"Well, my friend?" he asked amiably. "Your researches take us where?"
"Five miles further up the ravine," said Daoud. "It is more than a camp.A village of some importance. Our friend who escaped from the broomthicket has not arrived there. There was no alertness, no watch kept. Bythe time I left snores were echoing from practically every tent anddwelling of mud. We are not expected."
Perinaud nodded.
"_Bien._ The moment of attack then--?"
"Is now, Sidi. By the time we reach it the dawn will have come."
Aylmer fumbled for his watch. It was true. The hour was between four andfive. The wan light of the false morning was, indeed, faintly paling theeast. He looked at Perinaud.
The sergeant nodded.
"Short rest for the horses, Monsieur," he said, "but that we cannothelp. The time is short enough, as it is."
He motioned the waiting figures of the Goumiers into activity. Thesentries were recalled. A tiny fire was kindled, and coffee made withincredible quickness while the saddles were being flung upon the horses'backs.
Aylmer gulped his portion gratefully, for the dew-brimmed air was chill.But within twenty minutes of Daoud's return, the half score of horsemenwere following him in single file along the river bank.
Progress was slow, the path imperceptible or devious. The light ofmorning was no longer yellow, but alive with the rose red of sunrise asthey halted, at a gesture from their leader, and gazed between thetrunks of a grove of palms.
White against the green of crops a dozen houses lined the edge of anoval space, which some winter floods of bygone years had hewn deep inthe surrounding alluvial soil. The forest thickets grew up to the fringeof the arable land, divided from it by hedges of cactus. Between thehouse and the river was an encampment of brown, dilapidated tents. Theland immediately in front of these was bare and open, as if someceaseless traffic had beaten all vegetation down. On an eminence stood alime-washed, dome-topped shrine.
"If possible, we should surround and examine each house or tent insilence, and one by one," suggested Daoud.
"A matter of hours," said Perinaud. "No, let our men form rank wheretheir rifles command each doorway, and I will see to the summoning ofthe inhabitants. For the moment, softly. Keep your horses off the rock,but avoid the thickest of the jungle. Show judgment, my children, showjudgment!"
He finished with a little oath of surprise. For almost at his horse'sfeet, or, at the furthest, a bare five yards from him, a man hadsuddenly risen from a thicket--a man clad in a dirty _djelab_, whoviewed the sitting horsemen with every sign of amazement and suddenpanic. In another moment, and with a shrill cry, he had darted throughthe palm grove and was flying across the crop lands, straight towardsthe line of silent tents.
Perinaud struck spurs into his stallion.
"Take him!" he cried, and his voice had a queer note of exasperation ashe tried to make it vehement and yet hold it below the level of a shout.He led the charge which raced across the herbage. Aylmer, carried awayby the sudden infection of repressed excitement, thundered at his side.The dark spot of brown made by the _djelab_ of the fugitive seemed, forthe moment, to comprehend all that was vital in existence. He must notreach the tents, he must not give the alarm. Although he was a matter offifty yards or more behind his quarry, owing to the start the runner hadgained by the intervening palms, Aylmer began to lean forward in thesaddle, to thrust out his arm, feel a tenseness, a twitching in hisfingers as if he al
ready grasped the hood of the garment which rose andfell with its owner's every stride.
A yell burst from Perinaud's lips--a yell of rage and warning!
"A trap!" he cried. "The silos! The silos! Pull wide! Pull wide!"
Aylmer heard a crash. A Goumier on his right seemed to have beenswallowed with his horse into the very earth. He gripped his own rein,moved by a sudden and imperfectly comprehended pulse of fear, andwrenched at his bridle. His horse fought under the strain, made ahalf-hearted attempt to halt, and was carried by mere impetus anotherfifty yards. There came another crash; another Goumier's horsedisappeared, while the man, spilled from the saddle, rolled over a dozentimes across the hardened flat. Perinaud's stallion, its eyes wild, itsnostrils round with terror, spread out its legs and skated forward tothe very brink of--what?
A huge round hole, beneath which was darkness only. Aylmer saw it, sawthat he himself must reach it, and comprehended as in a flash thesergeant's cry.
The silos!
Even his narrow experience of things Moroquin had taught him what theword meant. They were the underground grain cellars of the villagers,sunk in the earth, unfenced, often coverless, and, as now, open trapsfor the unwary. The thought and the flash of apprehension which itkindled added force to the grip with which he tore at the reins.
Too late!
His realization of the hideous fall which was inevitable was swift as alightning flash, and yet at the same time the thing itself seemed toarrive with a horrible deliberation. His thews were tense, his kneesclutched the saddle. And then, and the feeling was as if he watched forthe culmination of a well-understood and expected movement of familiarmachinery--his horse's feet slid grudgingly over the edge. The blackhole in the earth rose instantly--rose and sucked him down. There was ashock and then night fell--a night impenetrable.