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She had promised to send one from the Bordj of Toudja, and another at the end of the next day's journey. After that she would be within reach of the telegraph. Her reason told her it was well that Sabine was not with her now, yet she wished for him, and could not be glad of his absence. Perhaps she would never see him again. Who could tell?
But he'd risk anything to silence us men, and " "He cares nothing for Saidee's life or mine. It's only Maïeddine who cares," the girl broke in. "I suppose they've horses and meharis waiting for them outside the bordj?" "Yes. Probably they're being got ready now. The animals have had a night's rest."
He had suspended a cylinder of gunpowder against the gate, and, his hands full of powder to sprinkle a trail, he was ready to make a dash for life when a voice cried his name. Victoria stood on the high white wall of the bordj, just above the gate, on the side where he had hung the gunpowder. A few seconds more his soul sickened at the thought.
For fourteen hours each day we were on the road, and each evening about nine o'clock we stopped at a Bordj, or Travellers' House, ate a hasty meal, threw ourselves down on our gaudy Arab rugs, and slept heavily till the hour before dawn, drugged by fatigue, and by the strong air of the desert. In the late afternoon of the third day of our journeying we drove into a sandstorm.
The wild Touareg chant was louder now, but she hardly heard it, because her ears strained for some sound which the singing might cover: the sound of rubble crumbling under a foot that climbed and sought a holding-place. From far away came the barking of Kabyle dogs, in distant camps of nomads. In stalls of the bordj, where the animals rested, a horse stamped now and then, or a camel grunted.
Ammunition was running low, and soon they must fall back upon the small supply kept by Rostafel, which had already been placed in the dining-room; but matters were not quite desperate, since each minute brought the soldiers from Bordj Azzouz nearer, even if the carrier pigeon had failed. "Why do they not blow us up?" asked the Frenchman, sober now, and extremely pessimistic. "They could do it.
"What are they doing?" he said to Domini, uneasily. In his present condition everything roused in him anxiety. In every unusual action he discerned the beginning of some tragedy which might affect his life. "I told Batouch to put our tents on the other side of the bordj," she answered. "Yes. But why?"
The Bordj, or Travellers' House, at which I was to be accommodated for the night, stood alone near a tiny source at the edge of a large sand dune, and was a small, earth-coloured building with a pink tiled roof, minute arched windows, and an open stable for the horses and mules.
In England, Margot Lorenzi was wondering why Stephen Knight had not come to meet her, and angrily making up her mind that she would find out the reason. Somehow, they all contrived to take a little food, three watching from the wall-towers while the others ate; and Saidee prepared strong, delicious coffee, such as had never been tasted in the bordj of Toudja.
"Will you lend the mirror to me or do you value it too much to risk having it smashed?" "Of course I'll lend it. But " she looked up at him anxiously, in the blue star-dusk. "What are you going to do?" "Nothing particular, unless we've reason to believe that an attack will be made; that is, if a lot of Arabs come near the bordj.
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