Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/152

 amiss while he had slept. "What? What's wrong, man? Speak up!"

Mahmud had hesitated, fearful of his general's just anger.

Now he stiffened himself against the coming storm. "There has been evil work this night, mon général," he reported. "Three men have been slain, and one is missing."

"Three slain? One gone? Who? Speak out, man; or I'll—"

"Monsieur recalls that a Spahi came to his tent with the Frenchman, Soly, last night? That Spahi was one Abdullah; he is dead—his throat has been slit. Also the Frenchman is gone. Also two pickets, Ali, of the Turcos, and a Frenchman, Rayet, have been slain, with daggers, on their posts."

O'Rourke was buckling on his sword and looking to the loading of his revolver.

"Which posts?" he demanded sternly.

"Those two at the southernmost end of this oasis, mon général—"

"And what the divvle, can ye tell me, were the rest of ye doing while this was going on?"

The storm had broken; Mahmud endured in piteous silence; when occasion afforded he fled as from the wrath of the Judgment Day.

As for O'Rourke, he went out, and calling a guard of soldiers made a round of the posts. It proved true, as Mahmud had said; not only was the Spahi, Abdullah, foully murdered, but also the two outposts on that edge of the oasis which was most distant from the camp. And Soly gone! Here was food for consideration. Whither had he escaped? Not upon the yacht, O'Rourke was certain; for he himself had been the last to leave that vessel before she. had sailed. Moreover, he felt assured that the mur-