Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/155

 then, that unavailing, went within and found—precisely what they had feared.

Madame was gone.

Soly was gone.

Whither?

There was but one answer: The desert.

Somewhere out there in the fastnesses of that great, silent, sterile waste, whereon the sun was just beginning to cast a crimson flush, were madame and her abductor, Soly.

There was no time for arguing over the mystery of the affair, for trying to fit a reason to the whys and wherefores of the former sans souci's mad conduct. The conclusion was irrefutable that he had kidnaped madame, for some occult reason of his own.

O'Rourke did not stop to analyze the case. Upon le petit Lemercier's frightened report he whirled about and snatched a Mauser from one of his troopers. Then, calling to the others to follow, he made off at the top of his speed for the spot where he had found the linen handkerchief.

Once there he knelt, and scrutinized the ground painstakingly; and it seemed to him that he could discern faint traces of the footsteps of three people. But why three? Had Soly a confederate in the camp, as yet undetected?

He rose and walked on as rapidly as he might and still maintain his scrutiny of the trail. Here the surface was rather hard packed than merely soft, shifting sands; in some places the wind had covered the traces of footsteps thoroughly with a thin film of sand; but still he would come upon them a little farther on, trending always to the southward.

And he pressed ever on, the troopers at his heels exchanging muttered speculations as to the sanity of their commander.

Something like a half a mile to the south of the oasis, El