Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/189

 the borders of the oasis the troopers lay at length, hugging the stocks of their Mausers to their lean cheeks, firing doggedly, waiting. They had their instructions as to action in the apprehended event, and were impatient. Presently, and with startling abruptness, the fire of the Tawareks ceased entirely; beyond the nearest rises of the desert a dead and ominous silence reigned, unbroken.

The jaundiced light of day became more intense, seeming to grow imperceptibly more opaque. In the east a white feather of cloud hung trembling on the horizon.

"Cease firing!"

At O'Rourke's command the troopers obeyed. "Reload!" he told them, and: "Fall back to the guns!" They did so in silence, casting sullen glances over their shoulders at the vast, vacant, terrible desert.

O'Rourke himself reloaded his Mauser, looking to his revolvers, and followed them to the gatlings.

A single shot rang out in the stillness, with the effect of a tocsin heralding a massacre.

In another instant the enemy was in sight, advancing upon the oasis in battle array, afoot and on camelback, at a quick trot, their white burnooses napping out behind them, wing-like, glistening in the sun. They seemed well-generaled; not a cry rang out, not a man paused to kneel and fire; they came on steadily and silently, implacably determined, as if assured of their absolute irresistibility—a gorgeous array in their many-hued garments, with the sunlight glinting off their arms and the trappings of their camels: a sight to strike terror into hearts less veteran than those of O'Rourke and his men.

Turning, the Irishman sent his voice booming across the oasis, to the other party.