hand to his breast and staggered back a few steps, then clutched violently at the air and fell. Glancing quickly in the direction whence the shot had come, I saw my friend Uzanne had with difficulty raised himself on one arm, and, drawing his revolver, had with unerring aim shot the Arab through the heart.
Octave Uzanne had saved my life.
“Sapristi!” he shouted, with a laugh, as I dashed towards him. “That was a close shave! Je lui ai collé un atout sur le nez!”
“Are you seriously hurt?” I gasped; noticing as the rifles flashed that blood was streaming from his shoulder.
“No,” he replied quickly. “I think not. Don’t trouble after me now, for I’m no good. I’ll patch myself up. Take my rifle and help the others.”
Snatching up the weapon, I loaded it, and, flinging myself on the ground behind the root of a fallen palm, I opened fire upon the thick bushes before me. In this way the minutes, full of anxiety, passed in ignorance of our foes. The deafening explosions were incessant, yells and cries of enemy and friend now and then sounded above the firing, and the air grew so thick with smoke, that I could scarcely distinguish the bushes where the Arabs lay in ambush.
As the terrible moments went by, I knew we were fighting for our lives. Altogether our force in camp only amounted to sixty, while we were, as yet, unaware of the character or number of our assailants. That they had dared to attack a military post showed they were present in overwhelming numbers, and, further, that they had waited until the Chasseurs had got away before swooping down to annihilate us.
Lying along the ground near my red-burnoused comrades, I fired as regularly as I was able, until suddenly a bugle sounded. It was the order to mount!
My comrades dashed towards their tethered horses, a number of which had been shot down, and I followed. In the excitement I jumped upon the saddle of the first animal I could reach, and as I did so, the bugle again sounded.
“I’htaris! sidi! Keep beside me,” shouted a lithe, muscular Spahi, vaulting upon a horse a few yards away. “We’ll soon clear out these vermin.”
Then, as my companion yelled an imprecation in Arabic and held his rifle high above his head, we all, with one accord, spurred on our horses, and, swift as the wind, tore across the open space between the line of tents and low bushes, dashing into the cavernous darkness of the ambush ere our enemy could be aware of our intention. The result was frightful. Carried on by the wild rush, I found myself in the midst of a sanguinary mêlée, where one had to fight one’s adversaries literally hand to hand. My companions, whirling their keen blades, and shouting prayers to Allah the while, fell upon their assailants with piercing yells and cut them down in a manner that was truly awful, but it was not until this moment that I discovered that the officer in command of the Spahis had cleverly divided his small force into two detachments, one of which was repulsing the enemy from the front, while the other had made a circuitous charge, and was now outflanking our opponents and slaughtering them in the rear.
Thus the outlaws were quickly hemmed in, and although we were unable to follow them far, owing to the dense undergrowth, yet we silenced their fire.
Then it was that we made a discovery. The Spahi beside whom I had ridden—a splendid fellow, who sat as firmly in his saddle as if he were part of it, and who, while galloping, could fire his rifle with deadly effect—shouted as he drew rein for a moment—
“Diable! They are the children of Eblis—the Ennitra!” Hadj Absalam’s band had followed me!
The cry was taken up. The news spread rapidly from mouth to mouth, and the knowledge that they were being attacked by the daring marauders for whom they had been searching so long and so fruitlessly, caused every homard to redouble his energy, and strike a blow towards their extermination. The audacity of the outlaws roused the ire of these fierce native troopers, for the fact that several Spahis had been shot dead in the first moments of the attack, caused an unanimous resolve to follow up the thieves and give them no quarter.
But scarcely had this decision been arrived at, when the attack was renewed even more vigorously. Concealed amidst the dense tropical foliage, they opened fire with their rifles from a quarter whence we least expected it, and in this direction we rode, only to be received by a fusillade more galling than any that had been previously poured upon us.
Their success, however, was not of long duration. A bugle brought our horses in line, and then, with a terrific rush that none could withstand, we dashed upon them, felling them to earth with shot or sabre thrust.
Suddenly a sharp sting in the left side caused me a twinge, and I felt the warm blood trickling. I hesitated a moment, knowing that I was wounded. With an imprecation the Spahi officer shouted to his men to sweep the marauders away, and in the sudden rush and intense excitement that followed I forgot my mishap. Just, however, as I became separated from my companions-in-arms, my wound gave me a second twinge of pain, and there shot up from the tall grass at my side a brawny Arab, whose white burnouse showed distinctly in the semi-darkness, and whose eyes flashed with the fire of hatred. Seizing my horse’s head, he swung round his jambiyah, but by good fortune I pulled the trigger of my rifle just in time. The bullet entered his throat, and he tumbled back into the rank grass with a curse upon his lips.
The fight was long and desperate; not merely a skirmish, but a thoroughly well-planned attack by Hadj Absalam’s men to annihilate the Spahis for the purpose of securing arms, ammunition, and horses. Whether Absalam himself was present directing the operations we could not learn, although two prisoners we captured both denied that he was with them.
Presently the moon shone out again brightly, showing up both friend and enemy, but the silence of night was still broken by rapid shots, mingled with the loud, exultant shout of the victor and the hoarse, despairing cry of the dying. In that brief hour the scenes of bloodshed were terrible. Little did either the Ennitra or the Spahis value life, and as they struggled desperately for the mastery, they fought with that fierce courage characteristic of the barbarian of the desert.
Amid the wild massacre, when at last my comrades catching their enemies unprepared and making a sudden onslaught cut through them with fire and sword, the thought suddenly occurred to me that this fierce nomadic tribe who had dared to attack us had been spoken of by Zoraida as “her people.” Now at last they were being outflanked, unable to reach their horses which had been captured by our detachment operating in their rear, and we were sweeping them down—slaughtering them without mercy!
Sickened by the bloody fight in which I had involuntarily borne a part, and feeling rather faint owing to my wound—which happily, however, proved a very slight one—I left my comrades to complete their work of annihilating the murderous band, which they did by following them as they fell back through the tangled vegetation and away across the oasis into the desert beyond, where, with the exception of eighteen who were taken prisoners, the whole of those who had attacked us so desperately were killed or wounded.
Where was Zoraida? As hot and faint I rode back to the spot where my whilom companion Uzanne was lying, I wondered whether the woman, whose half-veiled face seemed ever before my eyes with tantalising distinctness, had accompanied the unfortunate men of her barbaric tribe, or was she waiting with the notorious old cut-throat at a safe distance from the oasis, expecting each moment to learn of a brilliant success, and impatient to assist in the high revelry and divide the plunder?
None of those of her people who had gone forth to attack us would, however, return.
Seventy of them were stretched dead under the bright stars of the Eastern sky, and nearly a hundred were lying with great ugly stains of blood upon their burnouses, racked by the agony of their wounds, and well knowing that ere the morrow’s sun would set they would succumb to heat and thirst; that in a few short hours the vultures would lay bare their bones and leave them whitening on the glaring sand.
Chapter Nine.