“Two weeks, three weeks ago. They sent word that they would attack us on a certain night, so that we might be ready.”
“And then they didn’t come?” said Gerard.
“No.”
Captain Laguessière laughed, incredulous of the whole story. But Gerard recognised a simple form of humour thoroughly Moroccan. To warn your enemy that you meant to attack him, to keep him on the watch and thoroughly alarmed all night and then never to attack him at all—that might well seem to the Zemmour a most diverting stroke of wit. The Zemmour, after all, were not so very far from Zarhoun.
“I wonder,” said Gerard.
“I don’t, my Commandant,” replied Captain Laguessière. “I think that if they hadn’t seen our mountain guns passing up the track below, we should have found these trenches manned this morning.”
Gerard turned about on his horse and looked down onto the plain.
“Yes. They could see very clearly. That’s the explanation—so far.”
He gave his attention once more to the construction of the trenches.
“And who taught you to make those trenches, my friend?” Gerard asked, looking keenly at the Basha. The Basha answered composedly: