"You will probably find that the enemy has been generous in spite of himself and left you some—all that couldn't be taken away. Strange how those men looked like Touaregs! You are sure of what they really were?"
"Sure. But since no one else knows, why should the secret leak out? Better for the ladies if the Touareg disguise should hide the truth, as it was meant to do."
"Why not indeed? Since we weren't lucky enough to rid his wife—and the world of the marabout."
"Then we're agreed: unless something happens to change our minds, we were attacked by Touaregs."
Sabine smiled grimly. "Duprez bet," he answered, "that I should find they were not Arabs, but Touaregs. He will enjoy saying 'I told you so.'"
That night, and for many nights to come, there was wailing in the Zaouïa. The marabout had gone out to meet his son, who had been away from school on a pilgrimage, and returning at dark, to avoid the great heat of the day, had been bitten by a viper. Thus, at least, pronounced the learned Arab physician. It was of the viper bite he died, so it was said, and no one outside the Zaouïa knew of the great man's death until days afterwards, when he was already buried. Even in the Zaouïa it was not known by many that he had gone away or returned from a journey, or that he lay ill. In spite of this secrecy and mystery, however, there was no gossip, but only wild wailing, of mourners who refused to be comforted. And if certain persons, to the number of twenty or more, were missing from their places in the Zaouïa, nothing was said, after Si Maïeddine had talked with the holy men of the mosque. If these missing ones were away, and even if they should never come back, it was because they were needed to carry out the marabout's wishes, at a vast distance. But now, the dearest wishes of Sidi Mohammed would never be fulfilled. That poignant knowledge was a knife in every man's heart; for men of ripe age or wisdom in the Zaouïa knew what these wishes were, and how some day they were to have come true through blood and fire.
All were sad, though no tongue spoke of any other reason for sadness, except the inestimable loss of the Saint. And sadder than the saddest was Si Maïeddine, who seemed to have lost his youth.