"An immediate picnic. In the friendliest of duars cannibal hordes thirsting for our blood would await us, if we were reckless enough to sleep among them. I prefer to housekeep à la belle étoile."
The sergeant nodded and gave his orders. Sentries slipped right and left into the night. A tiny fire was kindled in a hollow between two boulders. The tins of preserved soup gave up their secrets, and the ration bread proved that the military bakers of France have discovered the secret of making loaves which will remain fresh and eatable through a whole week of desert marches. Coffee succeeded—coffee made in the empty vegetable tin, and worthy of Maxim's or the Ritz.
Daoud drank his portion, shrugged his shoulders fatalistically at the sleeping places which the Goumiers were preparing, and then, without comment, vanished into the night.
Aylmer lay back upon his cloak, his head pillowed upon his arm, his pipe between his teeth. He was enjoying to the full the sensations of a pleasantly weary and well-fed horseman. The first drowsy challenge of sleep touched his eyes and brain.
The very next instant, as it seemed to him, he was on his feet, revolver in hand, searching the dark aisles of the forest on either side. A shout had echoed from one of the sentries, a hoarse challenge followed almost on the instant by a shot.
The cry was repeated, shriller this time with the insistence of anxiety. "Au secours!" came the Goumier's voice. "Au secours! There are a score of them; they are all around me!"
In silence, but with a wave of the hand, Perinaud dispersed his men into open order and doubled towards the sounds of conflict. Aylmer ran with them, making more noise in his heavy boots than the whole of the party made in their souliers. He heard Perinaud whisper an emphatic oath of disgust as he tripped over a fallen branch and smashed heavily through a cactus bush. The next instant both of them fell together, over a soft, woolly obstruction, which stirred faintly under their feet. Meanwhile, half a dozen rifles were flashing red in the night, and the woodland echoes tossed the reports from thicket to thicket.
Perinaud swore again viciously, scrambled to his feet, and shouted.
"Imbeciles! Cease fire!" he thundered. "They are sheep, these Moors of yours, sheep! A pretty night's work! You have killed probably a dozen, and we have no means of transport."
Shamefacedly the Goumiers crowded round to feel the fatness of the victim which had lain in Aylmer's path. As they felt and appraised it, their voices resumed a note of philosophic content. It was indeed a slur upon the collectedness of the Goumiers as a whole that Hassan el Fehmi, the sentry, had been betrayed into this indiscretion. But the dead sheep, look you, was of an unlooked-for plumpness, and breakfast must be partaken of sooner or later. There would be cutlets, and room might be found on a saddle or two for a couple of gigots. No, this was not all loss, this night alarm. There were compensations.