Yet it was morning when Jacques had fallen asleep. All the burning day the murderer must have lain like this, watching—or had sleep taken him too?
Suddenly one of the great birds whose shadows had been flitting across the ground swept down and lighted on the head of Mansoor. It stood there for a second, fiery-eyed and swaying, like a funeral plume, then, shooting its head forward and downward, it peeped up into the face of the watching one and plucked out an eye.
The birds of the desert always attack the eyes of a man first. The vultures will haul at a fallen man's head till they get the face sideways. Jacques, who knew all about the birds of the desert and their ways, gave a shout; next moment he was kneeling beside the dead man.
Mansoor had been dead for hours, death had struck him most likely the moment he had changed the upright for the recumbent position, giving him only just time to lie down and take aim. His heart had given out owing to his exertions and the excitement of the chase, or a blood vessel had broken in his brain.
Jacques took the pistol from the dead hand, not without a struggle. Then he saw why the pursued man had not fired on him. The magazine was empty.
Mansoor must have been unable to obtain ammunition after the murder. He had used bluff. It is almost as good sometimes.
The birds had now drawn off. They could be seen perched here and there on the rocks and waddling on the ground. Jacques shook his fist at them. Then, taking a clasp knife out of his pocket, a knife as keen as a razor, he did that unto the body of Mansoor which would ensure the reward of five hundred francs.
As he stood up the sun was setting, and the half-moon, like a ghost in the east, was strengthening in outline. From that eastern sky, warm blue and infinite in depth, a gentle wind was blowing, shaking the leaves of the few stunted plants that grew in the ravine.
Jacques, having finished his business, came out of the ravine and stood shading his eyes with his hands.
The land far and wide lay glowing in the sunset light, all hardness had vanished from it, and the desolation was almost masked by the colours that spread the distance.