When we reached the Bordj I found that it contained only one good-sized room, quite bare, with stone floor and white walls. Here, upon a deal table, was set forth my repast; the foods I had brought with me, and a red Arab soup served in a gigantic bowl of palmwood. A candle guttered in the glass neck of a bottle, and upon the floor were already spread my gaudy striped quilt, my pillow, and my blanket. The Spahi surveyed these preparations with a deliberate greediness, lingering in the narrow doorway.
I sat down on a bench before the table. My attendants were to eat at the Café Maure.
“Where are you going to sleep?” I asked of D’oud.
“At the Café Maure, monsieur, if monsieur is not afraid to sleep alone. Here is the key. Monsieur can lock himself in. The door is strong.”
I was helping myself to the soup. The rising wind blew up the skirts of the Spahi’s scarlet robe. In the wind—was it imagination?—I seemed to hear some thin, passing echoes of a tom-tom’s beat.
“Come in,” I said to the Spahi. “You shall sup with me to-night, and—and you shall sleep here with me.”
D’oud’s expressive face became sinister. Arabs are almost as jealous as they are vain.
“But, monsieur, he will sleep in the Café Maure. If monsieur wishes for a companion, I——”
“Come in,” I repeated to the Spahi. “You can sleep here to-night.”