“The shots he fired after the Spahi missed fire. Yet Tahar was a notable shot.”
“A strange tale,” I said. “How did you come to hear it?”
“A year ago I penetrated very far into the Sahara on a sporting expedition. One day I came upon an encampment of nomads. The story was told me by one of them as we sat in the low doorway of an earth-coloured tent and watched the sun go down.”
“Told you by an Arab?”
He shook his head.
“By whom, then?”
“By a woman with a clear little bird’s voice, with an angel and a devil in her dark beauty, a woman with the gesture of Paris—the grace, the diablerie of Paris.”
Light broke on me.
“By mademoiselle!” I exclaimed.
“Pardon,” he answered; “by madame.”