"We can easily keep any of them from coming up the stairs," said Bouchardy.
"And they can easily keep us from coming down," said Ducardanoy. "But perhaps they have not seen us."
They were soon satisfied on that score, for the cavalcade of horsemen—thirty-five wild desert Arabs—halted before the tower, and in broken French commanded the chiropodist and his assistant to surrender. This command was not obeyed. The Arabs laughed and picketed their horses, and after a little a caravan of camels bearing tents and women and children arrived, and the Arabs went into camp for the night.
"If they kill us, the French government will wipe them from the face of the earth," said Ducardanoy, along toward the middle of the night.
"If the French government finds it out. But the death of those scoundrels will not bring me to life," said Bouchardy. "I think it will be well to make a sortie."
"They would hear us taking the horses down; and if we start on foot we can't get so far away before daylight that they could not soon discover us by making scouts into the desert. Besides, I imagine that the entrance to the tower is guarded."
"When morning comes, I will eat wool and breathe fire and scare them away," said Bouchardy.
"To do that you must show yourself," said Ducardanoy. "And they will fill you full of lead while you are filling yourself with wool. But if we can scare them, it will be the only way we can get rid of them."
"I have it," said Bouchardy.
A moment later the sentinel at the foot of the town gave an exclamation of surprise, for there, opposite him, against the white walls of the Sheik's tent, in the midst of a blaze of light, stood a French soldier bowing to him. Promptly he sighted his ancient flint-lock, and sent a bullet between the soldier's eyes.