The Highlanders open fire. Their skill as marksmen, gained in the glens
and mountains of Sutherlandshire, was equally effective on different
game, in the desert of the Sahara. One shot brought a white mehari to
its knees. Another caused a masked man in a striped gandourah to wring
his hand and squeal.
The whole order of things was changed by the sudden flashes from the
height of the dark ruin, and the lighting of the bonfires on the bordj
roof.
Two of the masked men riding on a little in advance of the other twenty
had planned, as Stephen guessed, to demand admittance to the bordj,
declaring themselves leaders of a Touareg caravan on its way to
Touggourt. If they could have induced an unsuspecting landlord to open
the gates, so much the better for them. If not, a parley would have
given the band time to act upon instructions already understood. But
Cassim ben Halim, an old soldier, and Maieddine, whose soul was in this
venture, were not the men to meet an emergency unprepared. They had
calculated on a check, and were ready for surprises.
It was Maieddine's camel that went down, shot in the neck. He had been
keeping El Biod in reserve, when the splendid stallion might be needed
for two to ride away in haste--his master and a woman. As the mehari
fell, Maieddine escaped from the saddle and alighted on his feet, his
blue Touareg veil disarranged by the shock. His face uncovered, he
bounded up the slope with the bullets of Angus and Hamish pattering
around him in the sand.
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