three of the fingers around the grip and the index finger inside
the trigger guard.

A moment longer he tarried to rearrange the disordered rugs, and
then he left as he had entered, fastening down the rear wall of
the tent as it had been before he had raised it.

Going to the tent of the prisoner he removed there also the evidence
that someone might have come or gone beneath the rear wall. Then
he returned to his own tent, entered, fastened down the canvas,
and crawled into his blankets.

The following morning he was awakened by the excited voice of
Mohammed Beyd's slave calling to him at the entrance of his tent.

"Quick! Quick!" cried the black in a frightened tone. "Come!
Mohammed Beyd is dead in his tent--dead by his own hand."

Werper sat up quickly in his blankets at the first alarm, a startled
expression upon his countenance; but at the last words of the black
a sigh of relief escaped his lips and a slight smile replaced the
tense lines upon his face.

"I come," he called to the slave, and drawing on his boots, rose
and went out of his tent.

Excited Arabs and blacks were running from all parts of the camp
toward the silken tent of Mohammed Beyd, and when Werper entered
he found a number of the raiders crowded about the corpse, now cold
and stiff.