and turned a page, and, as she did so, she looked up suddenly, the
magazine dropping unheeded on the floor. Close outside the tent the
same low, vibrating baritone was singing the Kashmiri love song that
she had heard last the night before she left Biskra. She sat tense, her
eyes growing puzzled.

_"Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar. Where are you now? Who lies
beneath your spell?"_

The voice came nearer and he swept in, still singing, and came to her.
_"Pale hands, pink tipped,"_ he sang, stopping in front of her and
catching her fingers in his up to his lips, but she tore them away
before he kissed them.

"You do know English?" she cried sharply, her eyes searching his.

He flung himself on the divan beside her with a laugh. "Because I sing
an English song?" he replied in French. "_La! la!_ I heard a
Spanish boy singing in 'Carmen' once in Paris who did not know a word
of French beside the score. He learned it parrot-like, as I learn your
English songs," he added, smiling.

She watched him light a cigarette, and her forehead wrinkled
thoughtfully. "It was you who sang outside the hotel in Biskra that
night?" she asked at last, more statement than question.

"One is mad sometimes, especially when the moon is high," he replied
teasingly.

"And was it you who came into my bedroom and put the blank cartridges