Daoud would answer these appearances with a bullet, one which apparently invariably missed its mark, for the echo of a mocking triumph greeted them. He turned irritably in the direction of his companions.
He waved his hand significantly, motioning them to deploy right and left, to surround the thicket. Perinaud answered with a comprehending nod.
But Rattier had neither the time nor the inclination for a display of tactics. As Daoud turned his horse to emerge from the mallow, the commandant spurred his charger into the thick of it. And he shouted, he whirled up his right hand, grasping his revolver, with fierce gesticulations of encouragement.
The Goumiers saw, heard, and found little room for hesitation in their mood. Like a torrent released at the breaking of a dam, they followed. Perinaud thundered an ineffectual protest.
It fell on deaf ears. The green brake was furrowed by a dozen lanes before their impact and then, relentlessly, as it seemed, closed behind them. The horses bucked, plunged, but made little headway. From one of them came a sudden whinnying shriek of pain.
Then it sank under its rider as the knife which had severed its tendons slipped back into the cover from which it had been so swiftly and so silently thrust.
The fallen Goumier cleared himself and scrambled to his feet. His face alone was clear in the sea of vegetation, and it was a mask of anger and bewilderment. And then it, too, was gone with a sudden panting cry.
Aylmer gave a little gasp. The head was there and then it was not. It sank into the green as the swimmer sinks into the blue in a shark-infested sea. But this shark was a human one, and its teeth a long Berber knife. The fugitives of the Beni M'Geel had chosen their battle-ground well.
Horse or man, lance or carbine--what were they against the daggers which the tussocks veiled? Mocking cries echoed in the thicket. Another horse shrieked and fell; another face showed white above the green and then was gone. The Goumiers snarled with rage as they spurred furiously forward, but the clinging mallow held them, shackled them, suffocated them with its density. There was a note of panic in their shouts; they battled no longer for victory but for escape.