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Show show intuition, but to-night there was unusual tension on his nerves. Something in his heart seemed to play upon his intellect, to wake it up into a quickness that was not normal. '' Benchaalal, monsieur ? '' said Achmed. "Who is that?" "You damned, deceitful rascal, you know well enough! Benchaalal, the Spahi, the officer from Algiers, who is staying at the inn at El-Akbara." Convicted of deception, Achmed, with perfect composure, \eft that question and inquired: "And why should Benchaalal give me money?" Sir Claude opened his lips to answer, but he said nothing. What could he say to a low-born Arab? Even if his wild surmise were truewhy should it be true?- he not express it, could not even at it. The landlady of the inn had roused in him fear and suspicion and condemnation; fear for his suspicion of all Arabs, especially Benchaalal and of Achmcd, demnation of himself. But he keep silence. Yet the complete composure of Achmed did not allay ~ added to his mistrust. He felt positive that he had been persuaded - these long sporting expeditions, this night away from El-Akbara, for · ' ; reasons quite unconnected with gazelle and Barbary sheep. They had come out of the village now, and were in the desert close to the auberge. The moon was just r showing its edge above the cone of the . l salt mountain and lifting the black- ,, fill?!( ness from the waste. Under the l,C-~. vine the little light of the lamp shone, 'qr"J showing the immobile figure of the ~·1: old Frenchwoman watching for their i ' return. Sir Claude made no reply to 1 Achmed's question, but when he |