Up and down the Legionaries' trench it pattered, desultory, aimless.
The three men engaged in the perilous task of what the Arabs call _asar_, or enemy-tracking, lay prone, with bullets keening high overhead.

As the Master looked back, he could see the little spurts of fire from that fusillade.
The firing came from more to the left than the Master had reckoned, showing him that he had got a little off his bearings.

But now he took his course again, as he had intended to do from the Legion's fire; and presently rifle work from the Arabs, too, verified, his direction.
The Master smiled.

Leclair fingered the butt of his revolver.
Rrisa whispered curses: "Ah, dog-sons, may you suffer the extreme cold of El Zamharir! Ah, may _Rih al Asfar_, the yellow wind (cholera), carry you all away!" The racket of aimless firing continued a few minutes, underneath the mild effulgence of the stars.

It ceased, from the Legion's trenches at the agreed moment; and soon it died down, also from the Arabs'.