“As for me I was overwhelmed with fear in broad daylight about ten years ago and again one December night last winter.

“Nevertheless, I have gone through many dangers, many adventures which seemed to promise death.  I have often been in battle.  I have been left for dead by thieves.  In America I was condemned as an insurgent to be hanged, and off the coast of China have been thrown into the sea from the deck of a ship.  Each time I thought I was lost I at once decided upon my course of action without regret or weakness.

“That is not fear.

“I have felt it in Africa, and yet it is a child of the north.  The sunlight banishes it like the mist.  Consider this fact, gentlemen.  Among the Orientals life has no value; resignation is natural.  The nights are clear and empty of the somber spirit of unrest which haunts the brain in cooler lands.  In the Orient panic is known, but not fear.

“Well, then!  Here is the incident that befell me in Africa.

“I was crossing the great sands to the south of Onargla.  It is one of the most curious districts in the world.  You have seen the solid continuous sand of the endless ocean strands.  Well, imagine the ocean itself turned to sand in the midst of a storm.  Imagine a silent tempest with motionless billows of yellow dust.  They are high as mountains, these uneven, varied surges, rising exactly like unchained billows, but still larger, and stratified like watered silk.  On this wild, silent, and motionless sea, the consuming rays of the tropical sun are poured pitilessly and directly.  You have to climb these streaks of red-hot ash, descend again on the other side, climb again, climb, climb without halt, without repose, without shade.  The horses cough, sink to their knees and slide down the sides of these remarkable hills.

“We were a couple of friends followed by eight spahis and four camels with their drivers.  We were no longer talking, overcome by heat, fatigue, and a thirst such as had produced this burning desert.  Suddenly one of our men uttered a cry.  We all halted, surprised by an unsolved phenomenon known only to travelers in these trackless wastes.

“Somewhere, near us, in an indeterminable direction, a drum was rolling, the mysterious drum of the sands.  It was beating distinctly, now with greater resonance and again feebler, ceasing, then resuming its uncanny roll.

“The Arabs, terrified, stared at one another, and one said in his language:  ‘Death is upon us.’  As he spoke, my companion, my friend, almost a brother, dropped from his horse, falling face downward on the sand, overcome by a sunstroke.

“And for two hours, while I tried in vain to save him, this weird drum filled my ears with its monotonous, intermittent and incomprehensible tone, and I felt lay hold of my bones fear, real fear, hideous fear, in the presence of this beloved corpse, in this hole scorched by the sun, surrounded by four mountains of sand, and two hundred leagues from any French settlement, while echo assailed our ears with this furious drum beat.