Just as he came in sight of the great chott between Biskra and
Touggourt, Stephen heard a sound which struck him strangely in the
silence of the desert. It was the distant teuf-teuf of a powerful motor
car, labouring heavily through deep sand.
Stephen was travelling in a carriage, which he had hired in Biskra, and
was keeping as close as he dared to the vehicle in front, shared by
Maïeddine and a French officer. But he never let himself come within
sight or sound of it. Now, as he began to hear the far-off panting of a
motor, he saw nothing ahead but the vast saltpetre lake, which, viewed
from the hill his three horses had just climbed, shimmered blue and
silver, like a magic sea, reaching to the end of the world. There were
white lines like long ruffles of foam on the edges of azure waves,
struck still by enchantment while breaking on an unseen shore; and far
off, along a mystic horizon, little islands floated on the gleaming
flood. Stephen could hardly believe that there was no water, and that
his horses could travel the blue depths without wetting their feet.
It was just as he was thinking thus, and wondering if Victoria had
passed this way, when the strange sound came to his ears, out of the
distance. "Stop," he said in French to his Arab driver. "I think friends
of mine will be in that car." He was right. A few minutes later Nevill
and Lady MacGregor waved to him, as he stood on the top of a low
sand-dune.
Lady MacGregor was more fairylike than ever in a little motoring bonnet
made for a young girl, but singularly becoming to her. They had had a
glorious journey, she said. She supposed some people would consider
that she had endured hardships, but they were not worth speaking of. She
had been rather bumped about on the ghastly desert tracks since Biskra,
but though she was not quite sure if all her bones were whole, she did
not feel in the least tired; and even if she did, the memory of the
Gorge of El Kantara would alone be enough to make up for it.
"Anything new?" asked Nevill.
"Nothing," Stephen answered, "except that the driver of the carriage
ahead let drop at the last bordj that he'd been hired by the French
officer, who was taking Maïeddine with him."
"Just what we thought," Lady MacGregor broke in.
"And the carriage will bring the Frenchman back, later. Maïeddine's
going on. But I haven't found out where."
"H'm! I was in hopes we were close to our journey's end at Touggourt,"
said Nevill. "The car can't get farther, I'm afraid. The big dunes begin
there."
"Whatever Maïeddine does, we can follow his example. I mean, I can,"
Stephen amended.
"So can Nevill. I'm no spoil-sport," snapped the old lady, in her
childlike voice. "I know what I can do and what I can't. I draw the line
at camels! Angus and Hamish will take care of me, and I'll wait for you
at Touggourt. I can amuse myself in the market-place, and looking at the
Ouled Naïls, till you find Miss Ray, or----"
"There won't be an 'or,' Lady MacGregor. We must find her. And we must
bring her to you," said Stephen.
He had slept in the carriage the night before, a little on the Biskra
side of Chegga, because Maïeddine and the French officer had rested at
Chegga. Nevill and Lady MacGregor had started from Biskra at five
o'clock that morning, having arrived there the evening before. It was
now ten, and they could make Touggourt that night. But they wished
Maïeddine to reach there first, so they stopped by the chott, and
lunched from a smartly fitted picnic-basket Lady MacGregor had brought.
Stephen paid his Arab coachman, told him he might go back, and
transferred a small suitcase--his only luggage--from the carriage to the
car. They gave Maïeddine two hours' grace, and having started on, always
slowed up whenever Nevill's field-glasses showed a slowly trotting
vehicle on the far horizon. The road, which was hardly a road, far
exceeded in roughness the desert track Stephen had wondered at on the
way from Msila to Bou-Saada; but Lady MacGregor had the courage, he told
her, of a Joan of Arc.
They bumped steadily along, through the heat of the day, protected from
the blazing sun by the raised hood, but they were thankful when, after
the dinner-halt, darkness began to fall. Talking over ways and means,
they decided not to drive into Touggourt, where an automobile would be a
conspicuous object since few motors risked springs and tyres by coming
so far into the desert. The chauffeur should be sent into the town while
the passengers sat in the car a mile away.
Eventually Paul was instructed to demand oil for his small lamps, by way
of an excuse for having tramped into town. He was to find out what had
become of the two men who must have arrived about an hour before, in a
carriage.
While the chauffeur was gone, Lady MacGregor played Patience and
insisted on teaching Stephen and Nevill two new games. She said that it
would be good discipline for their souls; and so perhaps it was. But
Stephen never ceased calculating how long Paul ought to be away. Twenty
minutes to walk a mile--or thirty minutes in desert sand; forty minutes
to make inquiries; surely it needn't take longer! And thirty minutes
back. But an hour and a half dragged on, before there was any sign of
the absentee; then at last, Stephen's eye, roving wistfully from the
cards, saw a moving spark at about the right height above the ground to
be a cigarette.
A few yards away from the car, the spark vanished decorously, and Paul
was recognizable, in the light of the inside electric lamp, the only
illumination they allowed themselves, lest the stranded car prove
attractive to neighbouring nomads.
The French officer was at the hotel for the night; the Arab was dining
with him, but instead of resting, would go on with his horse and a Negro
servant who, it seemed, had been waiting for several days, since their
master had passed through Touggourt on the way to Algiers.
"Then he didn't come from El Aghouat," said Nevill. "Where is he going?
Did you find out that?"
"Not for certain. But an Arab servant who talks French, says he believes
they're bound for a place called Oued Tolga," Paul replied, delighted
with the confidence reposed in him, and with the whole adventure.
"That means three days in the dunes for us!" said Nevill. "Aunt
Charlotte, you can practice Patience, in Touggourt."
"I shall invent a new game, and call it Hope," returned Lady MacGregor.
"Or if it's a good one, I'll name it Victoria Ray, which is better than
Miss Millikens. It will just be done in time to teach that poor child
when you bring her back to me."
"Hope wouldn't be a bad name for the game we've all been playing, and
have got to go on playing," mumbled Nevill. "We'll give Maïeddine just
time to turn his back on Touggourt, before we show our noses there. Then
you and I, Legs, will engage horses and a guide."
"You deserve your name, Wings," said Stephen. And he wondered how
Josette Soubise could hold out against Caird. He wondered also what she
thought of this quest; for her sister Jeanne was in the secret. No doubt
she had written Josette more fully than Nevill had, even if he had dared
to write at all. And if, as long ago as the visit to Tlemcen, she had
been slightly depressed by her friend's interest in another girl, she
must by this time see the affair in a more serious light. Stephen was
cruel enough to hope that she was unhappy. He had heard women say that
no cure for a woman's obstinacy was as sure as jealousy.
When they arrived at the hotel, and ordered all in the same breath, a
room for a lady, two horses and a guide, only the first demand could be
granted. It would be impossible, said the landlady and her son, to
produce horses on the instant. There were some to be had, it was true,
but they had come in after a hard day's work, and must have several
hours' rest. The gentlemen might get off at dawn, if they wished, but
not before.
"After all, it doesn't much matter," Nevill said to Stephen. "Even an
Arab must have some sleep. We'll have ours now, and catch up with
Maïeddine while he's taking his. Don't worry. Suppose the worst--that he
isn't really going to Oued Tolga. We shall get on his track, with an
Arab guide to pilot us. There are several stopping places where we can
inquire. He'll be seen passing them, even if he goes by."
"But you say Arabs never betray each other to white men."
"This won't be a question of betrayal. Watch and see how ingenuous, as
well as ingenious, I'll be in all my inquiries."
"I never heard of Oued Tolga," Stephen said, half to himself.
"Don't confess that to an Arab. It would be like telling a Frenchman
you'd never heard of Bordeaux. It's a desert city, bigger than
Touggourt, I believe, and--by Jove, yes, there's a tremendously
important Zaouïa of the same name. Great marabout hangs out there--kind
of Mussulman pope of the desert. I hope to goodness----"
"What?" Stephen asked, as Nevill broke off suddenly.
"Oh, nothing to fash yourself about, as the twins would say. Only--it
would be awkward if she's there. Harder to get her out. However--time to
cross the stile when we come to it."
But Stephen crossed a great many stiles with his mind before that
darkest hour before the dawn, when he was called to get ready for the
last stage of the journey.
Lady MacGregor was up to see them off, and never had her cap been more
elaborate, or her hair been dressed more daintily.
"You'll wire me from the end of the world, won't you?" she asked
briskly. "Paul and I (and Hamish and Angus if necessary) will be ready
to rush you all three back to civilization the instant you arrive with
Miss Ray. Give her my love. Tell her I've brought clothes for her. They
mayn't be what she'd choose, but I dare say she won't be sorry to see
them. And by the way, if there are telegrams--you know I told the
servants to send them on from home--shall I wire them on to Oued Tolga?"
"No. We're tramps, with no address," laughed Nevill. "Anything that
comes can wait till we get back."
Stephen could not have told why, for he was not thinking of Margot, but
suddenly he was convinced that a telegram from her was on the way,
fixing the exact date when she might be expected in England.