CHAPTER XVII

THE MISSION

It is the darkest hour that comes before the dawn. Next day Soldier St.

George became Corporal St. George, and felt more pleasure in the bit of

red wool on his sleeve than Lieutenant Max Doran would have thought

possible.

It was Four Eyes who brought him the news, a week later, that his name

was among those who would go on "the great march." Four Eyes was somehow

invariably the first one to hear everything, good news or bad. Life was

not so black after all. There need be no past for a Legionnaire, but

there might be a future. None of the men knew for certain when the start

was to be made, but it would be soon, and the barracks of the Legion

seethed with excitement. Even those who were not going could talk of

nothing else. They swore that there was no doubt of the business to be

done. The newly risen leader of the Senussi had summoned large bands of

the sect to the village, El Gadhari, of which he was sheikh, calling

upon them ostensibly to celebrate a certain feast. Close to this village

was one of the most important Senussi monasteries. Tribes were moving

all through the south, apparently with no warlike intention; but the

Deliverer was dangerous. Just such a leader as he--even to the gray eyes

and the horseshoe on his forehead--had been prophesied for this time of

the world. The Legion would march. And it would maneuver in the desert,

in the neighbourhood of El Gadhari. If the warning were enough--there

would be no fighting; but the Legion hoped it might not be enough. To be

the regiment ordered to give this warning was in itself an honour, for

wherever work is hardest there the Legion goes. The Legion must sustain

its reputation, such as it is! Desperate men, bad men, let them be

called by civilians in times of peace, but give them fighting and they

are the glorious soldiers who never turn back, who, even when they fall

in death, fall forward as they rush upon the enemy. All the world knew

that of them, and they knew it of themselves. They knew, also, that when

the moment of starting came men of Sidi-bel-Abbés who drew away from

them in the streets and the Place Carnot would take off their hats as

the Legion went by. It would be "Vive la Legion!" then.

With each day of burning heat the excitement grew more feverish. Surely

this morning, or this night, the order would come! The soldiers whistled

as they polished their accoutrements, whistled half beneath their breath

the "March of the Legion" which the band is forbidden to play in

garrison. Quarrels were forgotten. Men who had not spoken to each other

for weeks grinned in each other's faces and offered one another their

cheap but treasured cigarettes.

Almost every one seemed to be happy except Garcia. He was among those

who would not be taken on the march--he, who craved and needed to go, as

did no other man in the Legion! Max feared Garcia meant to kill himself

the night when he lost hope, and would not let him go out alone to walk

in the darkness. "I don't want to ask if you have any plans," he said.

"But there's one thing I do ask: share with me the money I've got left.

You may need it. I shan't. And if you'll take it, that'll be proof that

you think as much of me as I do of you."

Garcia took it, from the wallet which a man now lying in the hospital

had tried to empty the other night. Then Max knew for certain what the

queer light in Manöel's eyes meant. He could not help a rejoicing thrill

in the other's desperate courage which no obstacle had crushed.

That same night, when the two had separated (St. George reassured, and

believing that Garcia had use for his life after all), Max met Colonel

DeLisle face to face, for the first time alone and unofficially since

they had parted in the Salle d'Honneur. The colonel was walking

unaccompanied, in the street not far from the little garden of the

officers' club, where the band was to give a concert, and returning

Max's quick salute he turned to call him back.

"Good evening, Corporal! I should like to speak with you a minute!"

DeLisle cried out cheerfully in English. Max's heart gave a bound.

Surely never could the word "Corporal" have sounded so like fine music

in a poor, non-commissioned officer's ears!

He wheeled, pale with pleasure that his beau ideal should wish to speak

with him, and in English, the language they had used when they were

still social equals. "My Colonel!" he stammered.

"I want to congratulate you on your quick promotion," said DeLisle. "It

has come to you in spite of your resolution to take no advantage in the

beginning over your comrades. I congratulate you on that, too, and on

keeping it, now it has turned out so well. I hoped and believed it would

be so, though I advised you for your good."

"I know that, my Colonel," answered Max, determined not to presume in

speech or act upon his superior officer's kindness. "I knew it then."

"It may seem a pitifully small step up," DeLisle went on, "but it's the

first reward the Legion can give a soldier. There will be others. I

shall have to congratulate you again before long, I'm sure. Meanwhile, I

have a message for you." He paused for an instant, slightly hesitating,

perhaps. "It is from my daughter. She is in the south, visiting the

daughter of an Agha who is very loyal to France as a servant, very loyal

to me as a friend. Because of the march last spring, and again this one,

now coming (which I expected for this time, and on which I must go

myself), I could not have a young girl like Sanda living in

Sidi-bel-Abbés. She is happy and interested where she is, and she has

not forgotten you. In more than one letter she has wished to be

remembered to you, if possible. To-night, Corporal, it _is_ possible,

and I'm glad to give the message."

"I thank you for it, my Colonel," Max said, half ashamed of the deep

feeling which his voice betrayed. "I--wish I might be able to thank Miss

DeLisle. It is a great deal to me that she should remember me--my----"

"Your chivalry? It would be impossible to forget," DeLisle took him up

crisply. Then he dismissed the subject, as Max felt. "Tell me," he went

on in the same cheerful tone in which he had called out "Corporal!" "Are

you happy to escape the caserne, and get away to the desert?"

Suddenly a wild idea sprang into Max's head. Desperately, not daring to

let himself stop and think, he spoke. "I should be happy, my Colonel,

but for one thing. Have I your permission to tell you what it is?"

"Yes," said DeLisle. "If I can help you in the matter, I will."

"My Colonel, it's in your power to do me a favour I would repay you for

with my life if necessary, though"--and Max began to stammer

again--"that would be at your service in any case. The best friend I

have made in the regiment would give his soul to go on this march. I

know he hasn't always behaved as a soldier ought, but he's as brave as

he is hot tempered and reckless. If it could be reconsidered----"

"You mean Garcia?" broke in Colonel DeLisle sharply.

Max was astonished. Instantly he saw that the colonel must have been

watching his career. He might have guessed as much from the reward of

merit just given him--friendly congratulations and Sanda's message, a

thousand times more valued for the delay; and he had begun to realize

that he had never been abandoned, never forgotten. But the colonel's

knowledge of his friendship with Garcia brought the thrilling truth

home, almost with a shock.

"Yes, my Colonel--Garcia," he replied.

"Well, I can make no promise," said DeLisle, speaking now more in the

tone of an officer with a subordinate, yet showing that he was not

vexed. "But--I should like you to go away happy, Corporal. I'll look

into the affair of your friend, and after that--we shall see.

Good-night."

Again the salute was exchanged, and the colonel was gone, turning in at

the garden gate of the _Cercle Militaire_. The meeting, and all that had

passed, seemed like a waking dream. Max could hardly believe it had

happened, that Sanda had sent him a message, that her father had given

it, and that he, scarcely more than a _bleu_, had dared to speak for

Manöel Valdez.

That day it proved not to be a dream, for Garcia learned officially that

he was to go with his comrades. Max hardly knew whether or not it would

be wise to explain how the miracle had come to pass, but there was a

reason why he wished to tell. When the truth was out, and Valdez ready

to worship his friend, Max said: "I did it before I stopped to think; if

I _had_ stopped, I don't know--for you see, in a way, this makes me a

traitor to the colonel. I begged him for a favour and he granted it.

_Yet you and I understand what your going means._ I've been asking him

for your chance to--well, we won't put it in words! Only, for God's

sake, try to think of some other way to do what you've got to do!"

"Even you admit that I _have_ got to do it!" Valdez argued. "To save a

woman--it's to save her life, you know."

"I know," said Max. "But there may be some other way than this one in

your mind."

"If there is, I'll take it. And now I can give you back your money."

"No! You'll need every _sou_ if----"

"You're the best friend a man ever had!" cried the Spaniard.

At midnight the alarm they were all waiting for sounded, and though it

was expected at any hour, it came as a surprise.

"_Aux armes!_" rang out the call of the bugle from the barrack-yard and

waked the stone soldiers to instant life. The flat, carved figures sat

up on their narrow tombs in the moonlight, then sprang to their feet.

There was no need or thought of discipline with that glorious alarm

sounding in their ears! The men yelled with joy and roared from

dormitory to dormitory in the wonderful Legion language made up of

chosen bits from every other language of the world.

"Faites les sacs. En tenue de campagne d'Afrique!" bawled excited

corporals. Everything had to be done in about ten minutes; and though

all soldiers knew the programme thoroughly, and young soldiers had gone

through it in drill a hundred times, the real thing was somehow

different. Men stumbled over each other and forgot what to do first.

Corporals swore and threatened; but to an onlooker the work of packing

would have seemed to go by magic. At the end of the ten minutes the

barrack-yard was full of men lined up, ready for marching, and soldiers

of all nations thanked their gods for finding that the cartridges served

out to them from the magazine were not blank ones. They had all

protested their certainty that this march was for business; and when

they had heard that their colonel was going with them they had been

doubly sure; yet in their hearts they had anxiously admitted that it

was guesswork. Now these blessed cartridges packed full of the right

stuff put an end to furtive doubts.

As the companies formed up, the "Legion's March" was played, and the

young soldiers who had never heard it, unless whistled _sotto voce_ by

old Legionnaires, felt the thrill of its tempestuous strains in the

marrow of their bones.

Nowadays the great marches of the Foreign Legion are not what they once

were, unless for government maneuvers. When there is need of haste the

Legion goes by the railway the Legion has helped to lay; and only at the

end of the line begins the real business for which the Legion lives. For

the Legion is meant for the hardest marching (with the heaviest kits in

the world) as well as the fiercest fighting; and when the Legion marches

through the desert, it is "_marcher ou mourir_."

The cry of the bugles reached the ears of the heaviest sleepers in town;

for those who knew the Legion and the Legion's music knew that the

soldiers were off for a great march, or that wild air would not be

played. Windows flew up and heads looked down as the soldiers tramping

the bright moonlit street went to the railway station. So the "lucky

ones" of the Legion passed out of Sidi-bel-Abbés, some of them never to

return. And perhaps that was lucky, too, for it's as well for a

Legionnaire to rest in the desert as under one of the little black

crosses behind the wall of cypresses in the Legion's burial ground.

* * * * *

They had to go by the new railway line to Touggourt, as Sanda DeLisle

had gone, but instead of travelling by passenger train, the soldiers

went as Max had seen the batch of recruits from Oran arrive at

Bel-Abbés: in wagons which could be used for freight or France's human

merchandise: "_32 hommes_, _6 cheveaux_." After Touggourt their way

would diverge from Sanda's. There was no chance for Colonel DeLisle to

go and see his daughter, but in a letter he had told her the date of his

arrival in the oasis town and the hope he had--a hope almost a

certainty--of hearing from his girl there, or having a message of love

to take with him on the long march, warmed his heart. It was very

strange, almost horrible, to remember how he had felt toward his

daughter until the day she came to him, in the image of his dead love,

at Sidi-bel-Abbés. He had not wanted to see her. He had even felt that

he could not bear to see her. Unjust and brutal as it was, he had never

been able to banish the thought that, if it had not been for her, his

wife might have been with him through the years. Sanda had cost him the

happiness of his life.

He had easily persuaded himself that in any case, even if he had wanted

her with him, for her sake it was far better not. Such an existence as

his was not for a young woman to share, even after she had passed the

schoolgirl age. It had seemed to DeLisle that the only place for Sanda

was with her aunts, and passing half her time in France, half in

Ireland, gave the girl a chance to see something of the world. She was

not poor, for she had her mother's money; and because he wished to

contribute something toward his daughter's keep, rather than because she

needed it, he always paid for her education and her board. What she had

of her own, from her mother, must be saved for her _dot_ when she

married; and half unconsciously he had hoped that she would marry early.

After he saw her--the lovely young thing who had run away to him, as her

mother had--all that had been changed in an instant. His heart was at

her little feet, as it had been at the feet of the first Sanda, whose

copy she was.

His time for the next few months was so mapped out that he could not

have the girl with him for more than the first few days of joy, for she

could not be left in Sidi-bel-Abbés while he was away on duty. He had

done the best he could for his daughter by giving her a romantic taste

of desert life in the house of a tried friend whom he believed he might

trust; but he thought tenderly and constantly of _la petite_, and of

future days when they might be together--if he came back alive from

those "maneuvers" near El Gadhari. Approaching Touggourt, the first

scene of his life's great love tragedy, he could hardly wait for the

letter he hoped for from Sanda. He expected another event, also the

pleasure of meeting Richard Stanton, whom he had not seen for years, and

who would be, he knew, at Touggourt, getting together a caravan for that

"mad expedition" (as every one called it) in search of the Lost Oasis.

But if Stanton had cared as much for his old friend as in past days, he

had protested, he would have given a day or two to go out of his way and

visit the Colonel of the Foreign Legion at its headquarters. He had not

done that, and though DeLisle told himself that he was not hurt, his

enthusiasm at the thought of the meeting was slightly dampened. He

looked forward more keenly to Sanda's letter than to an encounter with

his erratic friend. It was good to have something heart-warming to hope

for in a place so poignantly associated with the past.

There was plenty for the Legionnaires to do in Touggourt. Having come by

rail, their first camp was made in the flat space of desert between the

big oasis town and the dunes. They were to stay only a few hours, for

the first stage of their march would begin long before sun-up, and most

of their leisure was to be spent in sleep. Yet somehow there was time

for a look at the sights of the place. One of these was a large Arab

café on the outskirts of the town where the trampled sand of the streets

became a vast, flowing wave of gold. Four Eyes had been in Touggourt

more than once, having marched all the way from Bel-Abbés, long before

the railway was begun or thought of. He urged Max to come into the low

white building where at dusk the räita and the tomtom had begun to

scream and throb.

"Prettiest dancing girls of the Sahara," he said, "and a fellow there I

used to know in Bel-Abbés--in the Chasseurs--has just told me there's a

great show for to-night."

There were several cafés in Sidi-bel-Abbés, where the proprietors

engaged Arab girls to dance, but Max, who had paid one visit, in

curiosity, thought the women disgusting and the dancing dull. He said

that he had no faith in the Touggourt attractions, and would rather take

a stroll.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Four Eyes scouted his

objections. "Haven't you heard the scandal about this Stanton, the

exploring man, who's here--our colonel's old pal?"

"No, I've heard that Stanton's at Touggourt. But I've heard no scandal,"

answered Max. "What has he got to do with the dancing girls?"

As he spoke, it was as if he saw Stanton sitting with Sanda DeLisle at

one of the little tea-tables on the terrace of the Hotel St. George at

Algiers; the square, resolute, red-tanned face, and the big, square blue

eyes, burning with aggressive vitality.

"Everything to do with one of them," said Four Eyes. "That's the

scandal. Seems Stanton's been playing the fool. They say he's half mad,

anyhow, about a lot of things--always was, but it is a bit worse since a

touch o' the sun he had a year or two ago. He's off his head about an

Ouled Nail--don't know whether she came here because of him, or whether

he picked her up at Touggourt, but the story is, he could o' got away

before now, with his bloomin' caravan, on that d----d fool expedition of

his you read of in the papers, only he couldn't bring himself to leave

this Ahmara, or whatever her crack-jaw name is. The chap that was

talkin' to me says she's the handsomest creature you'd see in a

lifetime, an' she's going to dance to-night to spite Stanton."

"To spite him?" Max repeated, not understanding.

"Yes, you d----d young greenhorn! Anybody'd know _you_ was new to

Africa! These girls, when they get to be celebrated for their looks or

any other reason, won't dance in public as a general thing. They leave

that to the common ones, who need to do something to attract. Anyhow,

Stanton wouldn't have let this Ahmara dance in a café before a crowd of

nomads from the desert. She lives with the dancing lot, because there's

some law or other about that for these girls, but that's all, till

to-night. There's been a row, my old pal told me, because Stanton gives

my lady the tip not to come near or pretend to know him while his friend

the colonel is here. She's in such a beast of a rage she's announced to

the owner of the café that she'll dance to-night; and I bet every man in

Touggourt except Stanton and DeLisle'll be there. You'll come, won't

you?"

"Yes, I'll come," said Max. He was ashamed of himself for so readily

believing the scandal about Stanton, yet he did believe it. Stanton had

struck him as the type of man who would stop at nothing he wanted to do.

And Max was ashamed, also, because he felt an involuntary rush of

pleasure in thinking evil of Stanton. He knew what that meant. He had

been jealous of Stanton at Algiers, and he supposed he was mean enough

to be jealous of him still. If Sanda knew the truth, would she be

disgusted and cease to care for her hero, her "Sir Knight?" Max

wondered. But perhaps she would only be sad, and forgive him in her

heart. Girls were often very strange about such things. Max, however,

could not forgive Stanton for ignoring the exquisite blossom of love

that might be his, and grasping instead some wild scarlet flower of the

desert not fit to be touched by a hand that had pressed Sanda's little

fingers. He did not know whether or not to be equally ashamed of the

curiosity which made him say to Pelle that he would see the dancer; but

he yielded to it.

Already the great bare café was filling up. In the dim yellow light of

lamps that hung from the ceiling, or branched out from the smoky,

white-washed walls, the throng of dark men in white burnouses, crowding

the long benches or sitting on the floor, was like a company of ghosts.

Their shadows waved fantastically along the walls as they strode

noiselessly in, wild as spirits dancing to the voice of their master

Satan, the seductive räita. At one end of the room sat the musicians,

all giant negroes, the scars and tattoo marks on their sweating black

faces giving them a villainous look in the wavering light. They were

playing the bendir, the tomtom, the Arab flute, as well as the räita;

but the räita laughed the other music down.

This café was celebrated for the youth and beauty of its dancers, and

one after another delicate little sad-faced girls, almost children,

danced and waved gracefully their thin arms tinkling with silver

bracelets, but the ever-increasing crowd of Arabs and French officers

and soldiers (tourists there were none at that time of year) scarcely

troubled to look at the dainty figures. They were waiting, eager-eyed.

If Max had not known beforehand that something was expected, he would

have guessed it. At last she came, the great desert dancer said to be

the most beautiful Ouled Nail of her generation.

Max did not see how or whence she arrived, but he heard the rustling and

indrawing of breaths that heralded her coming. And then she was there,

in the square left open for the dancing. All the light in the room

seemed to focus upon her, so did she scintillate from head to foot with

spangles. Even he felt a throb of excitement as the tall, erect figure

stood in the space between the benches, eying the audience from under a

long veil of green tissue almost covered with sparkling bits of gold and

silver. On her head she wore a high golden crown, and under the green

veil fell a long square shawl of some material which seemed woven

entirely of gold. Her dress was scarlet as poppy petals, and she

appeared to be draped in many layers of thin stuff that flashed out

metallic gleams. For a long moment she stood motionless. Then, when she

had made her effect, suddenly she threw up her veil. Winding it around

her arm, she snatched it off her head, and paused again, unsmiling,

statue-still, except for her immense dark eyes, encircled with kohl,

which darted glances of pride and defiance round the silent room.

Perhaps she was looking for some one whom she half expected might be

there. Max felt the long-lashed eyes fix themselves on him. Then,

receiving no response, they passed on and shot a fiery challenge into

the eyes of a young caid in a gold-embroidered black cloak, who bent

forward from his carpeted bench in a dream of admiration.

She was perfect in her way, a living statue of pale bronze, with the

eyes of a young tigress and the mouth of a passionate child. The gold

crown, secured with a scarf of glittering gauze, the rows of golden

coins that hung from her looped black braids over her bosom and down to

the huge golden buckle at her loosely belted waist, gave her the look of

an idol come to life and escaped from some shrine of an eastern temple.

As she moved, to begin the promised dance, she exhaled from her body and

hair and floating draperies strange, intoxicating perfumes which seemed

to change with her motions--perfumes of sandalwood and ambergris and

attar-of-rose.

For the first time Max understood the meaning of the Ouled Nail dance.

This child-woman of the desert, with her wicked eyes and sweet mouth,

made it a pantomime of love in its first timid beginnings, its fears and

hesitations, its final self-abandon and rapture. Ahmara was a dangerous

rival for a daughter of Europe with such a man as Richard Stanton.

When she had danced once, she refused to indulge the audience again, but

staring scorn at the company, accepted a cup of coffee from the handsome

young caid in the black mantle. She sat beside him with a fierce air of

bravado, and ignored every one else, as though the dimly lit room in

which her spangles flamed was empty save for their two selves. So she

would have sat by Max if he had given back glance for glance; but he

pushed his way out quickly when Ahmara's dance was over, and drew in

long, deep breaths of desert air, sweet with wild thyme, before he dared

let himself even think of Sanda. Sanda, who loved Stanton--with this

recompense!

As he walked back to camp, to take what rest he could before the early

start, he met a sergeant of his company, a tall Russian, supposed to be

a Nihilist, who had saved himself from Siberia by finding sanctuary in

the Legion.

"I have sent two men to look for you," he said. "The colonel wants you.

Go to his tent at once."

Max went, and at the tent door met Richard Stanton coming out. Max

recognized his figure rather than his features, for the light was at his

back. It shone into the Legionnaire's face as he stepped aside to let

the explorer pass, but Stanton's eyes rested on the corporal of the

Legion without interest or recognition. The colonel had just bidden him

good-bye, and he strode away with long, nervous strides. "Will he go to

the café and see Ahmara with the caid?" The thought flashed through

Max's mind, but he had no time to finish it. Colonel DeLisle was calling

him into the tent.

The only light was a lantern with a candle in it; yet saluting, Max saw

at once that the colonel's face was troubled.

"Have I done anything I oughtn't to have done?" he questioned himself

anxiously, but the first words reassured as much as they surprised him.

"Corporal St. George, I sent for you because you are the only one among

my men of whom I can ask the favour I'm going to ask."

"A favour--from me to you, my Colonel?" Max echoed, astonished.

"Yes. You asked me for one the other night, and I granted it because it

was easy, but this is different. This is very hard. If you do the thing,

you will lose the march and the fight which we may come in for at the

end. Is there anything that could make up to you for such a sacrifice?"

"But, my Colonel," answered Max, "you have only to give me your orders,

and whatever they may be I shall be happy to carry them out." He spoke

firmly, yet he could not hide the fact that this was a blow. He had

looked forward to the march, hard as it might be, and to the excitement

at the end as a thirsty man looks forward to a draught of water.

"But I am not going to give you any orders," said DeLisle. "It would not

be fair or right. This is a private matter. I have just received a

letter from my daughter with rather bad news. I told you she was

staying in the house of one of the great chiefs of the south, a friend

of years' standing, who has a daughter of her age. I needn't give you

details, but Sanda has unfortunately offended this man in perhaps the

one way an Arab, no matter how enlightened, cannot forgive. From what

she tells me I can't wholly blame him for his anger, but--it's

impossible for her to stop longer in his house. Not that she's in

danger--no! that's incredible, Ben Râana being the man he is. An Arab's

ideas of hospitality would prevent his offering to send a guest away, no

matter how much he might want to be rid of her. Yet I can't endure the

thought of asking him for a caravan and guard after what seems to have

happened. You realize that it is impossible for me to go myself. My duty

is with my regiment. Once before, you watched over my daughter on a

journey--watched over her as a brother might watch over a sister. That

is why I ask, as a favour from one man to another, whether you would be

willing to go to the Agha's house and escort my daughter here to

Touggourt. I know how much I am exacting of a born soldier like

yourself."

"My Colonel, you are conferring on me the Cross of the Legion of

Honour!" Max cried out impulsively.

"Then you accept?"

"I implore you to accept _me_ for the service."

"But do you thoroughly understand what it means? We go on without you.

It will be hopeless for you to follow us. I give you eight days' leave,

which will be ample time for the engaging of a small caravan--three or

four good men and the wife of one to act as servant to my

daughter--going to Ben Râana's place at Djazerta, arriving again at

Touggourt, and returning to Bel-Abbés. I shall have to send you back

there, you see. There's nothing else to do."

"I understand, my Colonel. But though I'm sorry to lose the experience,

I'd rather be able to do this for you and for Mademoiselle DeLisle than

anything else."

"Thank you. That's settled then, except details. We'll arrange them at

once, for you must get off to-morrow as soon as possible after our

start. Another man must be appointed in your place, Corporal. At

Sidi-bel-Abbés you shall have special work while we are gone. There

hasn't been much time for thinking since I got the news, but I have

thought that out. At first, I may as well tell you, my idea was to ask

Stanton to put off his expedition and go to Ben Râana's. But--something

I heard to-night turned me against that plan. I should like to have

another man with you out of the regiment in case of trouble. Not that

there can be trouble! But I shouldn't feel justified in asking for a

second volunteer. All the men are so keen! It's bad enough to send one

away on a private matter of my own, and----"

In his flush of excitement the soldier interrupted his colonel.

"Sir, I know of one! My friend would be glad to go with me!"

"You speak of Garcia again?"

"Yes, my Colonel."

"Are you sure of him?"

"I am sure."

"Very well. Talk to him then. Come back to me afterward, and I'll give

you all instructions."

The name of the Agha and the name of the place where he lived were

ringing through Max's head. Ben Râana--Djazerta!

The father of the girl Manöel Valdez loved and must save was the Agha of

Djazerta. Now Valdez need not desert!

CHAPTER VIII

GONE

There was keen curiosity and even jealousy concerning the errand which

suddenly separated Corporal St. George and his chum Juan Garcia from the

march of the Legion. None of their late comrades knew why they had gone

or where, unless it were Four Eyes, who swaggered about looking

secretively wise.

"I told St. George," said he to such young men of the Tenth as were

admitted to the honour of speech with the ex-champion, "I told St.

George to fire first at an Arab's face if he got any fighting. That's

the way! The Arab ain't prepared, and he's scared blue for fear of his

head bein' busted off his body. If that happens only his head goes to

Paradise and can't have any fun. Nobody but old Legionnaires who've seen

a lot of service have got that tip."

Because of Four Eyes' hints the story went round that St. George and

Garcia had been sent off on special reconnaissance duty. And the Legion

marched as only the Legion can, with its heavy kit, its wonderful tricks

to cure footsore feet, its fierce individual desire to bear more fatigue

than is human to endure, its wild gayety, its moods of sullen brooding.

For a while it expected to see St. George and Garcia appear as suddenly

and mysteriously as they had disappeared. But they did not come back.

And days and nights passed by; so at last, as the Legion drew nearer to

El Gadhari, the absent pair were talked of no more. There was much to

think of and to suffer, and it was not strange if they were

half-forgotten except by two men: one who knew the secret and one who

pretended to know: Colonel DeLisle and Four Eyes.

* * * * *

When Corporal St. George arrived at the oasis town of Djazerta he had

with him in his small caravan no other man in the uniform of the Legion.

He had only camel-drivers in white or brown burnouses, nomads who live

in tents, and whose womenfolk go unveiled without losing the respect of

men. They had come from the black tents outside Touggourt, all but one,

who joined the party after it had started, following on a fast camel. He

was a dark-faced man like the rest, and wore such garments as the others

wore, only less shabby than theirs, and none but the leader knew him or

why he had come. The Arab fashion of covering the body heavily, and

especially of protecting the mouth in days of heat as well as cold, was

observed religiously by this tall, grave person. The one woman of the

band, Khadra, wife of the chief camel-driver, wondered if the stranger

had any disfigurement; but her husband smiled a superior smile,

remarking that women have room in their minds only for curiosity about

what can never concern them. As for the newcomer, he was as other men,

though not as pleasant a companion as some. According to his own

account, he had been born in Djazerta, though he had lived in many

places and learned French and Spanish in order to make money as an

interpreter.

When the caravan reached Djazerta they found the oasis town indulging in

festivities because of the marriage of the Agha's daughter. The

customary week of feasting and rejoicing was at its height, but, to the

disappointment of every one, the bride and all the Agha's family had in

the midst of the celebrations suddenly gone out to the _douar_, the

desert encampment of the tribe over which Ben Râana ruled as chief. This

was unprecedented for the wedding of great personages that the end of

the entertainment should take place in the _douar_; but it was said that

the bride was ill with over-excitement, and rather than put off the

marriage, her father had decided to try the effect of desert air.

This was the news which was told to Max at the Agha's gates after his

forced march from Touggourt. It was translated for him into French by

his interpreter, the dark-faced man who covered his mouth even more

closely than did the dwellers in the black tents near Touggourt; for

Max, though he had studied Arabic of nights in the Legion's library, and

taken lessons from Garcia, could not yet understand the desert dialects

when spoken quickly. An interpreter was a real necessity for him on a

desert journey with Arabs to command, and as the two talked together

outside the open gate in the high white wall, discussing the situation,

neither the Agha's men nor any man of the caravan could understand a

word. The language they used was a mystery. French, English,

Spanish--all were jargons to these people of the southern desert.

"At the _douar_!" Max repeated. "Where is it?"

"Not twenty miles away," answered Manöel, keeping all feeling out of his

voice, as an interpreter should. "But it's between here and Touggourt.

Not exactly on the way, still we could have reached it by taking a

détour of a few kilometres off the caravan track and saved hours,

precious hours."

"Never mind," said Max, worried though he was because of the delay that

meant something to him, if not as much as to Manöel. "Never mind. We

shall be in time yet. They say the festivities are only half over. That

means she isn't married. Buck up! I know this is a shock; but it isn't a

surprise that the wedding feast should be on. You've been expecting

that. You've even been afraid it might be all over."

"But something has happened, or they wouldn't have taken her away,"

Manöel said.

"Perhaps she tried to escape," Max suggested. "Would it be harder for

her to do that at the _douar_ than here?"

"In a way, yes. Here she might be hidden for a while in some house of

the village: it's a rabbit warren, as you can see. Whereas, round the

_douar_ lies the desert open to all eyes. Still, it's easier to get out

of a tent than a house."

"Well, let's be off and see for ourselves, instead of guessing,"

proposed his friend with an air of cheerfulness. Manöel knew the errand

which had brought Corporal St. George (and incidentally himself) to

Djazerta at this eleventh hour, but Max and he had never spoken together

of Colonel DeLisle's daughter Sanda except casually, as Ourïeda's guest.

Manöel, his thoughts centred upon his own affairs, had no idea that

Mademoiselle DeLisle was personally of importance in St. George's life.

If he had seen that Max was anxious, he would have taken the anxiety for

sympathy with him, or else the nervousness of a keen soldier who had

only eight days' leave and small provision for delays.

Having finished their discussion, they politely refused an invitation,

in the absent Agha's name, to spend the night in his guest house, and

started out to retrace some kilometres of the track they had just

travelled. This, thought the Agha's head gatekeeper, was a foolish

decision, no matter how pressing might be the soldier's business with

Ben Râana, for already it was past sunset, and there was no moon. These

men were strangers, and could not know their way to the _douar_ except

as it was described to them. But what could one expect? Their leader was

a Roumi, a Christian dog, and all such were fools in the eyes of God's

children who knew that the lesson of life was patience.

CHAPTER XIX

WHAT HAPPENED AT DAWN

Sanda DeLisle's short life had not been brilliantly happy. She had known

the ache of feeling herself unwanted by the only two human beings of

paramount importance in her world: her almost unknown father, and her

adored "Sir Knight" and hero Richard Stanton. But never for more than a

few hours of concentrated pain, like those at Algiers, had she suffered

for herself as she suffered for Ourïeda.

The "Little Rose," defenceless against the men who had power over her

fate (as all Arab women are defenceless, unless they choose death

instead of life), appealed to the latent motherhood that slept in the

heart of Sanda, as in the heart of every normal girl: appealed to the

romance in her: appealed to the sympathy born of her own love for

Stanton, which seemed as hopeless as Ourïeda's love for Manöel Valdez.

Would Manöel come in answer to one of those secretly sent letters? Would

anything happen to save Ourïeda from Tahar? The girl brought up to be a

Roman Catholic prayed to the Blessed Virgin. The girl brought up to be a

Mohammedan prayed to Allah. And the prayers of both, ascending from

different altars, like smoke of incense in a Christian church and in a

mosque, rose toward the same heaven. Yet no help came; and the summer

days slipped by, until at last it was September, the month fixed for the

wedding.

With the subtlety and soft cowardice of Mussulman women, young or old,

Ourïeda said no word to her father of her loathing for Tahar. When Sanda

begged her to tell him at least so much of the truth and trust to his

love, the girl replied always dully and hopelessly in the same way: it

would be useless. He was very fond of her, for her dead mother's sake

and her own. But the fire of youth had died down in his heart. He had

forgotten how he felt when love was the greatest thing on earth.

Besides, his own wife had been the exception to all womanhood, in his

eyes. The child she had left had been his dear plaything, his

consolation. Now he counted upon her to fulfil the ambitions of his

life, thwarted so far, because she had been a daughter. To have his

nephew, his heir by law, become the father of his grandsons, was his

best hope now, and nothing except Ourïeda's death or Tahar's death would

make him give it up.

"My dear nurse Embarka would kill Tahar for me if she could get at him,"

the "Little Rose" said one day, calmly. "That would end my trouble, but

she cannot reach him, and there is no one she can trust among those who

cook or serve food in the men's part of our house."

Sanda was struck with horror, but Ourïeda could not at first even

understand why she was shocked. "If a viper were ready to strike you or

one you loved, would you think harm of killing it?" she asked. "Tahar is

venomous as a viper. I should give thanks to Allah if he were dead, no

matter how he died. But since Allah does not will his death, I must pray

for courage to die myself rather than be false to Manöel, who has

perhaps himself gone to Paradise, since he does not answer when I call;

and if a woman can have a soul, I may belong to him there."

Sanda had forgiven her, realizing if not understanding fully the

difference between a heart of the East and a heart of the West, and

loving the Arab girl with unabated love. Up to the hour when Ben Râana

came into the garden of the harem and bade his daughter praise Allah

because her wedding day was at hand, Sanda hoped, and begged Ourïeda to

hope, that "something might happen." But even to her that seemed the

end, for the girl listened with meekness and offered no objection except

that the hot weather had stolen her strength: she was not well.

"Let the excitement of being a bride bring back thy health, like wine in

thy veins, Little Rose," said the Agha, speaking in French out of

compliment to the guest, and to show her that there was no family secret

under discussion which she might not share.

"It is not exciting to marry my cousin Tahar," Ourïeda sighed rather

than protested. "He is an ugly man, dreadful for a girl to look upon as

her husband."

"Thou makest me feel that thine aunt is right when she tells me I was

wrong ever to let thee look upon him or any man except thy father," the

Agha answered quickly, with a sudden light behind the darkness of his

eyes like the flash of a sword in the night. Sanda, knowing what she

knew, guessed at a hidden meaning in the words. He was remembering

Manöel, and wishing his daughter to see that he had never for a moment

forgotten the thing that had passed. The Agha, despite his eagle face,

had been invariably so gentle when with the women of his household, and

had seemed so cultured, so instructed in all the tenets of the twentieth

century, that Sanda had sometimes wondered if his daughter were not

needlessly afraid of him. But the unsheathing of that sword of light

convinced her of Ourïeda's wisdom. The girl knew her father. If she

dared to urge any further her dislike of Tahar he would believe it was

because of Manöel, and hurry rather than delay the wedding. Illness was

the only possible plea, and even to that Ben Râana seemed to attach

little importance. Marriage meant change and new interests. It should be

a tonic for a Rose drooping in the garden of her father's harem.

"Thou seest for thyself that it is no use to plead," whispered Ourïeda

when her father had gone, and Leila Mabrouka and her woman, Taous, on

the overhanging balcony, were loudly discussing details of the feast.

"Now, at last, is the time to tell the thing I waited to tell, till the

worst should come: the thing thou couldst do for me, which would be even

harder to do, and take more courage--oh! far more courage!--than leaving

the letters open."

The look in Ourïeda's eyes of topaz brown was more tragic, more

strangely fatal than Sanda had ever seen it yet, even on the roof in the

sunset when the story of Manöel had been told. The heart of her friend

felt like a clock that is running down. She was afraid to know the thing

which Ourïeda wanted her to do; yet she must know--and make up her mind.

It seemed as if there were nothing she could refuse, still----

"What is it you mean?" she whispered back, the two heads leaning

together over a frame of bright embroidery in Ourïeda's lap, and the

tinkle of the fountain drowning the soft voices, even if the chatter at

the door of Leila Mabrouka's room above had not covered the secret

words.

"When I said there was a thing I would ask, if the worst came," Ourïeda

repeated, "I meant one of two things. If thou wilt do either, they are

for thee to choose between. But thou wilt think them both terrible, and

my only hope is that thou lovest me."

"You know I do," Sanda breathed.

"Enough to do what I am too poor a coward to do for myself, and Embarka

has refused to do?"

"Not--oh, no, no, you can't mean----"

"Yes, thou hast guessed. No one need ever suspect. I would think of a

way. I've thought of one already. There'd be no pain for me. And yet--I

suppose because I am young and my blood runs hot in my veins, I fear--I

am sure--I couldn't, when the moment came, do it myself."

"Even for you, I can't be a murderess," Sanda said miserably, almost

apologetically.

"It is thy strange Christian superstition which makes thee call it that.

It would be our fate; and thou couldst go away and be happy, feeling

thou hadst saved me from life which is worse than death sometimes.

Still, if thou wilt not, there is the other thing. Will thou help me to

escape?"

"Oh, yes!" cried Sanda.

"Wait till thou hast heard my plan. Maybe thou wilt change thy mind."

"I feel sure I shan't change it."

"But the plan may make thee hate me, and think I am cruel and selfish,

caring for no one except myself. Besides, there will be lies to tell;

and I know thou dost not like lies, though to me they seem no harm if

they are to do good in the end."

"Tell me the plan."

Ourïeda told it, while overhead on the balcony her Aunt

Mabrouka--Tahar's mother--chatted of the merchants in Djazerta who sold

silks from Tunis and perfumes from Algiers.

The plan was very hateful, very dangerous and treacherous. But--it was

to save Ourïeda. The Arab girl proposed to Sanda that she should pretend

to have a letter from Colonel DeLisle calling her back at once to

Sidi-bel-Abbés, not giving her even time to wait for the wedding. Ben

Râana would reluctantly consent to her going: he would give her an

escort--not Tahar, because Tahar must stay for his marriage--but some

trustworthy men of his _goum_, and good camels. On the camel prepared

for her would be of course a bassourah with heavy curtains: probably the

one in which she had already travelled. It went also without saying that

Sanda would make the journey in Arab dress, such as she had worn during

her visit. Ourïeda would pretend to be ill with grief because her friend

must leave her at such a time; already she had prepared the Agha's mind

by complaining of weakness. She would take to her bed and refuse to see

any one but her nurse, Embarka. Lella Mabrouka, glad to be rid of the

Roumia girl (of whom, beneath her politeness, she had always

disapproved), and hating illness, would gladly keep out of the way for

two or three days, while the wedding preparations went on. It would be

easy, or almost easy, if no accident happened, Ourïeda argued, for her

to go away veiled and swathed in the bassourah, while Sanda lay in bed

in a darkened room. At Touggourt the veiled lady would be met by that

Captain Amaranthe and his wife of whom Sanda had spoken: they must be

written to immediately and told to expect Mademoiselle DeLisle. Then

trouble might come, if they suspected, but perhaps they would not, if

Sanda wrote that she had been ill with influenza and had nearly lost her

voice. They might send her off by train, guessing nothing, or, if they

did guess, she must throw herself on Madame Amaranthe's mercy. No woman

with a heart would give her up! And if the plan succeeded, instead of

going to Sidi-bel-Abbés she would go to Oran where she could find a ship

that would take her to Marseilles. Her jewels (some which had been her

mother's, and many new ones given by her father) would pay the expenses

and keep her in France, hidden from Ben Râana and beyond his power,

until perhaps Manöel found her through advertisements she would put into

all the French papers.

As for Sanda, the result for her when the trick was discovered (as it

ought not to be until Ourïeda had got out of Algeria) would be simple.

She was the daughter of Ben Râana's friend, a soldier of importance in

the eyes of France. Colonel DeLisle had entrusted her to the Agha's

care, and she could not be punished as though she were an Arab woman. If

Embarka or any member of Ben Râana's household so betrayed him and his

dearest hopes the right revenge would be death, and no one outside would

ever hear what had been done, for tragedies of the harem are sacred. To

Mademoiselle DeLisle, however, her host could do nothing, except send

her with a safe escort out of his home. And that would be her one

desire.

At first it seemed to Sanda that she could not do what Ourïeda asked.

With tears she said no, they must think of some other way. And the

Little Rose did not argue or plead. She answered only that she had

thought, and there was no other way but the one which Sanda had refused.

Then she was silent, and the light died out of her eyes, leaving them

dull, almost glazed, as if her soul, that had been gazing through the

windows, had gone to some dark sepulchre of hope.

It was because of this silence and this look that Sanda changed her

mind, after one day and night, all of which she spent--vainly--in trying

to find another plan. A letter did come from her father, as she and

Ourïeda had hoped it might (Colonel DeLisle, while still at

Sidi-bel-Abbés, found time to scribble off a few lines to his girl for

each camel post that travelled through the dunes from Touggourt to

Djazerta), and in sickness of heart Sanda pretended that she was wanted

"at home." The Agha was grieved and astonished, but, great Arab

gentleman that he was, would have cut out his tongue rather than

question his guest when no information was volunteered. He asked only if

she had been in all ways kindly treated in his house; and when with

swimming eyes she answered "yes," it was enough. The caravan was

prepared to take her to Touggourt, where she would be met by her former

travelling companions, Captain Amaranthe and his wife; and the Agha

assured her that only the marriage--an event unlucky to

postpone--prevented him from sending his nephew as before, or going

himself as her escort.

The start was to be made very early in the morning, before dawn, in

order that the caravan might rest during the two hours of greatest heat

without shortening the day's march; and this was in the girl's favour.

Sanda had said farewell to Lella Mabrouka the night before, that the

lady need not wake before her usual hour: but not only did she wake; she

rose, very quietly, and saw Embarka tiptoeing along the balcony from

Sanda's room to Ourïeda's with the new gandourah and extra thick veil

she herself had given the guest to travel in. When Embarka was out of

the way Lella Mabrouka, in her night robe, pattered softly to Sanda's

closed door and knocked. No answer. She peeped in and saw the room

empty.

Sanda might have gone to bid Ourïeda good-bye at the last minute: that

would be natural; and it was the last minute, because the sky was

changing its night purple for the gray of dawn, and from the distant

courtyard Lella Mabrouka had heard some time ago the grunting of the

camels. (She was a light sleeper always: and afterward she told Ben

Râana and Tahar that Allah had doubtless sent some messenger to touch

her shoulder at this hour of fate.) She had had no definite suspicions

until that moment, except that she was always vaguely suspicious of the

girls' confidences; but suddenly an idea leaped into her mind, the

suggestion of just such a trick as she herself would have been subtle

enough to play. If the Roumia went to the room of her friend to disturb

her (though Ourïeda had been ailing for days), why did she not go

already dressed, by Embarka's help, for the start, since it was time to

set out, and the Agha must be waiting in the courtyard to bid Allah

speed his guest? There might be a simple and innocent reason for what

struck Lella Mabrouka as mysterious, but she determined to find out.

With suddenness she flung open the door of Ourïeda's room (which

Embarka, believing Lella Mabrouka safely asleep, had not locked), and by

the light of a French lamp she saw the old nurse draping Ourïeda in the

Roumia's veil. In Ourïeda's green and gold bed from Tunis lay Sanda in a

nightdress of Ourïeda's with her head wrapped up as Ourïeda's was often

wrapped by Embarka as a cure for headache.

Instantly the whole plot was clear to the mother of Tahar. She saw how

Ourïeda had meant to go, and how Sanda would have kept her place,

guarded from intrusion by the old nurse, until the fugitive was safely

out of reach.

Ourïeda, quick of mind as the older and more experienced woman,

explained without waiting to be asked that she and her dearest Sanda had

exchanged clothing, just for a moment, according to the old Arab

superstition that garments changed between those who love have the power

of giving some quality of the owner to the friend. Sanda said nothing at

all, knowing that she would but make matters worse by speaking. When she

understood what the story was to be (she had given hours of each day

during the past months to learning Arabic) she sat up in bed and begun

unwrapping her head as if to prepare for the journey, now that time

pressed, and she must again put on her own things. But if she had had

the slightest hope that Lella Mabrouka might be deceived by Ourïeda's

plausible excuse, the cold glint of black eyes staring at her in the

lamplight would have stabbed it to death.

A woman of Europe, burning with rage like Mabrouka's, might have blurted

out fierce reproaches or insults; but the woman of the harem did not

even put her discovery into words. She looked at Ourïeda and the Roumia,

and said quietly: "It was a charming idea to wear each other's clothes

so that each might have something of the other in her heart forever.

Already I can see a likeness. But do not hurry to change now. I came to

say that for a reason, to be explained later, the caravan cannot start

to-day. Our Little White Moon will light our sky for a time longer. Come

with me, Embarka, I have work for thee. These dear children may have the

pleasure of dressing each other."

Ashy pale under her bronze skin, Embarka obeyed without protest,

throwing one look at her beloved mistress as she followed Lella Mabrouka

to her fate. Her great, dilated eyes said: "Good-bye forever, oh, thou

whom I love, and for whom I have given myself without regret."

When they were left alone the girls fell into each other's arms as if

for protection against some terrible fate coming swiftly to destroy

them. Though the September dawn had in it the warmth of summer, they

shivered as they clung together.

"It is all over!" Ourïeda said. "Allah is against me."

"What will happen?" asked Sanda, a horror of the unknown upon her.

"Nothing to thee. Do not be afraid."

"I'm not afraid for myself. I am thinking of you."

"For me this is the end."

"You don't mean--surely your father will not----"

"He will not take my life. He will take from me his love. And I shall be

watched every instant till I have been given to Tahar. I shall not even

have a chance to kill myself--unless I do it now."

"Ourïeda! No--there's hope still. Who can tell----"

But Ourïeda did not hear. Suddenly she tore herself free from Sanda's

arms, and running to one of the carved cedarwood doors in the white wall

of the bedroom, opened a little cupboard. There, fumbling among perfumed

parcels, rolled as Arab women roll their garments, she snatched from a

bundle of silk a small stiletto with a jewelled handle. Sanda had seen

it before, and had been bidden to admire its rough, square emeralds and

queerly shaped pearls. The thing had belonged to Ourïeda's mother, and

had been given to the daughter by the Agha on her sixteenth birthday,

nearly a year ago. Ben Râana's Spanish wife had worn it in her dark

hair; but Ben Râana's daughter, even from the first, had thought of it

for another purpose. Last night, when Embarka had packed the jewels

among Sanda's things for the secret journey, Ourïeda had kept out the

stiletto in case of failure. Now it was ready to her hand, and before

Sanda could reach her the point of its thin blade pressed the flesh over

the heart. But the pin prick of pain as the skin broke was too sharp a

prophecy of anguish for the petted child who knew herself physically a

coward. She gave a cry, dropped the stiletto as if the handle had burnt

her, and, stumbling against the girl who tried to hold her up, fell in a

limp heap on the floor.

There was no time to hide the stiletto, even if Sanda had thought to do

so, before Taous, Lella Mabrouka's woman, came quietly into the room. No

doubt Mabrouka had meant to send her, but had not told the girls,

because she wished her servant to surprise them. Gathering up Ourïeda,

who had fainted, or seemed to faint, the negress's bright eyes spied the

dagger. Freeing one hand as easily as if Ourïeda's weight had been that

of a baby, she took the weapon and slipped it into her dress. Whether

she meant to show the dagger to her mistress, or to keep it for herself,

who could say?

Sanda would not leave Ourïeda when the girl had been laid on the bed by

Taous, but presently, after half an hour's absence, Lella Mabrouka

returned. "Thou mayest go now," said the formidable woman. "We who love

and understand her will restore our Rose with her name's perfume, which

has the power of bringing back lost senses. Have no fear for her health,

Little Moon. All will be well with our sweet bride. Dress thyself, not

for a journey, but for a visit from my brother, the Agha, who will do

himself the honour of calling upon thee when thou art ready to descend

to our reception-room. Thou being a Roumia, with customs different to

ours, may receive him alone, otherwise I would leave our Little Rose to

Taous, and go with thee."

Despite the unbroken courtesy of Mabrouka's manner, or all the more

because of its frozen calm, Sanda was sick with a deadly fear. She was

not afraid that the Agha would do her bodily harm, but the whole world

seemed to have come to an end because of her treachery. She did not know

how she could meet his eyes, those eyes of an eagle, after what she had

tried to do. She was afraid he would question her about what she knew of

Ourïeda's secrets, and though she resolved that nothing should make her

speak, her heart seemed turning to water.

CHAPTER XX

THE BEAUTY DOCTOR

"If my father were only here!" Sanda said as she went down to the great

room of state where the ladies of the Agha's harem received their few

visitors. And then she thought of Maxime St. George, her soldier. She

recalled the night when she had been afraid of the storm, and he had sat

by her through the long hours. Somehow, she did not know why, it helped

a little to remember that.

Ben Râana, graver and sterner than she had seen him, was waiting in the

early dawn which struck out bleak lights from the dangling prisms of the

big French chandeliers--the ugly chandeliers of which Lella Mabrouka was

proud. He asked no questions; and somehow that seemed worse than the

ordeal for which Sanda had braced herself. The Agha's voice, politely

speaking French, was studiously gentle, but icy contempt was in his dark

eyes when they were not deliberately turned from the trusted guest who

had betrayed him. He said he had summoned her to announce, with regret,

that, owing to the illness of the man appointed as conductor of the

caravan, it would not be able to start for some time. At present there

was no other person equally trustworthy who could be spared. "I am

responsible to thy father for thy safety," he added. "And though we poor

Arabs are behind these modern times in many ways, we would die rather

than betray a trust."

That was a stroke well aimed under the roses of courtesy, and Sanda

could but receive it in silence. She had supposed when Lella Mabrouka

spoke of the caravan not going that it was only a threat. Her

expectation was to be sent out of the house at once, in disgrace, and

though her soul yearned over Ourïeda, all that was timid in her pined to

go. It was surprising--if anything could surprise her then--to hear that

she must remain.

"Almost surely I shan't be allowed to see Ourïeda again, and if I can't

help her any more I might as well beg father to send for me at once,"

she told herself, when Ben Râana, formally taking leave of her, with

hand on forehead and heart, had gone. She went slowly and miserably to

her own room to await developments, and while she waited, hastily wrote

the message to Colonel DeLisle which three days later found him at

Touggourt.

In writing, she feared that her letter might never be allowed to reach

her father; but she wronged Ben Râana. He had spoken no more than the

truth (though he spoke to hurt) in saying he would rather die than

betray a trust. At that time he still kept his calmness, because the

plot arranged by the two girls had not succeeded. His daughter was still

safe under his own roof, and it was not an unexpected blow to him that

she should have wished to escape from Tahar. He knew in his heart that

Ourïeda was more to blame than Sanda, and seeing shame on the young,

pale face of the Roumia he had no fear of anything George DeLisle's

daughter might report to her father. Her letter went by the courier, as

all her other letters had gone. Mabrouka's advice to keep it back, or

at least to steam the envelope open and see what was inside, was scorned

by Ben Râana; and to Sanda's astonishment she was actually sent for to

visit Ourïeda.

This was in the afternoon of the day whose dawn had seen the girls'

defeat. Ourïeda was in bed, and Taous sat by the open door with an

embroidery frame. But Taous understood neither French nor English. In

exchange for the lessons Ourïeda gave Sanda in Arabic, Sanda had given

lessons in English; therefore, lest Aunt Mabrouka might be listening,

and lest she might have picked up more French than she cared to confess,

the two girls chose the language of which Ourïeda had learned to

understand more than she could speak.

"How thankful I am to see you, dearest!" cried Sanda. "Didn't you think,

after what your aunt said, that I should be sent away this morning?

Would you have dreamed, even if I stayed, that we should be allowed to

meet and talk like this?"

Ourïeda answered, slowly and brokenly, that she had not believed Sanda

would be permitted to go. Aunt Mabrouka had not stopped to reflect when

she had made that threat, or else she had hoped to part them, and to

make Ourïeda believe Sanda had gone. "You see," the girl explained in

her halting English, "they--my father and my aunt--shall have too much

of the fear to let you go till after all is finished."

"Finished?"

"When the marrying has been over thou canst go. Then it too late. My

father shall be sure, thee and me, we know where M---- is, that our plan

was for him. I say no, but he not believe. That is for why they keep

thee here, so thou not tell M---- things about me. But my father, he

shall not be mean and little in his mind like my aunt. He not listen to

the words she speak when she say not let us meet together. My father

know very well now we shall be finded out, it is the end for us. He not

have fear for what we do if some person shall watch to see I not kill

myself."

"What has become of poor Embarka?" Sanda asked.

Ourïeda shook her head, unutterable sadness in her eyes. "I think never

shall I know that in this world."

Ill, without feigning, as the girl was, the wedding was to be hurried

on. The original idea had been for the week of wedding festivities to

begin on the girl's seventeenth birthday; but now Ben Râana said that,

in promising his daughter the delay she asked for, he had always

intended to begin the week before and give the bride to the bridegroom

on the anniversary of her birth.

Ourïeda no longer pleaded. She had given up hope, and resigned herself

with the deadly calmness of resignation which only women of the

Mussulman faith can feel. It was clear that her will was not as Allah's

will. And women came not on earth for happiness. It was not sure that

they even had souls.

"Allah has appointed that I marry my cousin Tahar," she said to Sanda,

"and I shall marry him, because I have not another stiletto nor any

poison, and I am always watched so that, even if I had the courage, I

could not throw myself down from the roof. But afterward--I am not sure

yet what I shall do. All I know is that I shall never be a wife to

Tahar. Something will happen to one of us. It may be to me, or it may

be to him. But something _must_ happen."

The Agha himself had caused to be built at Djazerta a _hammam_ copied in

miniature after a fine Moorish bath in Algiers, at which he bathed when

he went north to attend the governor's yearly ball. All Arab brides of

high rank or low must go through great ceremonies of the bath in the

week of the wedding feast, and no exception could be made in Ourïeda's

case. The privacy of the _hammam_ was secured for the Agha's daughter by

hiring it for a day, and no one was to be admitted to the women's part

of the bath except the few ladies who had enough social importance to

expect invitations. That Lella Mabrouka and Sanda would be there was a

matter of course; and, besides them, there were the wives and daughters

of two or three sheikhs and caids, all of whom Sanda already knew by

sight, as they had paid ceremonious visits to the great man's harem

since her arrival at Djazerta.

The Agha had a carriage, large, old-fashioned, and musty-smelling, but

lined with gold-stamped crimson silk from Tunis. It could be used only

between his house and the town, or to reach the oasis just beyond, for

there was nowhere else to go; but, drawn by stalwart mules in Spanish

harness, for years it had taken the ladies of his household to the baths

and back. Lella Mabrouka and Taous (both veiled, though they had passed

the age of attractiveness when hiding the face is obligatory) chaperoned

the bride and her friend, the coachman and his assistant being fat and

elderly eunuchs.

At the doorway of the domed building, the only new one in Djazerta,

there was much stately fuss of screening the ladies as they left the

seclusion of the carriage. Then came a long, tiled corridor, which

opened into a room under the dome of the _hammam_, and there the party

was met not only by bowing female attendants, but by the guests, who had

arrived early to welcome them. Ourïeda was received with pretty cries

and childlike, excited chattering, not only by her girl friends, but the

older women. All were undressed, ready for the bath, or they could not

have followed the bride to the hot rooms; and that was the object and

pleasure of the visit. Every one shrieked compliments as the clothing of

the Agha's daughter was delicately removed by the beaming negresses; and

gifts of gold-spangled bonbons, wonderfully iced cakes, crystallized

fruit, flowers, gilded bottles of concentrated perfume, mother-o'-pearl

and tortoise boxes, gaudy silk handkerchiefs made in Paris for Algerian

markets, and little silver fetiches were presented to the bride. She

thanked the givers charmingly, though in a manner so subdued and with a

face so grave that the visitors would have been astonished had not Lella

Mabrouka explained that she had been ill with an attack of fever.

From hot room to hotter room the women trooped, resting, when they felt

inclined, upon mattings spread on marble, while the bride, the queen of

the occasion, was given a divan. They ate sweets and drank pink sherbet

or syrup-sweet coffee, and, instead of being bathed by one of the

attendants, Ourïeda was waited upon by a great personage who came to

Djazerta only for the weddings of the highest. Originally she was from

Tunis, where her profession is a fine art; but having been superseded

there she had moved to Algiers, then to Touggourt; and thence the Agha

had summoned her for his daughter. She was Zakia, _la hennena_, a

skilled beautifier of women; and she had been sent for, some days in

advance of the great occasion, in order (being past her youth) to

recover from the fatigue of the journey. None of the young girls had

ever seen her, and exclaiming with joy they fingered her scented pastes

and powders.

This bridal bath ceremony, being more intricate than any ordinary bath,

took a long time, and when it was over, and Ourïeda a perfumed statue of

ivory, the cooling-room was entered for the dyeing of the bride's hair.

The girl's face showed how she disliked the process; but it being an

unwritten law that the hair of an Arab bride must be coloured with

_sabgha_, she submitted. After the first shudder she sat with downcast

eyes, looking indifferent, for nothing mattered to her now. Since Manöel

would never see it again, and perhaps it would soon lie deep under earth

in a coffin, she cared very little after all that the long hair he had

thought beautiful must lose its lovely sheen for fashion's sake.

Now and then, as she worked, Zakia stooped over her victim, bringing her

old, peering face close to the bowed face of the girl to make sure the

dye did not touch it. Sanda, who had been grudgingly granted a thin

muslin robe for the bath because of her strange Roumia ideas of baring

the face and covering the body, noticed these bendings of _la hennena_,

but thought nothing of them until she happened to catch a new expression

in Ourïeda's eyes. Suddenly the gloom of hopelessness had gone out of

them: and it could not be that this was the effect of the compliments

rained upon her in chorus by the guests, for until that instant the most

fantastic praise of hair, features, and figure had not extorted a smile.

What could the woman have said to give back in an instant the girl's

lost bloom and sparkle? Sanda wondered. It was like a miracle. But it

lasted only for a moment. Then it seemed that by an effort Ourïeda

masked herself once more with tragedy. She turned one of her slow, sad

glances toward her aunt; and Sanda was sure she looked relieved on

seeing Lella Mabrouka absorbed in talk with the plump wife of a caid.

According to custom in great houses of the south, _la hennena_ was

escorted, after the women's fête at the _hammam_, to the home of the

bride, where she was to spend the remainder of the festive week in

heightening the girl's beauty. She was given the guest-room of the

harem, second in importance to that occupied by Colonel DeLisle's

daughter. This, as it happened, was nearer to Ourïeda's room than

Sanda's or even Lella Mabrouka's; and as, during the two days that

followed, Zakia was almost constantly occupied in blanching the bride's

ivory skin with almond paste, staining her fingers red as coral with a

decoction of henna and cochineal, and saturating her hair and body with

a famous permanent perfume, sometimes Lella Mabrouka and Taous ventured

to leave the two girls chaperoned only by _la hennena_. That was because

neither had seen the sudden light in Ourïeda's eyes after the face of

Zakia had approached hers at the _hammam_.

For the first day there was no solution of the mystery for Sanda, who

had waited to hear she knew not what. But at last, in a room littered

with pastes and perfume bottles, and lighted by the traditional long

candles wound with coloured ribbon, Ourïeda spoke, in Arabic, that the

_hennena_ might not be hurt.

"Zakia says I may tell thee our secret," she said. "At first she was

afraid, but now she sees that she may trust thee as I do. Didst thou

guess there was a secret?"

"Yes," answered Sanda.

"I thought so! Well, it is this: At the _hammam_ is employed a cousin of

Embarka's. I feared never to hear of Embarka again; but my father is

more enlightened than I thought. He might have ordered her death, and

the eunuchs would have obeyed, and no one would ever have known. Yet he

did no more than send her away, giving her no time even to pack that

which was hers. He did not care what became of her, being sure that she

could never again enter our house. But he did not know of the cousin in

the _hammam_. And perhaps he did not stop to think that I might have

given Embarka jewels for helping me. She would have helped without

payment, because she loved me. But I wished to reward her. She hid the

things in her clothing; and when she was turned out she still thought of

me, not of herself. She knew I would go to the _hammam_ before my

marriage, and that Zakia had been sent for to bathe me and make me

beautiful. So she gave her cousin there a present, and all the rest of

the jewels she gave to Zakia, for a promise Zakia made. Nothing has

Embarka kept of all my gifts. It was like her! The rest is easy now. I

shall never again know happiness, but neither shall I know the shame of

giving myself to a man I hate when heart and soul belong to one I

love."

"Can _la hennena_ help you to escape?" Sanda wanted to know.

"From Tahar, yes. Here is the way," Ourïeda answered. And she held out

for Sanda to see a tiny pearl-studded gold box, one of many quaint

ornaments on a chain the girl always wore round her neck. She had

explained the meaning or contents of each fetich long ago, and Sanda

knew all about the sacred eye from Egypt, the white coral horn to ward

off evil, the silver and emerald case with a text from the Koran blessed

by a great saint or marabout, and the pearl-crusted gold box containing

a lock of hair certified to be that of Fatma Zora, the Prophet's

favourite daughter.

"I have put the hair with the text," said Ourïeda. "Look, in its place

this tiny bottle of white powder. Canst thou guess what it is for?"

The blood rushed to Sanda's face, then back to her heart. But she did

not answer. She only looked at Ourïeda: a wide-eyed, fascinated look.

"Thou hast guessed," the Agha's daughter said in a very little voice

like a child's. "But I shall not use it if, when I have told him how I

hate him, he consents to let me alone. If he is a fool, why, he brings

his fate on himself. This is for his lips, if they try to touch mine."

"But," Sanda gasped; "you would be a----"

"I know the word in thy mind. It is 'murderess.' Yet my conscience would

be clear. It would be for the sake of my love--to keep true to my

promise at any cost. And the cost might be my life. They would find

out; they would know how he died. This is no coward's act like smiling

at a man and giving him each day powdered glass or chopped hair of a

leopard in his food, which many of our women do, to kill and leave no

trace. If I break, I pay."

As she spoke the door opened and Lella Mabrouka came swiftly into the

room, fierce-eyed as a tigress whose cub is threatened. She was

tight-lipped and silent, but her eyes spoke, and all three knew that she

had listened. Such words as she had missed her quick wit had caught and

patched together. Ourïeda's wish to propitiate Zakia by not seeming to

talk secrets before her had undone them both. But it was too late for

regrets, and even for lies.

Lella Mabrouka clapped her hands, and Taous came, to be told in a tense

voice that the Agha must be summoned. Then Mabrouka turned to the

Roumia.

"Go, thou! This has nothing to do with thee," was all she said.

Sanda glanced at her friend, and an answering glance bade her obey. She

rose and went out, along the balcony to the door of her own room. This

she left open, thinking with a fast-beating heart that if there were any

cry she would run back, no matter what they might do to her. But there

was no cry, no sound of any kind, only the cooing of doves which had

flown down into the fountain court, hoping Ourïeda might throw them

corn.

The custom of the house was for the three ladies to take their meals

together in a room where occasionally, as a great honour, the Agha dined

with them. That evening a tray of food was brought to Sanda with polite

regrets from Lella Mabrouka because she and her niece were too

indisposed by the hot weather to forsake the shelter of their rooms.

Politeness, always politeness, with these Arabs of high birth and

manners! thought the Irish-French girl in a passionate revolt against

the curtain of silk velvet softly let down between her and the secrets

of Ben Râana's harem. This time it might be, she said to herself, that

politeness covered tragedy. But the same night she received another

message from Mabrouka. It was merely to say that, the air of Djazerta

not being healthful at this time of year, the Agha had decided, for his

daughter's sake, to finish the week of the wedding feast out in the

desert, at the _douar_.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ELEVENTH HOUR

When Max, at the head of his small caravan, came in sight of the Agha's

_douar_, it was almost noon, and the desert, shimmering with heat, was

motionless, as if under enchantment. They had travelled through the

night, after learning that Ben Râana and his family had gone from

Djazerta, with intervals of rest no longer than those allowed to the

Legion on march. What they saw was a giant tent as large as a circus

tent in a village of America or Europe surrounded at a distance by an

army of little tents, black and dirty brown, so flat and low that they

were like huge bats with outstretched wings resting on the sand. The

great tent of the chief with its high roof, its vast spread of white,

red, and amber striped cloth of close-woven camel's hair, rose nobly

above all the others, as a mosque rises above a crowd of prostrate

worshippers at prayer. For background, there was a clump of trees; for

here, in the far southern desert, just outside a waving welter of dunes,

lay a region of _dayas_, where a wilderness of sand and tumbled stones

was brightened by green hollows half full of gurgling water.

Never before had Max seen a _douar_ of importance, the desert dwelling

of a desert chief. But Manöel had been here before; and the

camel-drivers, if they had not visited this _douar_, were familiar with

others. Max alone wondered at the great tent, whose many different

compartments sheltered the Agha, his whole family, and servants brought

from Djazerta. As the caravan wound nearer to watching eyes, another

tent, not so big, but new and brilliant of colour, separated itself from

the vast bulk of the _tente sultane_.

"What is that?" Max asked Manöel, who rode beside him as interpreter,

his dark-stained face almost covered by the white folds of his woollen

hood, the fire of his young eyes dimmed and aged by a pair of cheap,

silver-rimmed spectacles such as elderly Arabs wear.

"The Agha must have ordered that new tent to be set up for Tahar,"

Manöel answered gruffly; and Max guessed from the sharpening of his tone

and the brevity of his explanation that this was the desert dwelling

appointed for the bridegroom when he should take his bride.

In the boldness of their plan lay its hope of success; for though Ben

Râana's suspicions were on the alert he would not expect the banished

lover to ride brazenly up to his tent, side by side with a soldier

messenger from Colonel DeLisle. There was an instant of suspense after

the corporal on leave and his Arab interpreter were received by the Agha

in a reception-room whose walls were red woollen draperies; but it was

scarcely longer than a heartbeat. Ben Râana had just come out from

another room beyond, where, the curtains falling apart, several guests

in the high turbans of desert dignitaries could be seen seated on

cushions and waited upon by Soudanese men who were serving a meal.

The Agha scarcely glanced at Max's companion, the dark, spectacled Arab,

but announcing in French that no interpreter would be needed, he clapped

his hands to summon a servant. One of the black men lifted the red

curtains higher and came in, received instructions as to the

interpreter's entertainment, and led him away. Max could hardly keep

back a sigh of relief, for that had been a bad moment. Now it was over,

and with it his personal responsibility in his friend's adventure. It

had been agreed between them that Colonel DeLisle's messenger to Ben

Râana should have no further hand in the plot against the Agha. The rest

was for Manöel alone, unless at the end help should be necessary (and

possible) for Ourïeda's rescue.

Max delivered a letter from DeLisle, and the Agha read it slowly

through. Then he raised his eyes and fixed them upon the Legionnaire as

if wondering how far he might be in his colonel's confidence.

"My friend has sent thee to escort his daughter to Sidi-bel-Abbés," Ben

Râana said thoughtfully. "Although he cannot be there himself, he

believes the northern climate will be better for her health at this time

of year. Perhaps he is right; though my daughter, whom she has visited,

would have been delighted as a married woman to keep Mademoiselle

DeLisle with her. However, my friend's will is as Allah's will. It must

be done. The day after to-morrow my daughter's wedding feast will be

over and she will go to her husband's tent. Remain here quietly till

then as my guest. Thy interpreter and the persons of thy caravan shall

be well cared for, I promise thee, by my household. When my daughter

leaves me the daughter of my friend shall go in peace at the same hour,

in thy charge."

As he spoke his eyes remained on the messenger's face, watching for any

change of expression, and noting the flush that mounted through the

soldier-tan.

"I am very sorry," said Max, "but Colonel DeLisle has given me only

short leave. There was just enough time to get me to Djazerta, from

Touggourt, and to do the journey comfortably to Sidi-bel-Abbés. He is a

prompt man, as you know. He thinks and acts quickly. It didn't occur to

him that there need be any great delay. Already there has been a day

lost returning from Djazerta, where I heard that you were at your

_douar_. A day and a half here, much as I should like to be your guest,

would mean overstaying my leave. That, you will see, is impossible."

"If it is impossible, I fear that thou must go from here with thy

mission unfulfilled and without Mademoiselle," replied the Agha,

irritatingly calm. "For on my side it is impossible to let her go before

my daughter is--_safely_ married."

He smiled as he spoke, but the pause and the emphasis on a certain word

were deliberate. Max was meant to understand it, in case DeLisle had

confided in him. If not, it did not matter; he would realize that he had

had his ultimatum. Max did realize this, and, after a stunned second,

accepted the inevitable.

"I'll write to Sidi-bel-Abbés and explain. It's all I can do," was the

thought which ran through his head as he politely informed the Agha that

he would, at any cost, wait for Mademoiselle DeLisle.

"May I see her and deliver in person a letter I have from her father?"

he asked.

But Ben Râana regretted that this might not be until all was ready for

the start, which must be made in the evening after the end of the

marriage feast, unless Corporal St. George preferred to wait till the

morning after. The customs of a country must be respected by those

sojourning in that country; and the Arab ladies visiting the _douar_

would be scandalized if a young girl were allowed to speak with a

strange man. There was nothing for it but submission, and Max submitted,

inwardly raging. He wrote explanations to the officer left in charge at

Sidi-bel-Abbés, the man to whom he must report; but no letter could

reach DeLisle for many weeks.

He was entertained as the Agha's guest, being introduced to Tahar Ben

Hadj and several caids invited for the bridegroom's part of the

festivities. There was much feasting, with music and strange dances in

Tahar's tent at night, and outside, fantasia for the _douar_ in honour

of the wedding; sheep roasted whole, and "powder play." What was going

on in the bride's half of her father's great tent Max did not know, but

he fancied that, above the beating of Tahar's tomtoms and the wild

singing of an imported Arab tenor, he could hear soft, distant wailings

of the ghesbah and the shrill "You--you--you!" of excited women. He

wondered if Sanda knew that he had come to take her away, and whether

Manöel had contrived to send a message to the bride.

* * * * *

That same night Khadra Bent Djellab, the woman who had travelled from

Touggourt to return as Sanda's attendant, came from the camp of the

caravan asking if she might see her new mistress. All was hurry and

confusion in the women's part of the _tente sultane_, for a great feast

was going on which would last through most of the night. The excited

servants told Khadra that she must go, and come again to the tent in the

morning; but just then the music for a dance of love began, and Khadra

begged so hard to stay that she was allowed to stand with the servants.

She had never seen Sanda DeLisle, but she had been told by the

interpreter ("an order from the master," said he, slipping a five-franc

piece into her hand) that there would be no other Roumia in the company.

When Khadra caught sight of a golden-brown head, uncovered among the

heads wrapped in coloured silks or gauze, she cautiously edged nearer

it, behind the double rank of serving-women. All were absorbed in

staring at the dancing-girl, a celebrity who had been brought from an

oasis town farther south. She had arrived at Djazerta and had travelled

to the _douar_ when the family hastily flitted; but this was the night

of her best dance. Nobody remembered Khadra. When she was close behind

Sanda she pretended to drop a big silk handkerchief, such as Arab women

love. Squatting down to pick it up, she contrived to thrust into a small

white hand hanging over an edge of the divan a ball of crumpled paper,

and gently shut the fingers over it. A few months, or even weeks, ago

Sanda would have started at the touch and looked round. But her long

stay among Arab women, and the drama of the last eight days, had

schooled her to self-control. Instantly she realized that some new plot

was on, and that she was to be mixed up in it. She was deadly sick of

plotting, but she loved Ourïeda, and had advised her not to give up hope

until the last minute. Perhaps something unexpected might come to pass.

With that soft, secret touch on her hand, and the feel of the paper in

her palm, she knew that her prophecy was being fulfilled.

Not far away sat the bride, raised high above the rest of the company on

a kind of throne made of carved wood, painted red and thickly gilded. It

had served generations of brides in the Agha's family, and had been

brought out from Djazerta. Sanda glanced up from the divan of cushions

on which she and the other women guests reclined to see if Ourïeda was

looking her way. But the girl's great eyes were fixed and introspective.

When Sanda was sure that Lella Mabrouka and Taous, her spy, were both

intent on the figure posturing in the cleared space in the centre of the

room, she cautiously unfolded the ball of paper. Holding it on her lap,

half hidden by the frame of her hands, she saw a fine, clear black

writing, a writing new to her. The words--French words--seemed to spring

to her eyes:

"Tell Ourïeda that I am here. She will know who. Perhaps you know

also. There is only one thing to do. She must go, when the time

comes, to Tahar's tent, but let her have no fear. At night, when her

bridegroom should come to her, I will come instead and take her away.

No one will know till the morning after, so we shall have a long

start. For a while I will hide her in a house at Djazerta, where I

have friends who will keep us safe until the search is over. No one

will think of the town. All will believe that we have joined you and

the caravan which your father has sent in charge of Corporal St.

George. It is with him I have come, for I, too, am a Legionnaire. I

hope to see St. George and explain my latest plans, but already he

knows that I shall try and reach Spain or Italy. There I can make

myself known without fear of capture and imprisonment. I can get

engagements and money. If anything prevents my seeing St. George

again, after I have started, show him this, or let him know what I

have said.

M.V."