A Soldier of the Legion Part 20

"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 Raana--Djazerta!

The father of the girl Manoel 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. n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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 Raana 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 Manoel, 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 detour 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 Manoel. "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,"

Manoel 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. Manoel 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 Oureda's guest.

Manoel, 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 Raana, 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 G.o.d'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 Oureda.

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 Oureda's love for Manoel Valdez.

Would Manoel come in answer to one of those secretly sent letters? Would anything happen to save Oureda 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, Oureda 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 Oureda'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 Oureda 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 Manoel, 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 Raana came into the garden of the harem and bade his daughter praise Allah because her wedding day was at hand, Sanda hoped, and begged Oureda 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," Oureda 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 Manoel, and wishing his daughter to see that he had never for a moment forgotten the thing that had pa.s.sed. 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 Oureda'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 Manoel, and hurry rather than delay the wedding. Illness was the only possible plea, and even to that Ben Raana 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 Oureda 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 Oureda'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 Manoel had been told. The heart of her friend felt like a clock that is running down. She was afraid to know the thing which Oureda 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 Oureda'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," Oureda 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?"