A Soldier of the Legion Part 23

"May I see her and deliver in person a letter I have from her father?"

he asked.

But Ben Raana 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-Abbes, 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 Manoel 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. n.o.body 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 Oureda, and had advised her not to give up hope until the last minute. Perhaps something unexpected might come to pa.s.s.

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 Oureda 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Oureda 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."

Sanda's cheeks, which had been pale, brightened to carnation as she read; but the dancer held all eyes. The girl crumpled up the letter and palmed it again, wondering how to show it to Oureda, for they had not once been allowed a moment alone in each other's company since the scene with _la hennena_. Not that Sanda was suspected of a hand in that affair, but she might have a hand in another plot. The thing was, politely and kindly, to keep her a prisoner until after Oureda had gone to her husband. Then Tahar could protect his property; and once an Arab girl is married, she is seldom asked to elope, even by the bravest and most enterprising of lovers. Some pretext must be thought of for the giving of Manoel's letter. But what--what?

The answer was not long in coming. After the dance all the women, with the exception of the throned, bejewelled bride, sprang or scrambled up from their cushions to congratulate the celebrity. Some of them testified their admiration by offering her rings, anklets, or little gilded bottles of attar-of-rose which they had been holding in their handkerchiefs; and even Aunt Mabrouka's sharp eyes did not see Sanda slip the ball of paper into Oureda's hand when pa.s.sing the throne to give a gold brooch to the favourite.

The bride herself was forgotten for a few minutes. Every one was caressing the dancer, patting her much-ringed hands, or touching her bracelets and counting the almost countless gold coins of her head ornaments and necklace. When Sanda dared glance across the crowd toward Oureda she saw by the look in her eyes that the girl had read the letter.

CHAPTER XXII

THE HEART OF MAX

Max had resigned himself days ago to Juan Garcia's desertion from the Legion, since the girl must be saved. But he was far from happy about his own position. The danger was that the day when he was due to report himself at Sidi-bel-Abbes would come and he would be absent. His letter of explanation ought to have arrived by that time, but it might be considered the trick of a deserter. And even when he appeared, the news of Garcia's desertion from his caravan must be told. The loss of a man would be a black mark against him, and he would probably forfeit the stripe on which he had been congratulated by the colonel.

There was consolation in the thought of seeing Sanda again, and the certainty that she would "stand up" for him; but he did not realize just how much that consolation would mean, until, after the delay of a day and a half, word came that Mademoiselle DeLisle was ready to leave her friend. The caravan had been a.s.sembled and waiting for the last hour, and Max knew that the bride must have gone to her husband's tent. The music had been wilder than before, the women's cries of joy louder and more triumphant; and while he had been examining the trappings of Sanda's camel a procession had gone by carrying aloft several big boxes draped with brocade and cloth-of-gold: the bride's luggage on its way to her new home. The feasting in the _tente sultane_ would continue all that night, as on other nights; but Oureda and Tahar would be left quietly in the tent of the bridegroom, alone until after dawn, when Tahar would steal away and the girl's women friends would rush in to wish her joy. That would be the hour, Max told himself, when all would be found out, and the chase would begin. He had seen Manoel once since the last details of the plot to rescue Oureda had been settled. He knew that Manoel had sent a letter to her through Sanda, to whom it had been given; but he was not sure if Sanda had been warned of the part she would have to play.

It was of this, more than the personality of Sanda herself, that he thought, as he waited, expecting her to come out from the Agha's tent.

But instead, she came from another direction, and he did not recognize the slim figure in Arab dress until the well-remembered voice spoke through the white veil:

"It is--my Soldier St. George!" Sanda cried in English, and a thrill ran through the young man's blood. He forgot all about himself, his risks and his perplexities, and nothing seemed to matter except that Sanda DeLisle had come back into his life--the girl whose long, soft hair brushed his face in dreams, the girl who had saved his belief in womanhood and raised up for him, in his black need, a new ideal.

A tall negro woman, whose forehead was a strip of ebony, whose eyes were beads of jet above her snowy veil, accompanied Mademoiselle DeLisle, and the two had arrived from the bridegroom's tent, where doubtless Sanda had been bidding the bride good-bye. Max realized that her attendant would be shocked if he should offer to shake hands with the girl, so he only bowed, and answered hastily in English that he was glad--glad to see her again--glad to have the honour of being her guide. Khadra was brought forward, and Sanda spoke a few words to her in Arabic. Then the girl was helped into her ba.s.sourah, luggage being brought out by eunuchs from the Agha's tent and packed in to balance the other side. Only when the Roumia had retired behind the blue and red and purple curtains did Ben Raana appear to wish his friend's daughter and messenger the blessing of Allah on their journey. The caravan started, and it was not until after the _douar_, with its green _daya_ and background of trees, was dim in the distance that Sanda's curtains parted. Max, riding the only horse in the party, saw the trembling of the rainbow-coloured stuff, and glanced up, expectant. He found that his heart and all his pulses were hammering, and as the girl's gold-brown head appeared, her veil thrown off, something seemed to leap in his breast, something that gave a bound like that of a great fish on a hook. She looked down and smiled at him rather sadly, yet more sweetly it seemed to Max than any other woman had ever smiled. He had not realized or remembered how beautiful she was. Why, it was the most exquisite face in the world! An angel's face, yet the face of a human girl. He adored it as a man may adore an angel, and he loved it as a man loves a woman. A great and irresistible tide of love rushed over him. What a fool, what a young, simple fool he had been to think that he had ever loved Billie Brookton! That seemed hundreds of years ago, in another incarnation, when he had been undeveloped, when his soul had been asleep. His soul was awake now! Something had awakened it; life in the Legion, perhaps, for that had begun to show him his own capabilities; or else love itself, which had been waiting to say: "I am here, now and forever."

Max was almost afraid to look at Sanda lest she should read through his eyes the words written on his heart. But then he remembered in a flash her love for Stanton, which would blind her to such feelings in other men. He felt sick for an instant in his hopelessness. Wherever he turned, whatever he did, happiness seemed never to be for him.

"You don't know how glad I am to see you!" the girl explained. "I've thought of you so often and--" she was going to add impulsively--"and dreamed about you, too!" but she remembered the Arab saying which Oureda had told her: that when a woman dreams of a man, that is the man she loves. It was a silly saying, and untrue; yet she kept back the words in a queer sort of loyalty to Stanton--Stanton, who neither thought nor dreamed of her.

"I was so thankful when I heard my father had sent for me," she quickly went on. "I heard about it only through _that letter_--you know the one I mean."

"Yes, I know," said Max. "I felt they didn't mean to tell you till the last minute, though I could see no reason why. I--I was more than glad and proud to be the one to come."

He was not hoping unselfishly that Colonel DeLisle mightn't have told in his letter how the great march and the expected fight had been sacrificed for her sake. He was not hoping this, because in his sudden awakening to love he had forgotten the march. He was thinking of Sanda and the wild happiness that would turn to pain in memory of being with her for days in the desert. If, when he reached Sidi-bel-Abbes, he were blamed for the delay, and punished by losing his stripe, or even by prison, it would be nothing, or almost a joy, because he would be suffering for her.

"It was only to-day they gave me father's letter, which you brought,"

Sanda was saying. "It was short, written in a hurry, in answer to one I sent begging him to take me away. Yet he mentioned one thing: that he didn't order you, but only asked if you were willing, to come. And he told me what you answered. I can never thank you, but I do appreciate it--_all_!"

"It was my selfishness," answered Max. "I said that the colonel was giving me the Cross of the Legion of Honour. I felt that, then. I feel it a lot more now." There was more truth in this than he wished her to guess.

"You are the _realest_ friend!" cried Sanda. "Why, do you know, now I come to think of it, unless I count my father, you are the only real friend I have in the world?"

"You forget Mr. Stanton!" Max reminded her, without intending to be cruel.

She blushed, and Max hated himself as if he had brought the colour to her face with a blow.

"No," she answered quietly. "I never forget him. But you understand, because I told you everything, that in my heart I can't call him my friend. _He_ doesn't care enough, and _I_--care too much."

"Forgive me!" Max begged. "All the same I know he must care. He wouldn't be human not to."

"He isn't human! He's superhuman!" She laughed, to cover her pain of humiliation. "I suppose--long ago--he has started out on his wonderful mission. I keep thinking of him travelling on and on through the desert, and I pray he may be safe, and succeed in finding the Lost Oasis he believes in. He told me in Algiers that to find it would crown his life."

"He hadn't started when I left Touggourt," Max said rather dryly.

"What--he was still there? Then my father must have seen him. How strange! He didn't refer to him at all."

"You mentioned that the colonel wrote in a hurry." Max hinted at this explanation to comfort her, but he guessed why DeLisle had not been in a mood to speak of Stanton to his daughter. "There is a reason," he had said, "why I don't want to ask Stanton to put off starting and go to Djazerta." And Max, having seen the dancer, Ahmara, had known without telling what the reason was.

"Do you think Richard may be there when we get to Touggourt?" she asked, shamefaced, yet not able to resist putting the question.

"I think it's very likely." Max tried to keep his tone at rea.s.suring level, though he hoped devoutly that Stanton might be gone. He could not bear to think of his seeing Sanda again after the Ahmara episode. With a man of Stanton's strange, erratic nature and wild impulses, who could be sure whether--but Max would not let the thought finish in his mind.

Sanda suddenly dropped the subject. Whether this was because she saw that Max disliked it, or whether she had no more to say, he could not guess.

"Tell me about yourself, now," she said. "My father has told me some things in letters, but I long to know from you if I made a mistake in wanting you to try the Legion."

"You made no mistake. It's one of the things I have to thank you for--one of several very great things," said Max.

"What _other_ things? I can't think of one unless you thank me for having a splendid father."

"That's one thing."

"Are there more?"

"Yes."