"Tell me, please. Anyway, the greatest, or I shan"t believe in any."
Max was silent for an instant. Then he said in a voice so low she could hardly hear it, bending down from her ba.s.sourah, "For giving me back my faith in women."
"I? But you hadn"t lost it."
"I was in danger of losing it, with most of my mental and moral baggage.
Through you--I"ve kept the lot."
"That"s the most beautiful thing ever said to me. And it does me so much good after all I"ve gone through and been blamed for!"
"Who"s dared to blame you for anything?"
"I asked you to tell me about yourself. When you have done that I"ll tell you things that have happened here, things concerning Manoel Valdez and Oureda--poor darling Oureda, whom I ought to be thinking of every instant! And so I am, only I can"t help being happy to get away--with you."
There was sweet pain in hearing those last words, and the emphasis the caressing girl-voice gave. Max hurried through a vague list of such events as seemed fit for Sanda"s ears. They were not many, since he did not count his fights among the mentionable ones. He told her, with more detail, about his acquaintance with Valdez, whose face she had remarked at the railway station at Sidi-bel-Abbes; and then claimed her promise.
She must tell him, if she would (with a sudden drop from the happy way of Max Doran with women to the humbler way of Max St. George, Legionnaire), what she had gone through in the Agha"s house.
She began by asking a question. "Didn"t you think it queer that no one but a servant came out to see me off?"
"I did a little, but I put it down to Arab manners."
"It was because I left in disgrace. Oh! no one was ever rude! They were polite always. It was like being stuffed with too much honey. And I don"t mean Oureda, of course. Oureda"s a darling. I"d do anything for her. I"ve proved that! Did my father give you any idea why he had to send for me in a hurry, though he has to leave me alone--or rather in charge of people I don"t know--at Bel-Abbes? He must have told you something, as he asked such a sacrifice."
"He needn"t have told me anything at all. But he took me into his confidence--it was like him--far enough to say the Agha was offended somehow, and you were anxious to leave."
"I should think the Agha _was_ offended! I tried to help Oureda to escape, even though she hadn"t heard from her Manoel. She had lots of jewels, and thought she might get to France. We failed in our attempt, and after that we were never alone together, though they--her father and aunt--didn"t want me to go till she was married. The idea at first was--when I arrived, I mean--that my visit shouldn"t end till father came back. They meant me to stop on with Oureda, as she and her husband would live at her old home at Djazerta. The last plot wasn"t mine. It was got up by an old nurse they"d sent away, and a weird woman, a kind of Arab beauty-doctor. But all the same they were afraid of me. They longed to have me gone, yet, for their own superst.i.tious, secretive reasons, they were afraid to let me go. As I _had_ to stay so long, I"d rather have stopped a little longer, so as to know what becomes of Oureda. They made me say good-bye to her in Tahar"s tent, where she is waiting, all dressed up like a doll, till the hour at night when her husband chooses to come to her. Instead, we hope---- But I can hardly bear it, not to know! Shall we _ever_ know?"
"It may be a long time before Manoel can send us any word," said Max.
"But we shall hear, I suppose, about Tahar."
"Oh, Manoel doesn"t mean to _kill_ him, does he? Oureda said he wouldn"t do that! But Arab women are so strange, so different from us, I don"t believe she"d care much if he did; except that if he were a murderer they could seize him, even in another country--Spain, where they both hope to go when they can get out of Djazerta."
"Manoel wouldn"t care much, either, except for that same reason," Max admitted. "But he does care for that. He intends only to surprise and stun Tahar. He doesn"t want his life with Oureda spoiled, for he"ll be a public character, you know, if he succeeds in escaping from Algeria.
He"ll be a great singer. He can take back his own name."
"Why not France?" Sanda wanted to know. "Surely France would be better for a singer than Spain, or even Italy?"
"Perhaps, but, you see, he has had to desert from the Legion. In France he could be brought back to Algeria to the penal battalion."
"Oh, I hadn"t thought of that!"
"It was--a hateful necessity, his deserting."
Sanda looked at him anxiously. "Will it make trouble for you?"
"Possibly. I hoped it needn"t happen. But it had to. There was no other way in the end."
"How he must love Oureda, to risk all that for her sake!"
"He risked a great deal more."
"What--but, oh, yes, you told me! The way he came into the Legion, and all that. I wonder--I wonder if there are many men in the world who would do as much for a woman?"
"I think so," said Max quietly. "You don"t count the cost very much when you are in love."
He was to remember that speech before many days.
"They"re wonderful, men like that!" Sanda murmured. "And there"s more risk to come, for Oureda and himself. A little for us, too, isn"t there?"
"Not for you, please G.o.d! And very little for any of us. But I see you know what Manoel expects to happen."
"Oh, yes, that they"ll run after us, thinking that he has followed with Oureda, to join our caravan. I do hope the Agha will send his men after us, for that will make us sure those two have got away. If we hear sounds of pursuit we"ll hurry on quickly. Then the chase will have farther to go back, and Manoel and Oureda will gain time. The more ground we can cover before we"re come up with by the Agha"s camels, who"ll be superior to ours, the better it will be, won"t it?"
"Yes, for if the Agha lets Djazerta alone, Manoel may contrive to slip out of the town sooner than he dared hope, well disguised, in a caravan of strangers not of Ben Raana"s tribe. In that case the Agha of Djazerta would have no right to search among the women. And Manoel"s splendid at disguise. His actor"s training has taught him that."
"I feel now that he _will_ get Oureda out of the country. They"ve suffered too much and dared too much to fail in the end."
"I hope so; I think so," Max answered. But he knew that in real life stories did sometimes end badly. His own, for instance. He could see no happy ending for that.
They pushed on as fast as the animals could go when a long march and not a mere spurt of speed was before them. Through the mysterious sapphire darkness of the desert night the padding feet of the camels strode noiselessly over the hard sand. Sanda asked Max to offer extra pay to the men if they would put up with an abbreviated rest. Only three hours they paused to sleep; and then, in the dusk before dawn, when all living things are as shadows, the camels were wakened to snarl with rage while their burdens were ruthlessly strapped on again. As Max gave Sanda a cup of hot coffee (which he had made for her, as Legionnaires make it, strong and black) she said, shivering a little, "Do you think they"ll have found Tahar yet if--if----"
"Hardly yet! Not till daylight," answered Max. "Are you cold? These desert nights can be bitter, even in summer. Won"t you let me put something more around you?"
"No, thanks. It"s only excitement that makes me shiver. I"m thinking of Oureda and Manoel. I"ve been thinking of them instead of sleeping. But I"m not tired. I feel all keyed up; as if something wonderful were going to happen to me, too."
Something wonderful was happening to Max. But she had no idea of that.
She would never know, he thought.
All day they journeyed on, save for a short halt at noon, and Max was happy. He tried to recall and quote to himself a verse of Tennyson"s "Maud"--"Let come what come may; What matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day!" He was having his day--just that one day more, because on the next they would come to Touggourt, and if Stanton were there he would spoil everything.
At night they went on till late, as before; but the camel-men said that the animals must have a longer rest. Luckily it did not matter now if they were caught. If Manoel and Oureda had escaped they had had a long start. A little after midnight the vast silence of the sand-ocean was broken with cries and shoutings of men. The Arabs, not knowing of the expected raid, stumbled up from their beds of bagging and ran to protect the camels; but Max, who had not undressed, walked out from the little camp to meet a cavalcade of men.
Ben Raana himself rode in advance, mounted on a swift-running camel. In the blue gloom where the stars were night lights Max recognized the long black beard of the Agha flowing over his white cloak. None rode near him. Tahar was not there. Max took that as a good sign.
"Who are you?" demanded the uniformed Legionnaire in his halting Arabic.
"In the name of France, I demand your business."
Ben Raana, recognizing him also, impatiently answered in French, "And I demand my daughter!"
"Your daughter? Ah, I see! It is the Agha of Djazerta. But what can we know of your daughter? We left her being married."
"I think thou knowest well," Ben Raana cut him short furiously, "that her marriage was not consummated. I cherished a viper in my bosom when I entertained in my house the child of George DeLisle. She has deceived me, and helped my daughter to deceive."
"I cannot hear Mademoiselle DeLisle spoken of in that way, even by my colonel"s friend, sir," said Max. "If your daughter has run away----"
"If! Thou knowest well that she has run away with her lover, who has half murdered the man who should by now be her husband. Thou knowest and Mademoiselle knows!"
"You are mistaken," broke in Max, not troubling to hide his anger. "If you think your daughter----"