"Thank you, sir," he said, quietly; and for a moment his eyes rested on the paper.
But, none the less, the announcement, so abruptly made, caused him a shock. The words danced before his eyes so that he could not read them. He saluted his colonel and went out on to the great open parade ground, and stood there in the middle of that s.p.a.ce, alone, under the hot noonday sun.
The thing for which he had striven had come to pa.s.s, then. He held the a.s.surance of it in his hand. Hoped for and half-expected as that proof had been ever since he had led the survivors of the geographical expedition under the gate of Ouargla, its actual coming was to him most wonderful. He looked southwards to where the streak of yellow shone far away. The long marches, the hara.s.sing anxiety, the haunting figures of the Touaregs, with their faces veiled in their black masks and their eyes shining between the upper and the lower strip--yes, even those figures which appalled the imagination in the retrospect by a suggestion of inhuman ferocity--what were they all but contributaries to this event? His ordeal was over. He had done enough.
He could go home.
Stretton did not want for modesty. He had won a commission from the ranks, it is true; but he realised that others had done this before, and under harder conditions. He himself had started with an advantage-the advantage of previous service in the English army. His knowledge of the manual exercise, of company and battalion drill had been of the greatest use at the first. He had had luck, too--the luck to be sent on the expedition to the Figuig oasis, the luck to find himself sergeant with Colonel Tavernay"s force. His heart went out in grat.i.tude to that fine friend who lay in his bed of sand so far away.
Undoubtedly, he realised, his luck had been exceptional.
He turned away from the parade ground and walked through the village, and out of it towards a grove of palm trees. Under the shade of those trees he laid himself down on the ground and made out his plans. He would obtain his commission, secure his release, and so go home. A few months and he would be home! It seemed hardly credible; yet it was true, miraculously true. He would write home that very day. It was not any great success which he had achieved, but, at all events, he was no longer the man who was no good. He could write with confidence; he could write to Millie.
He lay under the shadow of the palms looking across to the village.
There rose a little mosque with a white dome. The hovels were thatched for the most part, but here and there a square white-washed house, with a flat roof, overtopped the rest. Hedges of cactus and p.r.i.c.kly pears walled in the narrow lanes, and now and then a white robe appeared and vanished. Very soon Stretton would turn his back upon Algeria. In the after time he would remember this afternoon, remember the village as he saw it now, and the yellow streak of desert sand in the distance.
Stretton lay on his back and put together the sentences which he would write that day to Millie. She would get the letter within ten days--easily. He began to hum over to himself the words of the c.o.o.n song which had once been sung on a summer night in an island of Scotland--
"Oh, come out, mah love. I"m a-waitin" fo" you heah!
Doan" you keep yuh window shut to-night.
De tree-tops above am a-whisp"rin" to you, deah----"
And then he stopped suddenly. At last he began to wonder how Millie would receive the letter he was to write.
Yes, there was her point of view to be considered. Stretton was stubborn by nature as few men are. He had convinced himself that the course he had taken was the only course which promised happiness for Millie and himself, and impelled by that conviction he had gone on his way undisturbed by doubts and questions. Now, however, his object was achieved. He could claim exemption from his wife"s contempt. His mind had room for other thoughts, and they came that afternoon.
He had left his wife alone, with no explanation of his absence to offer to her friends, without even any knowledge of his whereabouts.
There had been no other way, he still believed. But it was hard on Millie--undoubtedly it was hard.
Stretton rose from the ground and set off towards the camp that he might write his letter. But he never wrote it, for as he walked along the lane towards the barracks a man tapped him on the shoulder from behind. He was still humming his song, and he stopped in the middle of it--
"Jus" look out an" see all de longin" in mah eyes, An" mah arms is jus" a-pinin" foh to hug you,"
he said, and turned about on his heel. He saw a stranger in European dress, who at once spoke his name.
"Sir Anthony Stretton?"
Stretton was no longer seeking to evade discovery.
"Yes?" he said. The stranger"s face became vaguely familiar to him. "I have seen you before, I think."
"Once," replied the other. "My name is Warrisden. You saw me for a few minutes on the deck of a fish-carrier in the North Sea."
"To be sure," he said slowly. "Yes, to be sure, I did. You were sent to find me by Miss Pamela Mardale."
"She sends me again," replied Warrisden.
Stretton"s heart sank in fear. He had disobeyed the summons before. He remembered Pamela"s promise to befriend his wife. He remembered her warning that he should not leave his wife.
"She sent you then with an urgent message that I should return home,"
he said.
"I carry the same message again, only it is a thousand times more urgent."
He drew a letter from his pocket as he spoke, and handed it to Stretton. "I was to give you this," he said.
Stretton looked at the handwriting and nodded.
"Thank you," he said gravely.
He tore open the envelope and read.
CHAPTER XXV
TONY STRETTON BIDS FAREWELL TO THE LEGION
It was a long letter. Tony read it through slowly, standing in the narrow lane between the high walls of p.r.i.c.kly pear. A look of incredulity came upon his face.
"Is all this true?" he asked, not considering at all of whom he asked the question.
"I know nothing, of course, of what is written there," replied Warrisden; "but I do not doubt its truth. The signature is, I think, sufficient guarantee."
"No doubt, no doubt," said Stretton, absently. Then he asked--
"When did you reach Ain-Sefra?"
"This morning."
"And you came quickly?"
"Yes; I travelled night and day, I came first of all to Ain-Sefra in search of you."
"Thank you," said Stretton.
He did not ask how it was that Warrisden had come first of all to Ain-Sefra; such details held no place in his thoughts. Warrisden _had_ found him, _had_ brought the letter which Pamela Mardale had written.
That letter, with its perplexities and its consequences, obliterated all other speculations.
"You have a camp here?" Stretton asked.
"Yes."
"Let us go to it. The news you have brought has rather stunned me. I should like to sit down and think what I must do."