"What shall I do?" thought Max. "Shall I lie still until she goes to sleep again, and then sneak out into the salle? If she doesn't see my suitcase she need never know I've been in the room."

And, after all, it came back to that, whether he had mistaken the cabin, or she. If he had left his suitcase in plain sight, marked "Lieutenant Max Doran, —th Cavalry, Fort Ellsworth," the woman would have rung for a steward, and the error would somehow have been adjusted.

Four or five minutes passed, and silence reigned in the berth overhead. Max sat up cautiously, lest his bunk should squeak, and had begun still more cautiously to emerge from it, when there came a sudden vicious lurch of the ship. He was flung out, but seized the berth-curtain, as the General Morel awkwardly wallowed, and staggered to his feet, just in time to save the occupant of the upper berth from flying across the room. With a cry, she fell on to his shoulder, and he held her up with one hand, still grasping the curtain with the other. The long plait of hair and a smooth bare arm were round his neck. A face was close to his, and he could feel warm, quick breaths on his cheek.

"Don't be frightened," he heard himself soothe her with deceitful calm. "It'll be all right in a minute. I won't let you fall."

Even as he spoke, it occurred to Max that possibly she didn't understand English. The thought had hardly time to pass through his mind, however, when she answered him in English in a shocked whisper, trying vainly to draw away:

"But—it's a man!—in my cabin!"

"I'm awfully sorry," said Max. "There's been some mistake. Better let me hold you a few seconds more, till the ship's steadier. Then I'll lift you down to the lower berth. You see, I thought it was my cabin."

"Oh," she exclaimed; and he felt a quiver run through the bare arm. Her hair, which showered over his face and twined intricately round his neck, had a faint, flowery perfume. "As soon as I get you down, and make you comfortable, I'll go," he hurried on. "There, now, I think things are quieting for the moment. We must have had two waves following one another quicker than the rest. Let go your hold on the berth, and I'll take you out."

He felt her relax obediently; and slipping one arm under her shoulder, the other under her knees, he lifted a burden which proved to be light, from the upper berth, to bestow it in safety, far back against the wall in the bunk underneath.

"Oh, thank you," was breathed out with a sigh of relief. "You're very kind—and so strong! But I feel dreadfully ill. I hope I'm not going to faint."

"I'll get you some brandy," said Max, bethinking himself of a certain silver flask in his suitcase, a prize as it happened, won as an amateur of la boxe.

To his horror she made no answer.

"Jove!" he muttered. "She's gone off—and no wonder. It's awful!"

He began to be flurried, for his own head was not too clear. "She may be flung to the floor while I'm groping around for that suitcase of mine, if she's fainted, and can't save herself when the next wave comes," he thought. "That won't do. I'll have to light up, and wall her in with the bedding from the top bunk, so she can't easily be pitched out."

Hesitating a little, not quite sure about the propriety of the necessary revelation, he nevertheless switched on the electricity. After the dusk which had turned everything shadow-gray, the little stateroom appeared to be brilliantly illuminated. In his berth lay the girl he had seen on deck and at dinner.

Max was not completely taken by surprise, as he would have been had he seen the vision before hearing her voice. As she clung round his neck, she had spoken only brokenly and in a whisper, but from the first words he had felt instinctively sure of his companion's identity.

If she had been delicately pale before, now she was deathly white, so white that Max, who had never before seen a woman faint, felt a stab of fear. What if she had a weak heart? What if she were dead?

She wore a dressing-gown of a white woollen material, inexpensive perhaps, but classic in its soft foldings around the slender body; and the thought flitted through Max's head that she was like a slim Greek statue, come alive; or perhaps Galatea, disappointed with the world, turning back to marble.

All the while he, with unsteady hands, unlocked and opened his bag, fumbling among its contents for the flask, she lay still, without a quiver of the eyelids. She did not even seem to breathe. But perhaps girls were like that when they fainted! Max didn't know. He wanted to listen for the beating of her heart, but dared not. He would try the brandy, and if that did not bring her to herself, he would ring and ask for the ship's doctor. But—could he do that? How could he explain to any one their being together in this cabin?

Hastily he poured a little brandy from the flask into the tiny cup which screwed on like a cover. The pitching and tossing made it hard not to spill the fluid over the upturned face—that would have been sacrilege!—but with an adroitness born of desperation he contrived to pour a few drops between the parted lips. Apparently they produced no effect; but another cautious experiment was rewarded by a gasp and a slight quivering of the white throat. On one knee by the side of the berth, Max slipped an arm under the pillow, thus lifting the girl's head a little, that she might not choke. As he did this she swallowed convulsively, and opening her eyes wide, looked straight into his.

"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Max. "You frightened me."

She smiled at him, their faces not far apart, her wonderful hair trailing past his breast. Yet in his anxiety and relief Max had lost all sense of strangeness in the situation. Drawing long, slow breaths, she seemed purposefully to be gaining strength to speak. "It's nothing—to faint," she murmured. "I used to, often. And I feel so ill."

"Have you any one on board whom I could call?" Max asked.

"Nobody," she sighed. "I'm all alone. I—surely this cabin is 65?"

"I think it's 63. But no matter," Max answered hurriedly. "Don't bother about that now. I——"

"When I came in first this morning, I rang for a stewardess to ask if there was to be any one with me," the girl went on, a faint colour beginning to paint her white cheeks and lips with the palest rose. "But nobody answered the bell. There was no luggage here, and I thought I must be by myself. But afterward a stewardess or some one put my bag off this bed on to the upper one so I dared not take the lower berth. I put the door on the hook, to get air; but when I heard somebody come in, I never dreamed it might be a man."

"Of course not," Max agreed. "And I—when I saw a form in the dim light, lying up there—I never thought of its being a woman. I can't tell you how sorry I am to have seemed such a brute. But——"

"After all, it's a fortunate thing for me you were here," the girl comforted him. "If you hadn't been, I should have fallen out of the top berth and perhaps killed myself. I should hate to die now. I want so much to see my father in Africa, and—and—somebody else. I think you must have saved my life."

"I should be so happy to think that," Max answered warmly. "I haven't as pleasant an errand in Africa as you have. But whatever happens, I shall be thankful that I came, and on this ship. I was wondering to-day if I were glad or sorry to have been born. But if I was born to save a girl from harm, it was worth while, of course, just for that and nothing else. Now, if you're feeling pretty well again, I'd better go." Gently he drew his arm out from under the pillow, thus laying down the head he had supported.

The girl turned, resting her cheek on her hand—a frail little hand, soft-looking as that of a child—and gazed at Max wistfully.

"I suppose you'll think it's dreadful of me," she faltered, "but—I wish you needn't go. I've never been on the real sea before since I was a baby: only getting from England to Ireland the shortest way, and on the Channel. This is the first storm I've seen. I never thought I was a coward. I don't like even women to be cowards. I adore bravery in men, and that's why I—but no matter! I don't know if I'm afraid exactly, but it's a dreadful feeling to be alone, without any one to care whether you drown or not, at night on a horrible old ship, in the raging waves. The sea's like some fierce, hungry animal, waiting its chance to eat us up."

"It won't get the chance," Max returned cheerfully. He was standing now, and she was looking up at him from the hard little pillow lately pressed by his own head. "I shouldn't wonder if the old tub has gone through lots of worse gales than this."

"It's comforting to hear you say so, and to have a human being to talk to, in the stormy night," sighed the girl. "I feel better. But if you go—and—where will you go?"

"There are plenty of places," Max answered her with vague optimism.

Just then the General Morel gave a leap, poised on the top of some wall of water, quivered, hesitated, and jumped from the height into a gulf. Max held the girl firmly in the berth, or she would have been pitched on to the floor. Involuntarily she grasped his arm, and let it go only when the wallowing ship subsided.

"That was awful!" she whispered. "It makes one feel as if one were dying. I can't be alone! Don't leave me!"

"Not unless you wish me to go," Max said with great gentleness.

"Oh, I don't—I can't! Except that you must be so miserably uncomfortable."

"I'm not; and it's the finest compliment and the greatest honour I've ever had in my life," Max stammered, "that you should ask me to—that it should be a comfort to you, my staying."

"But you are the kind of man women know they can trust," the girl apologized for herself. "You see, one can tell. Besides, from the way you speak, I think you must be an American. I've heard they're always good to women. I saw you on deck, and afterward at dinner. I thought then there was something that rang true about you. I said 'That man is one of the few unselfish ones. He would sacrifice himself utterly for others.' A look you have about the eyes told me that."

"I'm not being unselfish now," Max broke out impulsively; then, fearing he had said an indiscreet thing, he hurried on to something less personal. "How would it be," he suggested in a studiously commonplace tone, "if I should make myself comfortable sitting on my suitcase, just near enough to your berth to keep you from falling out in case another of those monsters hit the ship? You could go to sleep, and know you were safe, because I'd be watching."

"How good you are!" said the girl. "But I don't want to sleep, thank you. I don't feel faint now. I believe you've given me some of your strength."

"That's the brandy," said Max, very matter of fact. "Have a few drops more? You can't have swallowed half a teaspoonful——"

"Do you think, if I took a little, it would make me warm? I'm so icy cold."

"Yes, it ought to send a glow through your body." He poured another teaspoonful into the miniature silver cup, and supported the pillow again, that she need not lift her head. Then he took the two blankets off the upper berth, and wrapped them round the girl, tucking them cozily in at the side of the bed and under her feet.

"If you were my brother," she said, "you couldn't be kinder to me. Have you ever had a woman to take care of—a mother, or a sister, perhaps?"

"I never had a sister," Max answered. "But when I was a boy I loved to look after my mother."

"And now, is she dead?"

"Now she's dead."

"My mother," the girl volunteered, "died when I was born. That made my father hate the thought of me, because he worshipped her, and it must have seemed my fault that she was lost to him. I haven't seen my father since I was a little girl. But I'm going to him now. I've practically run away from the aunts he put me to live with; and I'd hardly any money, so I was obliged to travel all the way second-class."

"That's exactly what I thought!" ejaculated Max.

"Did you think about me, too?" she asked, interest in their talk helping her to forget the rolling of the ship.

"Yes, I thought about you—of course."

"That I'd run away?"

"Well, you were so different from the rest, it was queer to see you in the second-class."

"But so are you—different from the rest. Yet you're in the second-class."

"I'm hard up," exclaimed Max, smiling.

"You, too! How strange that we, of all the others, should come together like this. It is as if it were somehow meant to be, isn't it? As if we were intended to do something for each other in future. I wish I could do something for you, to pay you for to-night."

"I don't need pay." Max smiled again, almost happily. "It's you who are being good to me. I was feeling horribly down on my luck."

"I'm sorry. But it's helped you to help me. I understand that. Do you know, I believe you are one whose greatest pleasure is in doing things for those not as strong as yourself."

"I never noticed that in my character," laughed Max.

"Yet there's something which tells me I'm right. I think you would, for that reason, make a good soldier. My father is a soldier. He's stationed at a place called Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"But that's where the Foreign Legion is, isn't it?" The words slipped out.

"He's colonel of the First Regiment. Oh, I believe it's half dread of what he'll say to me, that makes me so ill and nervous to-night. The only two men in the world I love are so strong, so—so almost terrible, that I'm like a little wreath of spray dashed against the rocks of their nature. They don't even know I'm there!"

Suddenly Max seemed to see the two framed photographs in the open bag: an officer in French uniform, and Richard Stanton, the explorer, the man of fire and steel said to be without mercy for himself or others. Max felt ashamed, as if inadvertently he had stumbled upon a secret. "Strong men should be the tenderest to women," he reminded her.

"Yes, on principle. But when they want to live their own lives, and women interfere? What then? Could one expect them to be kind and gentle?"

"A man worth his salt couldn't be harsh to a woman he loved."

"But if he didn't love her? I'm thinking of two men I know. And just now, more of my father than—than the other. I've got no one to advise me. I wonder if you would, a little? You're a man, and—and I can't help wondering if you're not a soldier. Don't think I ask from curiosity. And don't tell me if you'd rather not. But you see, if you are one, it would help, because you could understand better how a soldier would feel about things."

"I have been a soldier," Max said. There was no reason why he should keep back the truth from this little girl for whom he was playing watchdog: the little girl who thought him as kind as a brother! "But I'm afraid I don't know much about women."

"The soldier I'm thinking about—my father—doesn't want to have anything to do with women. My mother spoiled him for others. I believe their love story must be the saddest in the whole world. But tell me, if you were old, as he is, nearly fifty, and you had a daughter you didn't love—though you'd been kind about money and all that—what would you say if she suddenly appeared from another country, and said she'd come to live with you?"

"By Jove!" exclaimed Max. "Is that what you're going to do?"

"Yes. You think my father will have a right to be angry with me, and perhaps send me back?"

"I don't know about the right," said Max, "but soldiers get used to discipline, you see. And a colonel of a regiment is always obeyed. He might find it inconvenient if a girl suddenly turned up."

"But that's my only hope!" she pleaded. "Surprising my father. Anyhow, I simply can't go back to my aunts. I have some in Dublin—they were my mother's aunts, too: and some in Paris—aunts of my father. That makes them my great-aunts, doesn't it? Perhaps they're harder for young people to live with than plain aunts, who aren't great. I shall be twenty-one in a few weeks and free to choose my own life if my father won't have me. I'm not brave, but I'm always trying to be brave! I can engage as a governess or something, in Algeria, if the worst comes to the worst."

"I don't believe your father would let you do that. I wouldn't in his place."

"After all, you're very young to judge what he would do, even though you are a soldier!" exclaimed the girl, determined not to be thwarted. "I must take my chance with him. I shall go to Sidi-bel-Abbes. If there's a train, I'll start to-morrow night. And you, what are you going to do? Shall you stop long in Algiers?"

"That depends," answered Max, "on my finding a woman I've come to search for."

The girl was gazing at him with the deepest interest. "You have come to Algiers to find a woman," she murmured, "and I, to find a man. Do you—oh, don't think me impertinent—do you love the woman?"

"No," said Max. "I've never seen her." And then, the power of the storm and the night, and their strange, dreamlike intimacy, made him add: "I love a woman whom I may never see again."

"And I," said the girl, "love a man I haven't seen since I was a child. Let's wish each other happiness."

"I wish you happiness," echoed Max.

"And I you. I shall often think of you, even if we never meet after to-morrow. But I hope we shall! I believe we shall." She shut her eyes suddenly, and lay still for so long that Max was afraid she might have fainted again.

"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously, bending toward her from his low seat on the suitcase.

She opened her eyes with a slight start, as if she had waked, half dazed, from some unfinished dream.

"Oh, yes," she said. "I was making a picture, in a way I have. I was wondering what would happen to us, in our different paths, and trying to see. One of my aunts says it is 'Celtic' to do that. I saw you in a great waste-place, like a desert. And then—I was there, too. We were together—all alone. Perhaps, although I didn't know it, I'd really fallen asleep."

"Perhaps," agreed Max, and a vague thrill ran through him. He, too, had dreamed of desert as he lay in the lower berth, and she, overhead, had dreamed a desert dream, each unknown to the other. "Try to go to sleep again."

She closed her eyes, and presently he thought that she slept. Once or twice she waked with the heave and jolt of a great wave, always to find her watchdog at hand.

But at last, when with the dawn the storm lulled, Max noiselessly switched off the light and went out.



CHAPTER VI

THE NEWS

It was after breakfast when they met once more, on a wet deck, in bleak sunshine.

"I waked up in broad daylight and found you and your suitcase gone," said the girl. "Oh, how guilty I felt! And then to discover that, just as you thought, the cabin was 63, not 65. What became of you?"

"I was all right," replied Max evasively. "I got a place to rest and wash."

"In 65?"

"No, not there."

"Why, was there a woman in that cabin, too?"

Max laughed. It was good to have some one to laugh with. "I didn't dare look," he confessed. "And I didn't care to wander about explaining myself and my belongings to suspicious stewards."

They walked up and down the deck, shoulder to shoulder, like old comrades. Last night there had been so many matters more pressing and more important, that they had forgotten such trifles as names. Now they introduced themselves to each other, though Max had an instant's hesitation before calling himself Doran. To-morrow, or even to-day, he might learn that which would part him forever from the name and all that had endeared and adorned it for him.

"Do you know what I've been calling you?" the girl asked, half ashamed, half shyly friendly, "'St. George.' Because you came and saved me from the dragon of the sea that I was afraid of. And that was appropriate, because St. George is my patron saint. I was born on his day, and one of my names is Georgette, in honour of him, and of my father, who is Georges: Colonel Georges DeLisle. My French aunts call me Georgette, for him. My Irish aunts call me 'Sanda,' for my mother, who was Corisande, and I like being 'Sanda' best."

She was frank about herself, as if to reward Max for his St. George-like vigil, telling him details of her life in Ireland and France, and how it had come about that Richard Stanton, her father's friend, had informally acted as her guardian when she was a child. Somehow, finding her so simple and outspoken, so kindly interested in him, Max could not bear, on his part, to build up a wall of reserve. He gave the name that had always been his: and though he did not tell her the whole story of his quest, he said that he was in search of a person to whom, if found, all that had been his would belong. "But you needn't pity me," he added quickly. "I'm used to the idea now. I shall lose some things by being poor, but I shall gain others."

She gave him a long look, seeing that he wanted no sympathy in words, and that it would jar on him if she tried to offer it. "Yes, you'll gain others," she echoed. "It must be splendid to be a man. I wonder—if things go as you think—will you stay and seek your fortune in Algeria?"

Seek his fortune in Algeria! Max could not answer for a second or two. Again he seemed to hear Grant Reeves's rather affected voice speaking far off as if in a gramophone: "Perhaps you won't want to come back to America."

When Grant had said that, Max had resolved almost fiercely that nothing on earth should keep him from going back as quickly as possible. If Grant or Edwin Reeves had calmly advised his seeking a new fortune in remote Algeria, he would have flung away the proposition with passion; but when Sanda DeLisle quietly made the suggestion, it was different. America lay behind him in the far distance, where the sun sets. His face was turned to the east, and Algeria was near. The girl whom he had been able to help and protect was near, also. And she would be in Algeria. If he hurried home to America he would never see her again. Not that that ought to matter much! They were ships passing each other in the night. Yet—they had exchanged signals. Max had a queer feeling that they belonged to each other, and that, if it were not for her, he would be hideously, desperately homesick at this moment, almost homesick enough to turn coward and go back with his errand not done. Curiously enough, he felt, too, that she had somewhat the same feeling about him. Silently they were helping each other through a crisis.

"I hadn't thought of staying in Algeria," he answered her at last. "I don't suppose I shall stay. But—I don't know. Just now my future's hidden behind a big cloud."

"Like mine!" cried Sanda DeLisle. "Does it comfort you at all to know there's some one here, close to your side, who's walking in the dark, exactly as you are?"

It was the thought that had hovered, dim and wordless, in his own mind. "Yes, it does comfort me," he said. "Though I ought to be sorry that things aren't clear for you. They will be, though, I hope, before long."

"And for you," she added. "I wish we could exchange experiences when we've found out what's going to become of us. I wish you were going on to Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"I wish I were," Max said, and he did actually wish it.

"Will you write and tell me what happens to you?" she rather timidly asked.

"I should like to. It's good of you to care."

"It's not good, but I do care. How could I help it, after all you've done for me?"

"You'll never know what it was to me to have the chance. And will you write what your father's verdict is? If you should be going back, perhaps I——"

"Oh, I shall not be going back!" the girl cried, with sharp decision. "But I'll write. And I shall never forget. If men disappoint me—though I hope, oh, so much, they will not—I shall remember one loyal friend I have made. After last night and to-day, we couldn't be less than friends, could we? even though we never hear from each other again."

"Thank you for saying that. I feel it, too, more than you can," Max assured her. "But since we're to be friends, will you let me help you all I can, and see you again on shore, before we go our separate ways? Let me find out about your train, and take you to it, and so on; and perhaps you'll dine with me, if there's time before you start."

"How good you are!" She gave him one of those soft, sweet glances, which, unlike Billie Brookton's lovely looks, were prompted by no conscious desire to charm. "But you will be so busy with your own affairs!"

"Not too busy for that. I don't suppose it will be very difficult to get at what I've come for. I shall soon know—one way or the other. I may have to go on somewhere else, but one day won't matter. I can give myself a little indulgence, if it's for the last time."

So they settled it. Max was to be "St. George" and keep off dragons for a few hours more.

The General Morel was supposed to do the distance between Marseilles and Algiers in twenty-four hours, but on this trip she had an unusually good excuse to be late. The storm had delayed her, and every one was thankful that it was only half-past three when the ship steamed into the old "pirate city's" splendid harbour.

Max Doran and Sanda DeLisle stood together watching the Atlas mountains turning from violet blue to golden green, and the clustered pearls on hill and shore transform themselves into white domes. The two landed together, also, and Sanda let Max go with her in a big motor omnibus to the Hotel Saint George, the hotel of her patron saint, whose name Max remembered well because of postcards picturing its beautiful terrace and garden, sent him long ago by Rose when he was a cadet at West Point. They discovered that the first train in which Sanda could leave for Sidi-bel-Abbes would start at nine o'clock that evening, so the proposed dinner became possible; and Sanda, by the advice of Max, took a room at the hotel for the rest of the day, inviting him to have tea with her on the terrace at five, if he were free to come back.

He waited until the girl had disappeared with a porter and her hand-luggage, and then inquired of the concierge whether the Hotel-Pension Delatour still existed. He put the question carelessly, as though it meant nothing to him, adding, as the man paused to think, that he had looked in vain for the name in the guide-book.

"Ah, I remember now, sir," said the concierge. "There used to be a hotel of that name, close to the old town—the Kasbah; quite a little place, for commercants, and people like that. Why, yes, to be sure! But the name has been changed, five or six years ago it must be. I think it is the Hotel-Pension Schreiber now."

"Oh, and what became of Delatour?" Max heard himself ask, still in that carefully careless tone which seemed to his ears almost too well done.

"I'm not sure, sir, but I rather think he died. Yes, now I recall reading something in La Depeche Algerienne, at the time. He'd been a brave soldier, and won several medals. There was a paragraph, yes, with a mention of his family. He came from the aristocracy, it said. Perhaps that's why he didn't turn out a good man of business. Or maybe he drank too much or took to drugs. These old retired soldiers who've seen hard fighting in the South often turn that way."

"Did he leave a widow and children?" Max went on, his throat rather dry.

"That I can't tell you, sir; but Delatour's successor might know. I could send there, if——"

"Thank you. I'll go myself," said Max.

The concierge advised a cab, although there was of course the tram which would take him close to the Hotel Schreiber, and then he could inquire his way. Max chose the tram. He had thought it not unfair to pay the expenses of his quest for the Doran heiress with Doran money, since he had little left that he could call his own. But he had not spent an extra dollar on luxuries; and after a journey from New York to Paris, Paris to Algiers, second-class, a tram as a climax seemed more suitable than a cab.

Where the Arab town—old and secret, and glimmering pale as a whited sepulchre—huddled away from contact with Europe, a narrow street ran like a bridge connecting West with East, to-day with yesterday. Near the entrance to this street, where it started from a fine open place of great shops and cafes, the Hotel Schreiber stood humbly squeezed in between two dull buildings as shabby as itself.

"In a few minutes I shall know," Max said to himself, as he walked into a cheaply tiled, dingy hall, smelling of cabbage-soup and beer.

Commercial travellers' sample boxes and trunks were piled in the dim corners, and a fat, white little man behind a window labelled "Bureau" glanced up from some calculations, with keen interest in a traveller who for once looked uncommercial.

His eyes glazed again when he understood that Monsieur wished only to make inquiries, not to engage a room. He was civil, however, and glib in French with a South-German accent. Madame Delatour had sold her interest in the hotel to him, Anton Schreiber. Unfortunately there had been a mortgage. The widow was left badly off, and broken-hearted at her husband's death. With what little money she had, she had gone to Oran, and through official influence had obtained a concession for a small tobacconist business, selling also postcards and stamps. She ought to have done well, for there were many soldiers in Oran. They all wanted tobacco for themselves and postcards for their friends. But Madame lost interest in life when she lost Delatour—a fine fellow, well spoken of, though never strong since some fever he had contracted in the far South. A friend in Oran had written Schreiber the last news of poor Madame Delatour. That broken heart had failed. She had died suddenly about two years ago, and the girl (yes, there was a daughter, a strange young person) had been engaged through the influence of Schreiber's Oran friends, to assist the proprietor of the Hotel Splendide at Sidi-bel-Abbes. She was, Schreiber believed, still there, in the position of secretary; unless she'd lately married. It was some months since he'd heard.

Sidi-bel-Abbes.... Home of the Foreign Legion; home perhaps, of Sanda DeLisle!...

* * * * *

It was all over, then. The blow had fallen, and Max thought that he must be stunned by it, for he felt nothing, except a curious thrill which came with the news that he must go to Sidi-bel-Abbes. The Arab name rang in his ears like the sound of bells—fateful bells that chime at midnight for birth or death. It seemed to him that Something had always been waiting, hidden behind a corner of life, calling him to Sidi-bel-Abbes, calling for good or evil, for sorrow or happiness, who could tell? but calling. And his whole past, with its fun and popularity and gay adventure, its one unfinished love story, its one tragic episode, had been a long road leading him on toward this day—and Sidi-bel-Abbes.

The temptation to go back, to forget his mission, a temptation which had come to life many times after it had first been "scotched, not killed," did not now lift its head. Max had found out within less than an hour after landing that which would make him penniless and nameless; yet his most pressing wish seemed to be to get back in time for his appointment with Sanda DeLisle, and tell her that he, too, was going to Sidi-bel-Abbes.



CHAPTER VII

SIR KNIGHT

Max hurried back to the St. George, knowing that he would be late, and arrived somewhat breathless on the terrace, at a quarter-past five. Miss DeLisle would forgive him when he explained. And he would explain! He was half minded to tell everything to the one human being within four thousand miles who cared.

It was March, and the height of the season in Algiers. Many people were having tea on the flower-draped terrace framed by a garden of orange trees and palms, and cypresses rising like burnt-out torches against the blue fire of the African sky. Max's eyes searched eagerly among the groups of pretty women in white and pale colours for a slim figure in a dark blue travelling dress. Sanda had said that she would come out to take a table and wait for him; but he walked slowly along without seeing, even in the distance, a girl alone. Suddenly, however, he caught sight of a dark blue toque and a mass of hair under it, that glittered like molten gold in the afternoon sun. Yes, there she was, sitting with her back to him, and close to a gateway of rose-turned marble pillars taken from the fountain court of some old Arab palace. But—she was not alone. A man was with her. She was leaning toward him, and he toward her, their elbows on the little table that stood between them.

The man sat facing Max, who recognized him instantly from many newspaper portraits he had seen—and the photograph in Sanda's bag. It was Richard Stanton, poseur and adventurer, his enemies said, follower and namesake of Richard Burton: first white man to enter Thibet; discoverer of a pigmy tribe in Central Africa, and—the one-time guardian of Sanda DeLisle.

Max had thought vaguely of the explorer as a man who must be growing old. But now he saw that Stanton was not old. His face had that look of eternal youth which a statue has; as if it could never have been younger, and ought never to be older. It was a square face, vividly vital, with a massive jaw and a high, square forehead. The large eyes were square, too; very wide open, and of that light yet burning blue which means the spirit of mad adventure or even fanaticism. The skin was tanned to a deep copper-red that made the eyes appear curiously pale in contrast; but the top of the forehead, just where the curling brown hair grew crisply up, was very white.

The man had thrown himself so completely into his conversation with the girl, that Max, drawing nearer, could stare if he chose without danger of attracting Stanton's attention. He did stare, taking in every detail of the virile, roughly cut features which Rodin might have modelled, and of the strong, heavy figure with its muscular throat and somewhat stooping shoulders. Richard Stanton was not handsome; he was rather ugly, Max thought, until a brief, flashing smile lit up the sunburnt face for a second. But it was in any case a personality of intense magnetic power. Even an enemy must say of Stanton: "Here is a man." He looked cut out to be a hero of adventure, a soldier of fortune, and in some sleeping depth of Max's nature a hitherto unknown emotion stirred. He did not analyse it, but it made him realize that he was lonely and unhappy, uninterestingly young; and that he was a person of no importance. He had come hurrying back to the hotel, anxious to explain why he was late; but now he saw—or imagined that he saw—even from Sanda's back, her complete forgetfulness of him. He might have been far later, and she would not have known or cared. Perhaps she would be glad if he had not come at all.

Max had until lately been subconsciously aware (though it was nothing to be proud of!) that he was rather an important personage in the eyes of the world. He had been a petted child, and flattered and flirted with as a cadet and a young officer, one of the richest and best looking at his post. Suddenly he stood face to face with the fact that he had no longer a world of his own. He was an outsider, a nobody, not wanted here nor anywhere. If he could have stolen away without danger of rudeness to Sanda, he would have gone and left her to Stanton, even though by so doing he lost his chance of seeing her again. But there was the danger that, after all, she had not quite forgotten him, and that she might be taking it for granted that he would keep his appointment. He decided not to interrupt the eager conversation at this moment, but to hover near, in case Miss DeLisle looked around as if thinking of him. He hardly expected her to do so, until the talk flagged, but perhaps some subtle thought-transference was like a reminding touch on her shoulder. She turned her head and saw Max Doran. For an instant she gazed at him half dazedly, as if wondering why he should be there. Her face was so transfigured that she was no longer the same girl; therefore it did not seem strange that she should have forgotten so small a thing as an invitation to tea given to a chance acquaintance. Instead of being pale and delicately pretty, she was a glowing, radiant beauty. Her dilated eyes were almost black, her cheeks carnation, her smiling lips not coral pink, but coral red. She made charming little gestures which turned her instantly into a French girl. "Oh, Mr. Doran!" she exclaimed. "Here is Mr. Stanton. Only think, he's staying in this hotel, and we found each other by accident! I came out here and he walked past. He didn't know me—it's such ages since I saw him—till I spoke."

Max had felt obliged to draw near, at her call, and to stand listening to her explanation; but it was clear that to Stanton he was irrelevant. The explorer had spread a folded map on the table. It was at that they had been looking, and as Sanda talked to the newcomer, Stanton's eyes returned to the map again. Max must have been dull of comprehension indeed if he had not realized that he was wanted by neither. The girl followed up her little preamble by introducing her new friend to her old one, and the explorer half rose from his chair, bowing pleasantly enough, though absent-mindedly; but there was nothing for Max to do save to excuse himself. He apologised by saying that his business would keep him occupied for the rest of the afternoon, and that he must forego the pleasure of having tea with Miss DeLisle. The expression of the girl's face as she said that she was very sorry contradicted her words. She was evidently enchanted to have Stanton to herself, and Max departed, smiling bitterly as he thought of his impatience to give her the news. This was what all her pretty professions of friendship amounted to in the end! He had been a fool to believe that they meant anything more than momentary politeness. She had not referred to his invitation for dinner, so had probably forgotten it in the flush of excitement at meeting her hero. It seemed cruel to recall it to her memory, as by this time no doubt Stanton and she were planning to spend the evening together, up to the last moment. Still, the situation was difficult, as she might remember and consider it an engagement. Max decided at last to send a card up to her room, where she would find it when her tete a tete with Stanton was over. He scribbled a few words in pencil, saying that his business would be over in an hour; that if Miss DeLisle cared to see him he would be delighted; but she must not consider herself in any way bound. He did not even mention the fact which a little while ago he had been eager to tell: that he was going to Sidi-bel-Abbes. Perhaps, as Stanton was a friend of Colonel DeLisle's, he, too, was on his way there, in which case Max would lurk in the background. The card, in an envelope, he gave to the concierge, and then went gloomily out to walk and think things over. Passing the terrace he could not resist glancing at the table nearest the marble pillars. The two still sat there, absorbed in each other, their heads bent over the map. Stanton looked up as if in surprise when a waiter appeared with a tray. They had apparently asked for tea, and then forgotten the order.

During that hour of absence Max Doran passed some of the worst moments of his life. He lived over again his anguish at Rose's death; heard again her confession which, like a sharp knife, with one stroke had cut him loose from ties of love; and gazed ahead into a future swept bare of all old friendships, luxuries, and pleasures. His "business," of which he had made much to Miss DeLisle, consisted solely in walking down the Mustapha hill from the garden of the Hotel St. George to the small white-painted post-office, and there sending off two telegrams. One was to Edwin Reeves: the other was the message for which Billie Brookton had thriftily asked in her special postscript. "Have lost everything," he wrote firmly. "Will explain in letter following and ask you to treat it in confidence. Good-bye, I hope you may be happy always. Max."

As he paid for the telegrams he wondered that the framing of Billie's did not turn one more screw of the rack which tortured heart and brain, but he felt no new wrench in the act of giving up the girl whom all men wanted. She seemed strangely remote, as if there had never been any chance of her belonging to him. Max had something like a sensation of guilt because he could not call up a picture of her, traced with the sharp clarity of an etching. In thinking of Billie, he had merely an impressionist portrait: golden hair, wonderful lashes, and a sudden upward look from large, dark eyes, set in a face of pearly whiteness. Because Sanda DeLisle was somewhat of the same type, having yellow-brown hair, and a small, fair face, her image would push itself in front of that other far more beautiful image; far more beautiful at least, save in the one moment of glowing radiance which had illumined Sanda, as a rose—light within might illumine a pale lily. No woman on earth could have been more beautiful than she, at that instant; but the magic fire had been kindled by, and for, another man; and if Max had not already guessed, it would have revealed her whole secret.

The impression was so vivid that it clouded everything else, just as a white light focussed upon one figure on the stage dims all others there. He thought of himself, and what he should do with life after his mission was finished; whether he should take the name of Delatour, which was rightfully his, or choose a new one; yet suddenly, in the midst of some pressing question, he would forget to search for the answer, as Sanda DeLisle's transfigured face seemed to shine on him out of darkness.

He stayed away from the hotel for precisely an hour, and then, returning, asked at the desk of the concierge whether there were a message for him. Yes, there was a letter. Max took it, thinking that this was perhaps the last time he should ever see the name of Doran on an envelope addressed to him. The direction had been scrawled in haste, evidently, but even so, the handwriting had grace and character. Its delicacy, combined with a certain firmness and impulsive dash, expressed to Max the personality of the writer. The letter was of course from Miss DeLisle; a short note asking if he would look for her on the terrace at six-thirty. She would be alone then. Max glanced at the hall clock. It wanted only three minutes of the half hour, and he went out at once. The scene on the terrace was very different from what it had been an hour ago. It might have been "set" for another act, was the fancy that flashed through the young man's mind. The hyacinth-pink of the sunset-sky was now faintly silvered with moonlight. All the gay groups of tea-drinking people had disappeared. Many of the crowding chairs had been taken away from the little tables and pushed back against the irregular wall of the house. The floor was being slowly inlaid with strips of shadow-ebony and moon-silver. Even the perfume of the flowers seemed changed. Those which had some quality of mystery and sensuous sadness in their scent had prevailed over the others.

At first Max saw no one, and supposed that Miss DeLisle had not yet come to keep the appointment; but as he slowly paced the length of the terrace, he discerned, standing on the farther side of the pillar-gateway, a figure that paused close to the carved balustrade and looked out over the garden. There was a suggestion of weariness and discouragement in the pose, and though the form had Sanda's tall slimness he could hardly believe it to be hers, until passing through the gateway he had come quite close to her. She turned at the sound of footsteps; and in the rose-and-silver twilight he could see that her eyes were full of tears.

Somehow it struck him as characteristic of the girl that she should not try to pretend she had not been crying. He could scarcely imagine her being self-conscious enough to pretend anything.

"Is it half-past six already?" she asked, in a very little voice, almost like that of a child who had been punished. "I'm glad you've come. Will you forgive me?"

"Forgive you for what?" Max asked, though he guessed what she meant, and added hastily, "I'm sure there's nothing to forgive."

"Yes, there is," she insisted; "you know that as well as I do. But you will forgive me, because—because I think you must have understood. I was not myself at all."

Max hesitated and stammered. He did not dare admit how well he had understood, though it seemed a moment for speaking clear truths, here in this wonderful garden which they two had to themselves, with the magic light of sunset and moonrise shining into their souls.

"You needn't be afraid of shaming me," the girl went on. "I felt that you understood everything, so we can talk now, when I've come back a little to myself. I didn't mind your seeing, then, because everything seemed unimportant except—just him, and my being there with him. And I don't mind even now, because there's so much that's the same in my life and yours. I feel (as I felt before I was carried out of myself) that we've drifted together at a time when we can help each other. You can forgive me for being selfish and thoughtless to you, because I was at a great moment of my life, and you realized it. Didn't you?"

"Yes," said Max.

"I've always adored him. He was the one I meant, of course, when I told you about caring for somebody," Sanda confessed. "You see, my father has never let me love him, in a personal sort of way. He has held me off, though I hope it's going to be different when he sees me. Sir Knight (that's what I always called Richard, ever since I was small) was very kind whenever he had time. He didn't mind my worshipping him. He never wrote, because he was too busy; but when he came home from his wonderful expeditions and adventures, he generally had some present for me. I've always followed him as far as I could, through the newspapers, and—I knew he was somewhere in Algeria now. I'm afraid—that's partly what made my wish to come so—terribly, irresistibly strong. I didn't quite realize that, until I saw him. Honestly, I thought it was because I couldn't live with my aunts any longer, and because I wanted so much to win my father before it was too late. But meeting Richard here, unexpectedly, when I imagined him somewhere in the South, showed me—the truth about myself. I'd been so anxious for you to come back, and to hear all that had happened to you; but meeting him put everything else out of my head!"

"It was natural," said Max. "You wouldn't be human if it hadn't."

"I think it was inhuman. For when I remembered—other things, I didn't seem to care. I was—glad when you said you had business and couldn't stay to tea. I hoped you'd forget that you'd asked me to dinner, because I wanted so much to have it with Sir Knight—with Richard. I thought he'd be sure to invite me, and take me to the train afterward. I was going to apologize to you as well as I could; but even if you'd been hurt, I was ready to sacrifice you for him."

"Please don't punish yourself by confessing to me," Max broke in. "Indeed it's not necessary. I——"

"I'm not doing it to punish myself," Sanda exclaimed. "I've been punished—oh, sickeningly punished!—already. I'm confessing to you because—I want our friendship to go on as if I hadn't done anything ungrateful and cruel to spoil it. I'm trying to atone."

"You've done that a thousand times over," Max comforted her, feeling that he ought to be comforted at the same time, yet aware that it was not so. He began to realize that he was boyishly jealous of the great man whose blaze of glory had made his poor rushlight of friendship flicker into nothingness.

"Then if I have atoned, tell me quickly your news," said the girl.

"The news is, that I haven't any past which belongs to me—and God knows whether I've a future." Max gave lightness to the sombre words with a laugh.

"Then the worst has happened to you?"

"One might call it that." Still he managed to laugh.

"Are you very miserable?"

"I don't know. I haven't had time to think."

"Don't take time—yet. Stay with me, as we planned before—before——"

"But Mr. Stanton? Aren't you——"

"No, I'm not. He left me fifteen minutes after you went. I shan't see him again."

"Not at the train?"

"No, not anywhere. You see, he has such important things to do, he hasn't time to bother much with—with a person he still thinks of as a little girl. Why, I told you, he would hardly have known me if I hadn't spoken to him! He's going away to-morrow, leaving for Touggourt. There are all sorts of exciting preparations to make for a tremendous expedition he means to undertake, though it will be months before he can be ready to start. He can think of nothing else just now. Oh, it was only 'How do you do?' and 'Good-bye' between us, I assure you, over there at the little tea-table I'd been keeping for you and me."

"It didn't look like anything so superficial," Max found himself trying once more to console her. "I'm sure it must really have meant a lot to him, meeting you. I could see even in the one glance I had, how absorbed he was——"

"Yes, in his map! He was pointing out his route to me, after Touggourt. He's chosen Touggourt for his starting-place, because the railway has just been brought as far as there. And there's a man in Touggourt—an old Arab explorer—he wants to persuade to go with him if he's strong enough. He—and some other Arab Richard came to Algiers to see, are the only two men alive, apparently, who firmly believe in the Lost Oasis that Sir Knight means to try to find, when he can get his caravan together, and start across the desert early next autumn after the hot weather."

"The Lost Oasis? I never heard of it," said Max. "Is there really such a place somewhere?"

"Richard doesn't know. He only believes in it; and says nearly every one thinks he's insane. But you must have heard—I thought every one had heard the old legend about a Lost Oasis—lost for thousands of years?"

"I'm afraid not. I haven't any desert lore." As Max made this answer, last night's dream came back, rising for an instant before his eyes like a shimmering picture, a monochrome of ochre-yellow. Then it faded, and he saw again the silver sky behind darkening pines, plumed date-palms, the delicate fringe of pepper trees, and black columns of towering cypress.

"All mine has come from Sir Knight: stories he's told me and books he's given me. Long ago he talked about the Lost Oasis. I thought of it as a thrilling fairy story. But he believes it may exist, somewhere far, far east, beyond walls of mountains and shifting sand-dunes, between the Sahara and the Libyan deserts."

"Wouldn't other explorers have found it, if it were there?"

"Lots have tried, and been lost themselves: or else they've given up hope, after terrible privations, and have struggled back to their starting-place. But Richard says he has pledged himself to succeed where the rest have failed, or else to die. It was awful to hear him say that—and to see the look in his eyes."

"He's done some wonderful things," Max said, trying to speak with enthusiasm.

"Yes; but this seems different, and more terrifying than any of his other adventures, because in them he had men for his worst enemies. This time his enemy will be nature. And its venturing into the unknown—almost like trying to find the way to another world. Everybody knew there was a Thibet and a Central Africa, and what the dangers would be like there; but no one knows anything of this place—if it is a place."

"What's the story that makes Mr. Stanton feel the thing is worth risking?" Max asked.

"The story is, that there's a blank in Egyptian history which could be filled up and accounted for, if a great mass of people had moved away and begun a new civilization somewhere, safe from all the enemies who had disturbed them and stolen their treasure."

"Splendid story! But it sounds as much of a fable as any other myth, doesn't it?"

"It might, if there hadn't been other stories of lost oases which have proved to be true."

"I never heard of them," Max confessed his ignorance.

"Nor I, except from Sir Knight. He says that only lately people have found several oases south of Tripoli, which were talked about before in the same legendary way as this one he's going to search for. Only a few people know about them now: but they are known. And they're inhabited by Jews who fled by tribes from the Romans when Solomon's Temple was destroyed, in the reign of the Emperor Titus. They never trade, except with each other, but have everything they need in their hidden dwelling-places. They speak the ancient language that was spoken in Palestine all those centuries ago, and wear the same costume, and keep to the same laws. That's why Sir Knight thinks the greater Lost Oasis may exist, having been even better hidden than those. There was a famous explorer named Rholf who believed that he'd found traces of a way to it, but he lost them again. And there were Caillaud and Cat, and other names he spoke of to-day, that I've forgotten. I wish, though, that he were not going—or else that I could go with him, in the way I used to plan when I was small." The girl paused and sighed.

"What way?"

"Oh, it was only nonsense—silly, romantic nonsense, that I'd got out of books. I used to make up stories about myself joining Sir Knight on some expedition, dressed as a boy, and he not recognizing me." She laughed a little. "I constantly saved his life, of course! But now we won't talk of him any more. You and I will make up a story about ourselves. We're alone on a desert island, and we have to find food and shelter, and be as comfortable and as happy as we can. In the story, you have cause to hate me, but you don't, because you're generous. So you forage for game and fruit, and help me to escape. Which means, if you've really forgiven my horridness, that you'll take pity on me and ask me to dine with you before you put me into my train as you promised."

"I will do all that," said Max, almost eagerly. "And if you'll let me I'll go with you in the train to Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't consent to such a sacrifice."

"I must go either by your train or another."

"Why—why?"

"I've found out that the woman I came to search for is not only alive, but living at Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"It's Fate!" the girl half whispered. "But what Fate? What does it all mean?"

"I've been asking myself that question," Max said, "and I can't find an answer—yet."



CHAPTER VIII

ON THE STATION PLATFORM

They dined together in a glass-fronted restaurant opening out on to the terrace, and Sanda was sweet, but absent-minded. Max could guess where her thoughts were, and almost hated Stanton. How could the man let some wretched engagement, with a few French officers, keep him from this poor little girl who adored him? How could Stanton let her go alone to meet her unnatural father (it was thus that Max thought of Colonel DeLisle) when as her one-time guardian he might have taken her to Sidi-bel-Abbes himself, and persuaded his old friend, DeLisle, to be lenient. All that Max had heard against the explorer came back to him, and he was ready to believe Stanton the cruel and selfish egoist that gossip sketched him. Poor Sanda!

Miss DeLisle had meant to finish her long journey as she had begun it, second-class; but Max persuaded the girl to let him take for her a first-class ticket, with coupe lit, in a compartment for women, as far as the station where at dawn they must change for Sidi-bel-Abbes. She was surprised at the smallness of the price, but did not suspect that she owed her new friend anything more substantial than gratitude for all the trouble he had taken for her comfort.

Max himself went second-class, packed in with seven men who would have thought opening the window a symptom of insanity.

One of the seven was the man with whom Sanda DeLisle had chatted on board the General Morel at dinner. He was the hero of the compartment, for he was going to Sidi-bel-Abbes to fight a boxing match with the champion of the Legion, a soldier named Pelle. Four of the travellers (three men of Algiers and a youth of Sidi-bel-Abbes) were accompanying the French boxer, having met him at the ship.

Dozing and waking, Max heard excited talk of la boxe and the coming event. He was vaguely interested, for he had been the champion boxer of his regiment—a hundred years ago!—but he was too weary in body and mind to care much about a match at Sidi-bel-Abbes. When he was not trying to sleep, he was mentally composing a letter to his colonel, with discreet explanations, and a justification of his forthcoming immediate resignation from the army: or else a written explanation of his farewell to Billie, following up the telegram; or thinking out business directions to Edwin Reeves. Suddenly, however, as he was dully wondering how best to send the heiress to New York without going back himself, a name spoken almost in his ear had the blinding effect of a searchlight upon his brain.

"La petite Josephine Delatour," said the young man who lived at Bel-Abbes. He was evidently answering some question which Max had not caught.

"The handsomest, would you call her?" disputed a commercial traveller, who also knew the town. "Ah, that, no! she is too strange, too bizarre."

"But her strangeness is her charm, mon ami! She has eyes of topaz, like those of a young panther. If she were not bizarre, would she—a little nobody at all—be strong enough to draw the smart young officers after her? There are girls in Bel-Abbes, daughters of rich merchants, who are jealous of the secretary at the Hotel Splendide. Before she came, it was only the officers of high rank who messed there. Now it is also the lieutenants. It is not the food, but Mademoiselle Josephine who attracts!"

"Once upon a time she thought me and my comrades good enough for a flirtation," said the commercial traveller. "But she looks higher in these days, especially since her namesake in the Spahis joined his regiment at Bel-Abbes. She told me they had found out that they were cousins."

"The lieutenant doesn't go about boasting of the relationship," laughed the youth from Bel-Abbes. "He comes to my father's cafe, which is the best in the town, as you well know. If any one speaks to him of la petite, he laughs: and it is a laugh she would not like."

Max's ears tingled. He felt as if he were eavesdropping. He wished to hear more, though at the same time it seemed that he had no right to listen. Luckily or unluckily, the boxer broke in and changed the subject.

Early in the morning, passengers for Sidi-bel-Abbes had to descend from the train going on to Oran, and take a slow one, on a branch line. It was a very slow one, indeed, and it was also late, so that it would be nearly midday and the hour for dejeuner when they reached their destination. Max saw himself inquiring for Mademoiselle Delatour just at the moment when the admirers of her topaz eyes were assembling for their meal. He did not like the prospect; but said nothing of his own worries to Sanda, whom he joined on changing trains. Now the meeting with her father was so near, she had to hold her courage with both hands. She had realized for the first time that she would not know where to look for Colonel DeLisle. He might be in barracks. She could hardly go to him there. He would perhaps be angry, should a girl arrive, announcing herself as his daughter, at the house where he had rooms. The third alternative was the Hotel Splendide, where he took his meals. He might already be there when she reached Sidi-bel-Abbes. What a place for a first meeting! Max agreed, sympathetically. It seemed that everything at Sidi-bel-Abbes must happen at the Hotel Splendide!

"If you could only be with me and help, as you have helped me all along!" she sighed. "Though of course you can't. If Sir Knight had come—— But I couldn't easily explain you to my father. At least, not just at present."

Max saw this, even more clearly than she saw it. It would indeed be difficult for a strange new daughter to explain in a few brief words a still more strange young man to such a person as Colonel DeLisle. If he were to be introduced or even mentioned at all, Max felt that it would have to be later, and must depend on the word of the redoubtable colonel. He suggested to Sanda as discreetly as he could that he would keep out of her way at the hotel, unless she summoned him. But, he added, he would have to be there for a short time at all events, because his business was taking him precisely to the Hotel Splendide.

"The person you're looking for is staying there?" asked Sanda.

"She's the secretary of the hotel." Max hesitated an instant, then, realizing from the words he had overheard how conspicuous a character Josephine Delatour evidently was, he thought best to tell Sanda something more of his story than he had told her yet. He sketched the version, vindicating his foster-mother, which he had given to Billie Brookton and the Reeveses—a version which all the world at home would, he believed, soon hear.

"So that is it?" said Sanda. "You're giving up everything to this girl. Do you think she will take it?"

"I wish I were as sure of what I shall do next as I am sure of that," laughed Max. If there had ever been any doubt in his mind as to Josephine's attitude, it had vanished while listening to the talk of her in the train.

"I know what you ought to do next," Sanda said. "You ought to be what you have been—a soldier."

"I shall always be, at heart, I think," Max confessed. "But soldier life is over for me, so far as I can see ahead."

"I wonder——" she began eagerly, then stopped abruptly.

"You wonder—what?"

"I daren't say it."

"Please dare."

"I mustn't. It would be wrong. I might be horribly sorry afterward. And yet——"

She silenced herself with a little gasp. He urged her no more, but stared almost unseeingly out of the window at the roofed farmhouses, and the yellow hills, like reclaimed desert, with bright patches of cultivation, and a far, floating background of the blue Thesala mountains.

* * * * *

Sidi-bel-Abbes at last! and the train slowing down along the platform of an insignificant station, which might have been in the South of France, save for a few burnoused Arabs. There was a green glimpse of olives and palms, and taller plane trees, under a serene sky; and in the distance the high fortified walls of yellow and dark gray stone, which ringed in the northernmost stronghold of the Foreign Legion.

"Sidi-bel-Abbes!" a deep voice shouted musically from one end of the platform to the other, as the train came in; and the name thrilled through Max Doran's veins as it had not ceased to thrill since yesterday. More strongly than ever he had the impression that some great things would happen to him here, or begin to happen, and carry him on elsewhere, beyond those yellow hills. Deep down in him excitement stirred in the dark, like a dazed traveller up before the dawn, groping for the door through which he must pass to begin his journey. All the more quietly, however, because of what he secretly felt, Max took Sanda's bag and his own, and gave her a hand for the high step from the train to platform. There they became units in a crowd strange to see at a little provincial station; a crowd to be met at few other places in the world.

The French boxer was not the only guest of importance this train brought to Sidi-bel-Abbes. At the far end of the platform, where the first-class carriages had stopped, a group of officers in full dress were collected round a man who wore civilian clothes awkwardly, as an old soldier wears them. There was the sensationally splendid costume of the Spahis; scarlet cloak and full trousers; the beautiful pale blue of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, and a plainer uniform which Max guessed to be that of the Foreign Legion. The boxer had his committee de reception also; a dozen or more dark, fat, loud-talking proprietors of cafes, or tradefolk keen on "le sport." These, and the lounging Arabs, might have interested strangers to Sidi-bel-Abbes, if there had been nothing better worth attention. But owing to the lateness of the train, it had come in almost simultaneously with another made up of windowless wagons for men, horses or freight, which had not yet discharged its load. Out from the wide doorway of the long car labelled "32 hommes, 6 chevaux," was streaming an extraordinary procession; tall, bearded men with the high cheek-bones and sad, wide-apart eyes of the Slav: a blond, round-cheeked boy whose shy yet stolid face could only have been bred in Germany, or Alsace; sharp-featured, rat-eyed fellows who might have been collected at Montmartre or in a Marseilles slum; others who were nondescripts of no complexion and no expression; waifs from anywhere; a brown-skinned Spaniard and an Italian or two; a Negro with the sophisticated look of a New York "darkee"; a melancholy, hooded Arab, and a fierce-faced Moor; types utterly at variance, yet with one likeness which bound them together like a convict's chain: weariness and stains of long, hard travelling, which thrust the few well-dressed men down to the level of the shabbiest. Some were almost middle aged; some were youths hardly yet at the regulation enlistment age of eighteen; a few one might take for broken-down gentlemen; more who looked like workmen out of a job, and one or two unmistakably old soldiers, eager-eyed as lost dogs who had found their way home: a strange gathering of individuals to find stumbling out of a freight train at a country station of a French colony; but this was Sidi-bel-Abbes, headquarters of La Legion Etrangere: and as the tired, dirty men tumbled out on to the platform, everybody stared openly as a corporal with a high kepi, a buttoned-back blue overcoat, and loose, red trousers tucked into military boots, formed the crew into lines of four.

Even the officers at the end of the platform gazed at the soiled scarecrows who had to be made into soldiers: for this being Sidi-bel-Abbes, there was no difficulty in guessing that the twenty-eight or thirty men of six or seven nations were recruits of the Legion of Foreigners. The draggled throng was quietly indicated to the visitor in civilian clothes, who nodded appreciatively and then turned away. But the boxer's brigade explained the unfortunate wretches so loudly and unflatteringly to their guest that haggard faces flushed and quivering lips stiffened; while at the gateway of exit, a motionless row of non-commissioned officers, watching for deserters, regarded "les bleus" critically, yet indifferently.

Max, whose quick imagination made him almost painfully sensitive for others, felt hot and sorry for the men herded together by misfortune. He had read sensational stories of the Foreign Legion, and found himself hypnotized into looking for brutal jowls of escaped murderers, or faces of pallid aristocrats in torn evening clothes, splashed with blood. Among these men of mystery or sorrow there were, however, few startling types which caught the eye. But one man—young, tall, straight as an arrow—running the gauntlet of jokes and stares with fierce, repressed defiance, turned suddenly to look at Max and Sanda.

Where to place him in life, Max could not tell. He might be prince or peasant by birth, since prince and peasant are akin at heart, and ever remote from the middle-classes as from Martians. He wore a soft, gray felt hat, smeared with coal-dust from the engine. The collar of his dusty black overcoat was turned up; it actually looked like an evening coat. His trousers were black too, and Max had an impression of patent leather shoes glittering through dust. But these details were only accessories to the picture, and interesting because of the wearer's face. It was dark as that of a Spaniard from Andalusia, with the high, proud features of an Indian. It had been clean-shaven a few days ago; and from two haggard hollows a pair of wild black eyes flashed one glance at Max—the only man who had not seemed to stare. Face and look were unforgettable. It seemed to Max that some appeal had been flung to him. He could hardly keep himself from striding after the tall figure, to ask: "What is it you want me to do?" And Sanda also had been impressed. He heard her murmur under her breath, "Poor man! What wonderful eyes!"

Nobody moved from the platform until the corporal had called the roll of names—German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Arab—and had marched his batch of recruits briskly through the guarded gate. Max would have hurried Sanda out directly behind them, before the crowd could secure all the queer, old-fashioned cabs which were waiting, but at that moment the smart group of officers moved forward. Having shown their guest one of the sights of Sidi-bel-Abbes, they evidently expected to take precedence of the townspeople, who gave no sign of disputing their right. Max, following the example of others and resisting an impulse to salute, stood back with his companion to let the uniforms pass. Sanda, pink with excitement, was as usual all unconscious of self, and vividly interested both in recruits and officers. The latter, especially the young ones, were equally interested in the pretty, well-dressed girl, a stranger in Sidi-bel-Abbes and the one woman on the platform.

Max saw the polite but admiring glances, and would have liked to draw her further away. He bent down to whisper a suggestion, but Sanda did not hear. Her face, her whole personality, had undergone one of those swift changes characteristic of her.

With a fluttering cry, she started forward, then stepped nervously back, and, stumbling against Max's foot, would have fallen if he had not caught her.

All his attention was for her, yet, with his eyes on the girl, he suddenly became conscious that something had happened among the officers. One man had stopped abruptly just in front of Sanda, while others were going through the gate, hurrying on as if tactfully desirous to get themselves out of the way. A voice murmured "Mon Dieu!" and having steadied Sanda, Max saw standing close to them a small, rather dapper man with a lined brown face, a very square, smooth-shaven jaw, long gray eyes, short gray hair, and the neat slimness of a West Point cadet. He had on his sleeve the five gold stripes signifying a colonel's rank, and was decorated with several medals.

Instantly Max understood the situation. The one thing that ought not to have happened, had happened.



CHAPTER IX

THE COLONEL OF THE LEGION

All Sanda's anxiously laid plans were swept away in the wind of emotion. She and the father she had meant to win with loving diplomacy had stumbled upon each other crudely in a railway station. The dear resemblance upon which she had founded her best hope had struck Colonel DeLisle like a blow over the heart.

The dapper little officer, with the figure of a boy and the face of a tragic mask, stared straight at the girl, with the look of one who meets a ghost in daylight. "My God! who are you?" he faltered, in French. The words seemed to speak themselves against his will.

Sanda was deathly pale. But she caught at her courage as a soldier grasps his flag: "I am—Corisande, your daughter," she answered in that small, sweet voice of a child with which she had begged Max to pardon her, yesterday. And she too spoke in French. "My father, forgive me if I've done wrong to come to you like this. But I was so unhappy. I wanted so much to see you. And I've travelled such a long way!"

For an instant the man still stared at her in silence. He had the air of listening for a voice within a voice, as one listens through the sound of running water for its tune. Max, who must now unfortunately be explained and accounted for in spite of every difficulty, found a strange likeness between the middle-aged soldier and the young girl. It was in the eyes: long, gray, haunted with thoughts and dreams. If Sanda DeLisle ever had to become acquainted with sorrow her eyes would be like her father's.

The pause was but for a second or two, though it was full of suspense for the girl, and even for Max, who forgot himself in anxiety for her. The hardness of straining after self-control melted to sudden beauty, as Max had seen Sanda's face transfigured. Never again, it seemed to him—no matter what Colonel DeLisle's actions might be—could he believe him to be cruel or cold.

"Ma petite," DeLisle said, with a quiver in his voice that echoed up from heartstrings swept by some spirit hand. "Can it be true? You have come—across half the world, to me?"

"Oh, father, yes, it is true. And always I've wanted to come." Sanda's voice caressed him. No man could have resisted her then. "You're not angry?"

"Mon Dieu, no, I'm not angry, though my life is not the life for a girl. I only—for a moment I thought I saw——"

"I know, I guessed," Sanda gently filled up his pause. "Since I began growing into a woman every one told me I was like—her. But I wouldn't send you a photograph. For years I've planned to surprise you—and make you care a little, if I could."

"Care!" he echoed, a look as of anguish passing over his face like the shadow of a cloud; then leaving it clear, though sad with the habitual sadness which had scored its many lines. "You have surprised me, indeed. But——" He stopped abruptly, and apparently for the first time noticed the young man standing near. Stiffening slightly, Colonel DeLisle looked keenly at Max, his eyes trying to solve the new puzzle. "But—my daughter, you have come to me with——"

"Only a friend," Sanda broke in desperately, blushing up to her bright hair. "A kind friend, Mr. Doran, an American who had to travel to Sidi-bel-Abbes on business of his own, and who's been more good to me than I can describe. I want him to let me tell you all about him, and then you will understand."

"I thank you in advance, Monsieur," said Colonel DeLisle, unbending again, and a faint—a very faint—twinkle brightening his eyes, at the thought of the error he had nearly made, and because of Doran's blush at being mistaken for an unwelcome son-in-law.

"I've done nothing, Monsieur le Colonel," stammered Max. "I had to come. I have business with a person at the Hotel Splendide. It is Mademoiselle who is kind to me in saying——"

"Could he not take me to the hotel to wait for you?" Sanda cut in. "I shouldn't have interrupted you in such a place as this, and at such a time, my father, if I could have helped doing so, even though I recognized your face from the old photograph that is my treasure. But acting on impulse is my greatest fault, the aunts all say. And when I saw you I cried out before I stopped to think. Then I drew back, but it was too late. I have taken you from some duty."

"I came officially with my comrades to meet General Sauvanne, who is visiting our Algerian garrisons," said DeLisle. He glanced again at Max, giving him one of those soldier looks which long experience has taught to penetrate flesh and bone and brain down to a man's hidden self. "It is true that I have no right to excuse myself for my own private affairs." He hesitated, almost imperceptibly, then turned to Max. "Add to your past kindness by taking my daughter to the hotel, Monsieur, where in my name she will engage a room for herself—since, unfortunately, I have no home to offer her. I will go with you both to a cab, and then return to duty. My child, I will see you again before dejeuner."

Max's quick mind promptly comprehended the full meaning of Colonel DeLisle's seemingly unconventional decision. Not only was he being made friendly use of, in a complicated situation, but Sanda's father wished all who had seen the girl arrive with a man to know once for all that the man had his official approval. Soon Sanda's relationship to the Colonel of the First Regiment of the Foreign Legion would be known, and there must be no stupid gossip regarding the scene at the station. As they passed the other officers and their guests (who for these few dramatic moments had discreetly awaited developments, outside the platform gate), Colonel DeLisle lingered an instant to murmur; "It is my daughter, who has come unexpectedly. A young friend whom I can trust to see her to the hotel will take her there, and I am at your service when I have put them into a cab."

"What do you think?" cried Sanda, as the rickety vehicle rattled them toward the nearest gate of the walled town. "Have I failed with him—or have I succeeded?"

"Succeeded," Max answered. "Don't you feel it?"

"I hoped it. Oh, Mr. Doran, I am going to love him!"

"I don't wonder," Max said. "I'm sure he's worth it."

"Yet I saw by your look when I spoke of him before, that you were thinking him heartless."

"I had no right to think anything."

"I gave you the right, by confiding in you. But I didn't confide enough, to do my father justice. I knew he wasn't heartless, though he couldn't bear the sight of me when I was a baby, and put me out of his life. He has always said that a soldier's life was not for a young girl to share. I knew he had a heart, because of that, not in spite of it. It was that he loved my mother so desperately, and I'd robbed him of her. Now you've seen him, you must let me tell you a little——"

"Would he wish it?"

"Yes, if he knew why, and if he knew you, and what you are going through at this time. He fell in love with my mother at first sight in Paris, and she with him. He was on leave, and she was there with her parents from Ireland. He'd never meant to marry, but he was swept off his feet. Mother's people wouldn't hear of it. They took her home in a hurry, and tried to make her marry some one else. She nearly did—because they were stronger than she. She wrote father a letter of good-bye, to his post in the southern desert, where he was stationed then. He supposed, when he read the letter, that she was already married when he got it. But suddenly she appeared—as unexpectedly as I appeared to-day. She'd run away from home, because she couldn't live without him. Oh, how well I understand her! Think of the joy! It was like waking from a dreadful dream for both of them. They were going to be married at once, though mother was half dead with fatigue and excitement after her long, hurried journey; but on their wedding eve she was taken ill, and became delirious. It was typhoid fever. She had got it somehow on the journey. She had come without stopping to rest, from Dublin to Touggourt, where father was stationed. They say it's wild there even now. It was far wilder then, more than twenty-one years ago. He nursed mother himself, scarcely eating or sleeping: not taking off his clothes for weeks. One of his aunts—my great-aunt—told me the story. It came to her from a friend of father's. He never spoke of it. For three months mother wasn't out of danger. Father was her nurse, her doctor, not her husband. But at last she was well again. They had their honeymoon in a tent in the desert. She loved the desert, then—or thought she did. Afterward, though, she changed, for I was coming, and she was ill again. By that time they were stationed still farther south. She grew so homesick for the north that my father got leave. They started to travel by easy stages through the desert, with a small caravan. Their hope was to reach Algiers, and to get to France long before the baby should come; but the heat grew suddenly terrible, and one day they were caught in a fearful sandstorm. My mother was terrified. I was born two months before the time. That same night she died, while the storm was still raging; and before she went, she begged my father to promise, whatever happened, not to leave her body buried in the desert. He did promise. And then began his martyrdom. The caravan could not march fast because of me. A negro woman who'd come as mother's maid took care of me as well as she could, and fed me on condensed milk. Strange I should have lived.... My father had his men make for my mother's body a case of many tins, which they spread open and soldered together, with lead from bullets they melted. In the next oasis they cut down a palm tree and hollowed out the trunk for a coffin. They sealed up the tin case in it, and the coffin travelled on the camel mother had ridden when she was alive, in one of those beautiful hooded bassourahs you must have seen in pictures. At night the coffin rested in my father's tent, and he lay beside it as he had lain beside my mother when she lived, and they were happy. Because she'd been a Catholic, and because she'd always hated the dark, father burned candles on the coffin always till dawn; and the men who loved him looked for wild flowers in the desert to lay upon it. He had forty days, and forty nights, marching through the desert with the dead body of his love, before they came to the railway. Then he took mother to France, and left me with his two aunts there. Now do you wonder he never loved me, or wanted to have me with him?"

"No, perhaps not," said Max. Deep sadness had fallen upon him. He was in the desert with the man beside whose agony his own trial was as nothing. All the world seemed to be full of sorrow and pain sharper than his own personal pain. And as the girl asked her question and he answered it, their cab passed the procession of recruits for the Foreign Legion, tramping along between tall plane trees toward the town gate.

Once again a pair of tortured black eyes looked at Max, who winced as the thick yellow dust from the wheels enveloped the marching men.

"Will you let me tell my father your story, as I have told you his?" Sanda asked.

"Do as you think best," he said.

In another moment the cab had rolled past a few gardens and villas, a green plateau and a moat, and passed through a great gateway. Overhead, carved in the stone, were the words "Porte d'Oran," and the date, 1855. Once, when the town was young, the gates had been kept tightly closed, and through the loopholes in the stout, stone wall (the old part yellow, the newer part gray) guns had been fired at besieging Arabs, the tribe of the Beni Amer, who had worshipped at the shrine of the dead Saint, Sidi-bel-Abbes. But all that was past long ago. No hope of fighting for the Legionnaires, save over the frontier in Morocco, or far away in the South! The shrine of Sidi-bel-Abbes stood neglected in the Arab graveyard. Even the meaning of the name, once sacred to his followers, was well-nigh forgotten; and all that was Arab in Sidi-bel-Abbes had been relegated to the Village Negre, strictly forbidden as Blue Beard's Room of Secrets, to the Soldiers of the Legion.