Inside the wall everything was modern and French, except for a few trudging or labouring Arabs in white, or in gray burnouses of camel's hair made in Morocco. As the daughter of the Legion's colonel drove humbly in her shabby cab to the Hotel Splendide, she felt vaguely depressed and disappointed in the town which she expected to be her home. She had fancied that it would be very eastern, with mosques and bazaars, and perhaps surrounded with desert; but there was no desert within many miles; and there was only one minaret rising in the distance, like a long white finger to mark the beginning of the Village Negre. Instead of bazaars, there were new French shops and a sinister predominance of drinking places of all sorts: a few "smart" cafes, with marble-topped tables on the pavement, but mostly dull dens, appealing to the poorest and most desperate. The town was like a Maltese cross in shape, the arms of the cross being wide streets, each leading to a gate in the fortifications; Porte d'Oran, Porte de Tlemcen, Porte de Mascarra, and Porte de Daya; and the one great charm of the place seemed to be in its trees; giant planes which made arbours across the streets, giving a look of dreaming peace, despite the rattle of wheels on roughly set paving-stones.

There were middle-aged buildings, low and small and dun-coloured, exactly like those of every other French-Algerian settlement, but big new blocks of glittering white gave an air of almost ostentatious prosperity to the place. There was even an attempt at gayety in the ornamentation, yet there appeared to be nothing attractive to tourists, save the Foreign Legion, which gave mystery and romance to all that would otherwise have been banal. Noise was everywhere, loud, shrill, insistent; rumbling, shrieking, rattling, roaring. Huge wagons, loaded with purple-stained cases of Algerian wine, bumping over the stones; strings of bells wound round the great horns of horses' collars jingling like sleigh-bells in winter; whips in the hands of fierce-eyed carters cracking round the heads of large, sad mules; hooters of automobiles and immense motor diligences blaring; men shouting at animals; animals barking or braying, snorting or clucking at men; unseen soldiers marching to music; a town clock sweetly chiming the hour, and, above all, rising like spray from the ocean of din, high voices of Arabs chaffering, disputing, arguing. This was the "Arabian Night's Paradise" that Sanda had dreamed of!

Presently the cab passed a great town clock with four faces (one for each of the four diverging streets) and drew up before a flat-faced building with the name "Hotel Splendide" stretching across its dim, yellow front. Inside a big, open doorway, stairs went steeply up, past piles of commercial travellers' show trunks, and an Arab bootblack who clamoured for custom. At the top Max Doran and his charge came into a hall, whence a bare-looking restaurant and several other rooms opened out. On a gigantic hatrack like a withered tree hung coats and hats in dark bunches, brightened with a few military coats and gold-braided caps. As Max and Sanda appeared, an officer—youngish, dark, sharp-featured, with a small waxed moustache and near-sighted black eyes—turned hastily away from a window, and with a stride added his cap and cloak to the hatrack's burden. He had an almost childishly guilty air of not wishing to be caught at something. And what that something was, Max Doran guessed with a queer constriction of the throat as he looked through the window. This opened into a dim room, which was labelled "Bureau," and framed the head and bust of a young woman.

Such light as there was in the hall fell full upon her short, white face, into her slanting yellow eyes and on to the elaborately dressed red hair. She had been smiling at the officer, but on the interruption of the strangers' entrance she frowned with annoyance. It was the frank, animal annoyance of a beautiful young lynx, teased by having a piece of meat snatched away. The eyes were clear in colour as a dark topaz, and full of topaz light. This was remarkable; but their real strangeness lay in expression. They seemed not unintelligent, but devoid of all human experience. They gazed at the newcomers from the little window of the bureau, as an animal gazes from the bars of its cage, looking at the eyes which regard it, not into them; near yet remote; a creature of another species.

The girl appeared to be well-shaped enough, though her strong white throat was short, and the hands which lay on the wide window ledge were as small as a child's. Yet like a shadow thrown on the wall behind her was a lurking impression of deformity of body and mind, a spirit cast out of her, to point at something veiled. If there could have lingered in the mind of Max a grain of doubt concerning Rose Doran's confession, it was burnt up in a moment; for the girl was an Aubrey Beardsley caricature of Rose. No need to ask if this were Mademoiselle Delatour. He knew. And this lieutenant in the uniform of the Spahis was the "namesake" of whom the men had talked in the train.



CHAPTER X

THE VOICE OF THE LEGION

It was all far worse even than Max had expected; and the next few days were a nightmare. The resemblance between the girl and her mother—once his mother, whom he had as a boy adored—made the effect more gruesome.

Josephine Delatour was coarse minded and sly, inordinately vain, caring for nothing in life except the admiration of such men as she had met and mistaken for gentlemen. Her way of receiving the news of her change of fortune disgusted Max, sickened him so utterly that he could not bear to think of her reigning in Jack Doran's house. She was torn between pleasure in the prospect of being rich, and suspicious that there was a plot to kidnap her, like the heroine of a sensational novel. She did not want to go to America. She wanted to stay in Sidi-bel-Abbes and triumph over all the women who had snubbed her. She boasted of her admirers, and hinted that even without money she could marry any one of a dozen young officers. But the one for whom she seemed really to care—if it were in her to care for any one except herself—was the namesake of whom Max had heard laughing hints.

At the time it had not occurred to him that the name of the alleged "cousin" must be Delatour; but so it was though the dark young man with the waxed moustache spelled his name differently, in the more aristocratic way, with three syllables. When Josephine boasted that, though he was from a great family, with a castle on the River Loire, he called himself her cousin, Max realized that the Lieutenant of Spahis must be a son or nephew of the de la Tour from whom Rose and Jack had taken the chateau. So far, however, was Max Doran from being elated by this tie of blood, that he mentally dubbed his relative a cad. It was all he could do to persuade Josephine not to tell Raoul de la Tour that she had come into money, and a name as aristocratic as his own—in fact, that she was qualifying as a heroine of romance. Only by appealing to the crude sense of drama the girl had in her could she be prevented from stupidly throwing out bait to fortune-hunters. But having wired again to Edwin Reeves, and hearing that Mrs. Reeves, already in Paris, had started for Algiers, a plan occurred to Max. He advised Josephine, if she thought that de la Tour cared for her, to tell him that she was giving up work in the Hotel Splendide; also that she was leaving Sidi-bel-Abbes forever; and then see what he would say. What he did say was such a blow to the girl's vanity that, when she was sure he had no intention of marrying a poor secretary, she flung the dazzling truth at his face. Repentant, he tried to turn his late insults into honest lovemaking; but the temper of the lynx was roused. Never having deeply loved the man, she took pleasure in using her claws on him. In taunting him with what he might have had, however, she let the identity of the newsbringer leak out.

De la Tour then warned her passionately against le jeune aventurier Americain, and almost frightened the girl into disbelieving the whole story. But proofs were forthcoming, and with the landlord's wife, who enjoyed sharing a borrowed halo, Josephine Delatour—or Josephine Doran—went to Algiers to await Mrs. Reeves's arrival. Meanwhile, with the money she procured from Max, the girl planned to buy herself a trousseau, and eventually departed, rejoicing in her lover's discomfiture. Whether or no this attitude were safe with such a man remained to be seen. As for Max—the messenger who had brought the tidings—since he showed no desire to flirt with her, Josephine saw no reason to be interested in him. Besides, she could hardly believe that he was not somehow to blame for having kept what ought to have been hers for his own all these years. She had not loved her supposed father and mother, who had interfered with her pleasure, disapproving of what they called her extravagance and frivolity.... There was no grief to the girl in learning that the Delatours were not her parents.

Nor did it seem to Josephine that gratitude was due Max for resigning in her favour. She was greedily ready to grab everything, without thanks, just as her lynx-prototype would snatch a piece of meat, if it could get it, from another lynx. She grudged the years of luxury and pleasure which she ought to have had; and could she have realized that she had made of Lieutenant de la Tour an enemy for Max Doran, she would have been glad. It was right that two men should quarrel over a woman.

While he was arranging Josephine's affairs, Max saw nothing of Sanda and Colonel DeLisle. He had thought it best to take up his quarters at another hotel, and his only communication with them was by letter. He wrote Sanda that when his business was finished he would make up his mind what to do; but in any case he hoped that he might be allowed to bid her and Colonel DeLisle farewell. In answer, came an invitation from the Colonel to see the Salle d'Honneur of the Legion, the famous gallery where records of its heroes were kept. "That is," (Sanda said, writing for her father) "if you are interested in the Legion."

"If he were interested in the Legion!" Already he was obsessed by thoughts of it. Sidi-bel-Abbes, which at first had struck him as being a dull provincial town, now seemed the only place where he could have lived through his dark hours. Elsewhere he would have felt surrounded by a gay and happy world in which a man with his back to the wall had no place. Here at Sidi-bel-Abbes was the home of men with their backs to the wall. The very town itself had been created by such men, and for them. For generations desperate men, sad men, starving men, of all countries—men who had lost everything but life and strength—had been turning their faces toward Sidi-bel-Abbes, their sole luggage the secret sorrow which, once the Legion had taken them, was no one's business but their own.

Max Doran could not go into the street without meeting at least a dozen men in the Legion's uniform, who seemed akin to him because of the look in their eyes; the look of those cut off from what had once meant life and love. What they were enduring was unknown to him, but he was somehow at home among them. And the day Josephine went away, before he had yet made up his mind to the next step, for the first time he heard the music of the Legion's band.

It was in the afternoon, and he had strolled outside the Porte de Tlemcen into the public gardens for the music, only because he had an hour to pass before his appointment in the Salle d'Honneur. In winter the band played in the Place Carnot, but on this soft day of early spring the concert was announced for the gardens beloved by the people of Sidi-bel-Abbes. They were beautiful, but to Max it seemed the beauty of sadness; and even there, outside the wall which dead Legionnaires had built, everything spoke of the Legion. Men of the Legion had planted many of the tall trees of the cloistral avenue, whose columnar trunks were darkly draped with ivy. Men of the Legion swept dead leaves from the paths, as they swept away old memories. Men of the Legion walked in the gray shadow of the planes, as they walked in the shadows of life. Men of the Legion rested on the rough wooden benches, staring absently at mourning plumes of cypresses, or white waterfalls that fleeted by like lost opportunities. Yes, despite the flowers in the myrtle borders it was a place of sadness, and of a mournful silence until the musicians brought their instruments into the curious bandstand formed of growing trees. Then it seemed to Max that he heard the Legion speak in a great and wonderful voice.

As by studying a hive one feels the mysterious governing spirit, so he felt the spirit of the Legion in its music, its restlessness, its longings, its passions, and its ambitions, uttered and cried to heaven in prayers and curses. As individuals the men were dumb, guarding their secrets, striving to forget; and it was as if this smothered fire, seeking outlet, had sprung from heart to heart, kindling and massing all together in a vast, white-hot furnace. The music opened the doors of this furnace, and the flames roared upward to the sky. In the dazzling light of that strange fire, secrets could be read, if the eyes that saw were not blinded. Bitterness and joy were there to see, and the blending of all passions through which men ruin their lives, and need to remake their souls. Yes, that was the Legion's call. Men came to it, in the hope of remaking their souls. With his own drowned in the music of pain and regeneration, Max went to the Salle d'Honneur to meet Colonel DeLisle.

He knew where to find it, next to the barracks; a small, low building of the same dull yellow, set back in a little garden with a few palms and flowerbeds. Inside the gate was a red, blue, and white sentry box. But Max entered unchallenged, because at the door of the house stood the colonel, who came down a step to meet him. "Monsieur Doran!" he exclaimed cordially, holding out his hand.

"Will you still offer me your hand, sir," Max asked wistfully, though he smiled, "even if I've no name any more, and no country that I can claim? Mademoiselle DeLisle has told you?"

"She has told me," echoed the elder man, shaking the younger's hand with extra warmth. "I congratulate you on the chance of making a name for yourself. I think from what I hear, and can judge, that you will do so, in whatever path you choose. Have you chosen yet?"

"Not yet," Max confessed. "Neither a name nor the way to make it. Nor the country most likely to make it in."

"As for that"—and Colonel DeLisle smiled—"we of the Legion are more used to men without names and without countries than to those who have them. Not that your case is allied to theirs. Shall we go in? I want to thank you, as I've not been able to do yet, for your chivalrous behaviour to my daughter. She has told me all about that, too—all. And I had a feeling that this room, in which our Legion commemorates honourable deeds, would be a place where you and I might talk."

As he spoke he led Max into a short corridor, at the end of which hung a large frame containing portraits and many names of men and battles with the crest of la Legion Etrangere at the top. Pushing open a door at the right, DeLisle made way for his guest. "Here are all the relics that are to us men of the First Regiment most sacred," he said. And as he passed in, he saluted a flag preciously guarded in a long glass case: the flag of the regiment decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honour on an historic occasion of great bravery. An answering thrill shot through Max's veins, for in them ran soldier blood. Involuntarily he, too, saluted the flag and its cross. Colonel DeLisle gave him a quick look, but made no comment.

Two out of the four walls were covered with portraits of men in uniforms ancient and modern; paintings, engravings, photographs; and the decorations were strange weapons, and torn, faded banners which had helped the Legion to make history. There were drums and weird idols, too, and monstrous masks and great fans from Tonkin and Madagascar, and relics of fighting in Mexico. On the long table lay albums of photographs, and upon either side were ranged chairs as if for officers to sit in council.

"Whenever we wish to do a guest honour, we bring him here," said the colonel. "We are not rich, and have nothing better to offer; except, perhaps, our music."

"I have already heard the music," answered Max. "I shall never forget it. And I shall never forget this room."

"Such music wakes the hearts of men, and helps inspire them to heroic acts like these." Colonel DeLisle waved his hand toward some of the pictures which showed soldiers fighting the Legion's most historic battles. "I am rather proud of our music and our men. This room, too, and the things in it—most of all the flag. My daughter has spent hours in the Salle d'Honneur looking over our records. Presently she will join us. But I wanted to thank you before she came. Corisande is a child, knowing little of the world and its ways. Some men in your place would have misunderstood her—in the unusual circumstances. But you did not. You proved yourself a friend in need for my little girl, on her strange journey to me. I wish in return there might be some way in which I could show myself a friend to you. Can you think of any such way?"

The voice was earnest and very kind. A great reaction from his first prejudice against the speaker swept over Max. Beneath this one voice which questioned him and waited for an answer, he heard as a deep, thrilling undertone the voice of the Legion which had called to him through the music to come and share its bath of fire. A sudden purpose awoke in Max Doran, and he knew then that it had been in the background of his mind for days, waiting for some word to wake it. Now the word had come. All his blood seemed to rush from heart to head, and he grew giddy: yet he spoke steadily enough.

"I have thought of a way, Colonel DeLisle!"

"I am glad. You have only to tell me."

"Accept me as one of your men. Let me join the Legion."

"Mon Dieu!" The Legion's colonel was taken completely by surprise. Max had thought he might perhaps have expected the request, but evidently it was not so. The dapper little figure straightened itself. And from his place beside his adored flag, Colonel DeLisle gazed across to the other side where, close also to the flag, stood the young man he had wished to serve. Max met his eyes, flushed and eager and, it seemed, pathetically young. There was dead silence for an instant. Then DeLisle spoke in a changed tone: "Do you mean this? Have you thought of what you are saying?"

"I do mean it," Max replied. "I believe I have thought of it ever since I saw those men of all countries getting out of the train to join the Legion. I felt the call they had felt. But it is stronger to-day. I know now what I want. In the Salle D'Honneur of the Legion I decide on my career."

"Decide!" the other repeated. "No, not that, yet! You have got this idea into your head because you are romantic. You think you are ruined and that the future doesn't matter. You will find it does. This is no place for poetry and romance—my God, no! It's a fiery furnace. In barracks we should burn the romance out of you in twenty-four hours."

"If I've got more in me than any man who loves adventure ought to have, then I want it burned out," said Max.

"Adventures will cost you less elsewhere," almost sneered DeLisle.

"I don't ask to get them cheap," Max still insisted. "Though I've got nothing to pay with, except myself, my blood, and flesh, and muscles."

"That's good coin," exclaimed the elder, warming again. "Yet we can't take it. You may think you know what you mean. But you don't know what the Legion means. I do. I've had nearly twenty years of it."

"You love it?"

"Yes, it is my life. But—I have to remind you, I entered it as an officer. There is all the difference."

"At least I should be a soldier. I know what a soldier's hardships are."

"Ah, not in the Legion!"

"It can't kill me."

"It might."

"Let it, then. I'll die learning to be a man."

DeLisle looked at his companion intently. "I think," he said, "you are a man."

"No, sir, I'm not," Max contradicted him abruptly. "I used to hope I might pass muster as men go. But these last days I've been finding myself out. I've been down in hell, and I shouldn't have got there if I were a man. I'm a self-indulgent, pining, and whining boy, thinking of nothing but myself, and not knowing whether I've done right or wrong. If the Legion can't teach me what's white and what's black, nothing can."

The colonel of the Legion laughed a queer, short laugh. "That is true," he said. "I take back those words of mine about poetry and romance. You've got the right point of view, after all. And you are the kind of man the Legion wants, the born soldier, lover of adventure for adventure's sake. You would come to us not because you have anything to hide, or because you prefer barracks in France to prison at home, or because some woman has thrown you over," (just there his keen eyes saw the young man wince, and he hurried on without a pause) "but because we've made some history, we of the Legion, and you would like a chance to make some for yourself, under this"—and he pointed to the flag whose folds hung between them—"Valeur et Discipline! That's the Legion's motto, for the Legion itself must be Dieu et Patrie for most of its sons. I've done my duty as a friend in warning you to go where life is easier. As colonel of the First Regiment, I welcome you, if you sincerely wish to come into the Legion. Only——"

"Only what, sir?"

"My daughter! She wanted me to help you. She'll think I've hindered, instead."

"No, Colonel. She hoped I'd join the Legion."

DeLisle looked surprised. "What reason have you for supposing that?"

"Interpreting a thing she said, or, rather, a thing she wanted to say, but was afraid to say for fear I might blame her some day in the future."

"She, knowing nothing of the Legion, recommended you to join? That is strange."

"She knew a little of me and my circumstances. I'd been a soldier, and there seemed only one convenient way for a man without a name or country to start and become a soldier again. Miss DeLisle saw that."

"You're talking of me?" inquired Sanda's voice at the half-open door. Both men sprang to open it for her. As she came into the Salle d'Honneur, she seemed to bring with her into this room, sacred to dead heroes of all lands, the sweetness of spring flowers to lay on distant graves. And as she stepped over the threshold, like a young soldier she saluted the flag.

"I have just said to Colonel DeLisle that you would approve of my joining the Legion," Max explained. "Have I told him the truth?"

The girl looked anxiously from one man to the other. She was rather pale and subdued, as if life pressed hardly even upon her. "You guessed what I wouldn't let myself say in the train the other day!" she exclaimed. "But—you haven't joined, have you?"

"Not yet, or I shouldn't be here. The Salle d'Honneur is for common soldiers only when they're dead, I presume."

"But you could become an officer some day, couldn't he, father?"

"Yes," replied Colonel DeLisle. "Every soldier of the Legion has his chance. And our friend is French, I think, from what you've told me of his confidences to you. That gives an extra chance to rise. France—rightly or wrongly, but like all mothers—favours her own sons. Besides, he has been a soldier, which puts him at once ahead of the others."

"I shouldn't trade on that! I'd rather begin on a level with other men, not ahead of them," Max said hastily. "My object would be not to teach, but to learn—to cure myself of my faults——"

The colonel drew a deep breath, like a sigh. "We do cure men sometimes, men far more desperate, men with souls far more sick than yours. There's that to be said for us."

"His soul isn't sick at all!" Sanda cried out, in defence of her friend.

"Perhaps he thinks it is." Colonel DeLisle looked at Max as he had looked after those chance words of his about a woman.

"Do you think that, Mr. Doran?" the girl questioned incredulously. "I shall be disappointed if you do."

"Don't be disappointed. I do not think my soul is sick. I want to see how strong it can be, and my body, too. But you mustn't call me 'Mr. Doran' now, please. It isn't my name any more. Colonel DeLisle, may I ask your daughter to choose a name for a new soldier of the Legion? It will be the last favour, for I understand perfectly that after I've joined the regiment, as a private soldier, you can be my friends only at heart. Socially, all intercourse must end."

"Oh, no, it wouldn't be so," Sanda cried out impulsively, though the old officer was silent. "It wouldn't, if I were not going away."

"You are going away?" Max was conscious of a faint chill. He would have found some comfort in the thought that his brave little travelling companion was near, even though he seldom saw and never spoke to her.

"Not home to the aunts! I told you I'd never go back to live with them, and my father wouldn't send me. But there's to be a long march—— Oh, have I said what I oughtn't? Why? Since he must know if he joins? Anyhow, I can't stay here many days longer—I mean, for the present. I'm to be sent to a wonderful place. It will be a great romance."

"Sanda, it is irrelevant to talk of that now," Colonel DeLisle reminded his daughter.

"Forgive me! I forgot, father. May I—name the new soldier, and wish him joy?"

DeLisle laughed rather bitterly. "'Joy' isn't precisely the word. If he hoped for it, he would soon be disillusioned. You may give him a name, if he wishes it. But let me also give him a few words of advice. Monsieur Doran——"

"St. George!" broke in Sanda. "That is to be his name. I christen him, close to the flag. Soldier, saint, slayer of dragons." She did not add "my patron saint," but Max remembered, and was grateful.

"Soldier Saint George, then," DeLisle began again, smiling, "this is my advice as your friend and well-wisher: again, I say, why should you not take advantages you have fairly earned? My men are wonderful soldiers. I suppose in the world there can be none braver, few so brave; for they nearly all come to heal or hide some secret wound that makes them desperate or careless of life. They are glorious soldiers, these foreigners of ours! But at the beginning you will see them at their worst in the dulness of barrack life. There are all sorts and conditions, from the lowest to the highest. You may happen to be among some of the lowest. Why not start where you are entitled to start? When, in being recruited, you are asked to state your profession, you're at liberty to say what you choose. No statement as to name, age, country, or occupation is disputed in the Legion. But once more, let me advise you, if you write yourself down "Soldier," things can be made comparatively easy for you."

"I thank you, sir, and I will take your advice in everything else. But I don't want things made easy."

"You may regret your obstinacy."

"Oh, father," pleaded Sanda, "wouldn't you be the very one to do the same thing?"

"In his place," said Colonel DeLisle, shrugging his shoulders, "I suppose I should do what he does. What I might do, isn't the question, however. But I've said enough.... Now I have to get back to barracks. For you, Sanda, this must be 'good-bye,' I fear, to the friend of your journey."

"My friend for always," the girl amended, holding out her hand to Max. "And I'd rather say 'Au revoir' than 'Good-bye'; we shall meet again—away in the desert, perhaps."

She caught her father's warning eye and stopped. "Good-bye, then—Soldier of the Legion."

"If he doesn't change his mind," muttered DeLisle. "There's still time."

Max looked from the girl to the flag in its glass case.

"I shall not change my mind," he said.



CHAPTER XI

FOUR EYES

Beyond the barracks of the Legion, going toward the Porte de Tlemcen, and opposite the drill-ground and cavalry barracks of the Spahis, there is a sign: Bureau de Recrutement.

Early in the morning after taking his resolution, Max walked down the narrow, lane-like way which led off from the Rue de Tlemcen and the long front wall of the Legion's barracks, and found the door indicated by the sign.

In a bare office room, furnished with a table and a few benches, sat a corporal, busily writing. He looked up, surprised to see such a visitor as Max, and was at some trouble to hide his amazement on hearing that this well-dressed young man, evidently a gentleman, wished to enlist in the Legion. Opening off the outer room, with its white-washed walls and display of posters tempting to recruits, was another office, the Bureau du Commandant de Recrutement, and there Max was received by a lieutenant, older than most of the men of that rank in the English or American armies. Something in his manner made Max wonder if the officer had been told of him and his intention by Colonel DeLisle. At first he put only the perfunctory questions which a man entering the wide-open gate of the Legion may answer as he chooses. But when in its turn came an inquiry as to the recruit's profession, the officer looked at Max sharply yet with sympathy.

"No profession," was the answer; a true one, for Max's resignation had already taken effect.

"At present, but—in the past?" the lieutenant encouraged him kindly. "If you have military experience, you can rise quickly in the Legion."

For good or ill, Max stuck to yesterday's resolve, knowing that he might be weak enough to regret it, and anxious therefore to make it irrevocable. "I have done some military service," he explained, "enough to help me learn my duties as a soldier quickly."

"Ah, well, no more on that subject, then!" and the lieutenant sighed audibly. "Yet it is a pity, especially as you are of French birth and parentage, though brought up in America. Your chance of promotion would—but let us hope that by good luck something may happen to give you the chance in any case. Who knows but both your countries may be proud of you some day? Is there—nothing you would care to tell me about yourself that might enable me to advise you later?"

"Nothing with which it is necessary to trouble you, my Lieutenant."

"Bien! It remains then only for you to be examined by the medecin major. You have nothing to fear from his report. Au contraire!"

In an adjoining room two men were already waiting the arrival of the doctor, who was due in a few minutes. One, evidently a Frenchman, with a dark, dissipated face, volunteered the information that he was a chauffeur, whose master had discharged him without notice on account of an "unavoidable accident" at a small town within walking distance of Sidi-bel Abbes. The other, a blond boy who looked not a day over sixteen, announced that he was an Alsatian who had come to Algeria as a waiter in a restaurant car, on purpose to join the Legion, and escape military service as a German. "I shall serve my five years, and become a French subject," he said joyously. "Take hold of my arm. Not bad, is it, for biceps? For what age would you take me?"

"Seventeen," replied Max, adding a year to his real guess.

But it was not enough. The girlish face blushed up to the lint-coloured hair, cut en brosse. "I call myself eighteen," said the child. "Don't you think the doctor will believe me when he feels my muscle?"

"I think he'll give you the benefit of the doubt," Max assured him, smiling.

"No trouble about my age!" exulted the chauffeur. "I am twenty-seven."

He looked ten years older. But a recruit for the Legion may take the age as well as the name he likes best, provided the medecin major be not too critical.

Both his companions were keenly curious concerning Max, and considered themselves aggrieved that, after their frankness, he should choose to be reserved. They put this down to pride. But the Legion would take it out of him! All men were equal there. They had heard that among other things.

Before the stream of questions had run dry through lack of encouragement, the door was thrown open, and in walked the doctor, a big, jovial man, accompanied by the middle-aged lieutenant who had shown interest in Max, and a weary-faced clerk plunged in gloom by a bad cold in the head. As they entered, the two officers looked at Max, and glanced quickly at each other. They had evidently been speaking of him. But his examination was left till the last. The chauffeur of "twenty-seven" and the waiter of "eighteen" were passed as physically fit—bon pour le service: and then came the turn of the third recruit, whose pale blue silk underclothing brought a slight twinkle to the eye of the jolly medecin major. Max wished that it had occurred to him to buy something cheaper and less noticeable. But it was too late to think of that now. At all events, he was grateful for the tact and consideration which had given him the last turn.

"Magnifique!" exclaimed the doctor, when he had pinched and pounded Max, sounded heart and lungs, and squeezed his biceps. "Here we have an athlete." And he exchanged another glance with the lieutenant.

The clerk scribbled industriously and sadly in his book, as Max dressed himself again; and the ordeal was over. When the third recruit of the day had been given a paper, first to read, and then to sign with his new name, his contract for five years to serve the Republic of France was made and completed. Maxime St. George was a soldier of the Legion.

He, with the ex-chauffeur and the ex-waiter, was marched by a corporal through a small side gate into the barrack square; and the guard, sitting on a bench by the guardhouse, honoured the newcomers with a stare. The chauffeur and the waiter got no more than a passing glance, but all eyes, especially those of the sergeant of the guard, focussed on Max. Apparently it was not every day that the little gate beside the great gate opened for a gentleman recruit. Max realized again that he was conspicuous, and resigned himself to the inevitable. This was the last time he need suffer. In a few minutes the uniform of the Legion would make him a unit among other units, and there would be nothing to single him out from the rest. He would no longer have even a name that mattered. In losing his individuality he would become a number. But for a moment he felt like a new arrival in a Zoo: an animal of some rare species which drew the interest of spectators away from luckier beasts of commoner sorts.

The trio of recruits stood together in an unhappy group, awaiting orders from the regimental offices; and the news of their advent must have run ahead of them with magic speed, swiftly as news travels in the desert, for everywhere along the front of the yellow buildings surrounding the square, windows flew open, heads of soldiers peered out, and voices shouted eagerly: "Voila les bleus!" There were only three newcomers, and the arrival of recruits in the barrack square was an everyday spectacle; but something to gaze at was better than nothing at all. Men in fatigue uniform of spotless white, their waists wound round with wide blue sashes, came running up to see the sight, before les bleus should be marched away and lose their value as objects of interest by donning soldier clothes. Max recalled the day of his debut at West Point, a humble, modest "Pleb." This huge, gravelled courtyard, surrounded on three sides by tall, many-windowed barracks, and shut away from the Rue de Tlemcen by high iron railings, had no resemblance to the cadets' barracks of gray stone; but the emotions of the "Pleb" and of the recruit to the Legion were curiously alike. The same thought presented itself to the soldier that had wisely counselled the new cadet. "I must take it all as it comes, and keep my temper unless some one insults me. Then—well, I'll have to make myself respected now or never."

"Les bleus! Voila les bleus!" was the cry from every quarter: and discipline not being the order of the moment for Legionnaires off duty, young soldiers and old soldiers gathered round, making such remarks as occurred to them, witty or ribald. Les bleus were fair game.

As a schoolboy, Max had read in some book that, in the time of Napoleon First, French recruits had been nicknamed "les bleus" because of the asphyxiating high collars which had empurpled their faces with a suffusion of blood. Little had he dreamed in committing that fact to memory that one day the name would be applied to him! Thinking thus, he smiled between amusement and bitterness; but the smile died as a voice whispered in his ear: "For God's sake don't sell your clothes to the Jews. Keep them for me. I'll get hold of them somehow."

The voice spoke in French. Max turned quickly, and could not resist a slight start at seeing close to his, the face which had seized his attention days ago in the railway station.

The man who had then been dressed in dusty black was now a soldier of the Legion, in white fatigue uniform, like all the rest: but the dark face and night-black eyes had the same arresting, tragic appeal. After this whisper, the Legionnaire drew back, his look asking for an answer by nod or shake of the head. Max caught the idea instantly. "By jove! the fellow has made up his mind to desert already!" he thought. "Why? He hasn't the air of a slacker."

There was no language he could choose in this group made up from a dozen countries, which might not be understood by one or all. The only thing was to trust to the other's quickness of comprehension, as the speaker had trusted to his. He held out his hand, exclaiming: "C'est vous, mon ami! Quel chance!"

The ruse was understood. His handclasp was returned with meaning. Every one supposed that le bleu of four days ago and le bleu of to-day were old acquaintances who had found each other unexpectedly.

There was no chance for private speech. A quick fire of interrogation volleyed at the three recruits, especially at Max. "Are you French? Are you German? Are you from Switzerland—Alsace—Belgium—Italy—England?" Questions spattered round the newcomers like a rain of bullets, in as many languages as the countries named, and Max amused himself by answering in the same, whenever he was able.

"How many tongues have you stowed in that fly-trap of yours, my child?" inquired a thin, elderly Legionnaire with a long nose and clever, twinkling eyes. No nation but Holland could have produced that face, and it was unnecessary that the speaker should introduce himself as a Dutchman. "Fourteen years have I served France in the Legion. I have been to Madagascar and Tonkin. Everywhere I have found myself the champion of languages, which is only natural, for I was translator in the State Department at home—a long while ago. But if you can speak eleven you will get the championship over me. I have only as many tongues as I have fingers."

"You beat me by six," laughed Max, and the jealous frown faded.

"Encore un champion!" gayly announced the round-faced youth who had jocosely asked Max if he were a Belgian. "Voila notre joli heros, Pelle."

"Quatro oyos" ("Four Eyes") added a Spaniard. "Papa van Loo can beat you with his tongue; Four Eyes beats with his fists."

Sauntering toward les bleus, with the manner of a big dog who deigns to visit a little one, came a man of average height but immense girth. His great beardless face was so hideous, so startling, that Max gaped at him rudely, lost in horror. Nose and lips had been partly cut away. The teeth and gums showed in a ghastly, perpetual grin. But as if this were not enough to single him out among a thousand, a pair of black, red-rimmed eyes had been tattooed on the large forehead, just above a bushy, auburn line overhanging the eyes which nature had pushed deeply in between protruding cheek and frontal bones.

"Good heavens!" Max blurted out aloud; and the Dutchman cackled with laughter. "You're no Frenchman, boy!" he loudly asserted in English. "Now we've got at your own jargon. Go away, Mister Pelle, you're frightening our British baby. Or is it Yankee?"

An angry answer jumped to the tip of Max's tongue, but he bit it back. So this living corpse was Pelle, the champion boxer of the Legion, who would fight the Frenchman!

The new recruit was ashamed of the sick spasm of disgust that closed his throat. He felt that it was a sign of raw youth and amateurishness, as when a medical student faints at first sight of the dissecting table. He feared that his face had betrayed him to these soldiers, many of whom had hardened their nerves on battlefields. Somehow he must justify himself, and force respect from the men who greeted Van Loo's cheap wit with an appreciative roar.

Pelle was the only one who did not laugh. He came lumbering along in silence as if he had not heard; but Max saw that the boxer was aiming straight for him. The newly christened St. George stood still, waiting to see what the dragon would do. Within three feet of the recruit the hero of the Legion came to a stop and looked the slim figure in civilian clothes slowly over from head to foot, as Goliath may sarcastically have studied the points of David. The whole group was hypnotized, enchanted, each man in white praying that it might be five minutes yet before the corporal returned to shepherd his three lambs. Much can happen in five minutes. Battles can be won or lost! and at anything Pelle might do, under provocation, the powers that were would wink. Not an officer below the colonel but had money on the match which was to come off in the barrack square to-morrow.

All four eyes of Quatro Oyos seemed to stare at the insignificant shrimp of a recruit. Max had but two eyes with which to return the compliment, but he made the most of them. Pelle was not only hideous: he was formidable. The big square head and ravaged face were set on a strong throat. Chest and shoulders were immense, the arms too long, the slightly bowed legs too short. Up went a sledgehammer hand, coated with red hair, to scratch the heavy jowl contemplatively, and Max thought of a gorilla.

"So you don't think I'm pretty, eh?" the boxer challenged him, and Max started with surprise at sound of the Cockney accent, which came with a hissing sound from the defaced mouth. Pelle was an Englishman!

The start was misunderstood, not only by the champion of the Legion, but by the surrounding Legionnaires, who tittered.

"Sorry if I was rude," remarked Max, with an air of nonchalance, to show that he was ready for anything.

"That's no way to apologize," said Pelle. "Don't look at me like that. You'll have to learn better manners in the Legion."

"A cat may look at a king," retorted the recruit. "And as for manners, I won't ask you to teach them to me."

"Why, you damned little Yankee spy, do you want to be pinched between my thumb and finger as if you was a flea?" bellowed the boxer.

"Try it, and you'll find the flea can bite before he's pinched," said Max. His heart was thumping, for despite his knowledge of la boxe he knew that he might be pounded into a jelly in another minute. This man was a heavyweight. He was a lightweight. But whatever happened he would show himself game; and at that instant nothing else seemed much to matter.

Somewhat to his surprise, Pelle burst out laughing. "Hark to the bantam!" he exclaimed in French—execrable French, but a proof that he was no newcomer in the Legion. "If you weren't a newspaper spy, my chicken, I'd let you off for your cheek. But we have heard all about you. Lieutenant de la Tour of the Spahis knows. He's told every one. It doesn't take long for news to get to the Legion. I'm going to teach you not to write lies about us for your damned papers. We get enough from Germany. So I shall make chicken jelly of you. See!"

"All right. Come on!" said Max, more cheerfully than he felt. For his one chance was in his youth and the method he had learned from the lightweight champion of the world.

A ring formed on the instant, to screen as well as to see the spectacle. Here would be no rounds timed by an official, no seconds to encourage or revive their men. The encounter, such as it was, would be primitive and savage, asking no quarter and giving none. But Max felt that his whole future in the Legion depended on its issue.



CHAPTER XII

NO. 1033

For a second the contestants eyed each other.

A strange hush seemed to fall upon all, a situation always present in affairs of this kind. It was noticeable to Max. "It might well be said that a calm always preceded a storm," Max reflected, and then he heard a voice speak close to his ear.

He dared not turn his head for fear of a sudden onslaught by his antagonist, but even as low as the tone was, he recognized the voice—it was the same voice that had begged him stealthily for his civilian clothes!

"Beware of his foot," said the voice. "He's English, but he fights French fashion with la savate."

Max had not expected the savate from an Englishman, and he was very glad of the warning.

It flashed through his brain just what the terrible savate could accomplish—a lightning-like kick landing on the jaw of an adversary, being much more crushing and damaging than the hardest punch.

The warning came just in time, for he had only a brief chance to steady himself when Four Eyes rushed at him like a maddened bull.

As he neared Max he let go two terrific swings, first with his left and then with his right hand, but his smaller opponent side-stepped with the nimbleness of a cat, and Pelle rushed by two or three steps before he could stop.

At once he turned with a lithe movement, surprisingly graceful for a body so big, and made ready as though to once more swing his two flail-like fists.

Again did Max set himself to dodge Pelle's punches, but instead of letting his two hands fly, one after the other, he bent his huge body back from the waist, and at the same time shot his right foot upward toward the other's face.

It was a fearful kick, and had it landed on Max's jaw it would have ended the fight then and there, indeed, if it did not break his neck. But that whispered warning about the savate was Max's salvation.

With a quick backward jerk of his head he saved himself—just barely saved himself—and the big foot shot harmlessly up into the air, Pelle almost losing his balance in the unsuccessful effort.

Before the latter could really regain his footing Max stepped in and, with left and right, landed full on his opponent's face, the last of the two punches coming flush on the nose with smashing force. It rocked the amazed Pelle back on his heels.

Moreover, the surprise at the force of the blow was not greater than the surprise at the sudden knowledge of the fact that the "Yankee Spy" was no bungling amateur, but that he had all the ear-marks of a skilled professional.

Well, he could not be fooled again, and on top of this thought came a heavy grunt as Max again stepped in and swung a swift right hook to his stomach and then jumped out of harm's way.

This blow took Pelle's wind and he began to dance around on his toes with the lightness of thistledown, despite his discomfiture, while all the time he watched the clever Max between half-closed eyes, waiting for another chance to deliver that awful kick where it would surely put the other out of business.

Now and then the big man would try an occasional swing at his elusive opponent, but it was more of an attempt to cover up his real intention rather than to land effectively. Well he knew that his best and quickest chance to end the fight lay in his ability to kick the other man insensible, and so he tried to fool and disarm Max by a bluff attack.

In this manner they danced about each other for a short space; the American, apparently whenever he chose, stepped in and landed left and right on the other's jaw with a sound like the crack of a whip.

There was a snap to Max's punches, a snap that stung and made an impression, and so while the big man almost exploded with fury at the gruelling he had to go through as his graceful adversary jumped in and out and banged him, he still nursed his best blow—the murderous kick!—holding it in reserve until the right moment.

Finally, in the course of Max's punishing onslaught, in which he was leaping in and out with unceasing agility, he—stumbled! This was just what Pelle was waiting for, and then, like the fillip of a spring-board, the heavy boot went toward Max's head!

Though he saw it start, and though he swung his head back, Max could not escape it altogether, and it grazed his chin. For an instant the barrack yard and the white-clad ring of men swam before his eyes. It seemed as though an iron bolt had entered his chin and gone through the top of his head, but he did not quite lose all presence of mind, though he did bend away from the other until he almost fell on his own back.

Pelle saw his advantage and, with a yelp of joy, jumped forward and swung his other foot. As he did so reason returned to Max and with it came a blind rage at the other's unfairness.

With the quickness of a panther, and with the strength of ten men, he swung his slim body sideways and then bent forward to let go a vicious right-hand swing—flush to the other's jaw!

The kick missed Max—missed him by a hair—but the punch landed, landed with every ounce of bone and muscle behind it that Max had in his body.

Down crashed the champion on the back of his skull, with a thud amid a spatter of gravel!

For an instant the huge form lay still, while the ring of Legionnaires remained petrified. Suddenly the group realized that the fighting cock had been beaten by the bantam.

Then, with visions of "cellule" for every one concerned, four or five men sprang to pick up the champion. As they got him to his feet, blood poured from his swollen and disfigured nose. Coming slowly to himself, Pelle wiped it away dazedly with the back of a hairy hand, anxious, even in semi-consciousness, to preserve the purity of his uniform, sacred in the Legion.

Max stood his ground, rather expecting to be attacked in revenge by some of Pelle's angry allies; and the man who had warned him to beware of "la savate" took a step nearer him. But both were new to the Legion Etrangere, and did not yet know the true spirit of the regiment.

Only admiring looks were turned upon the astonished young conqueror, who was rather surprised at his own easy victory. As Pelle came to himself in his friends' arms, the big fellow staggered forward, holding out a bloodstained paw.



CHAPTER XIII

THE AGHA'S ROSE

Sanda did not know, and would not know for many days, the news of Sidi-bel-Abbes, for she had started on a long journey, to the "wonderful place" of which she would have spoken to Max had she not been warned by her father's word and look that the story was "irrelevant."

If Sanda had tried to tell the tale of that "romance" at which she had hinted in the Salle d'Honneur, she would have had to begin far back in time when, after his wife's death, Georges DeLisle had by his own request been transferred to the Legion. His first big fight had been in helping the Agha of Djazerta against a raid of Touaregs, the veiled men of the South, brigands then and always. Since those days, DeLisle and Ben Raana, the great desert chief, had been friends. More than once they had given each other aid and counsel. When Ben Raana came north with other Caids, bidden to the Governor's ball in Algiers, he paid DeLisle a visit. Each year at the season of date-gathering he sent the colonel of the Legion a present of the honey-sweet, amber-clear fruit for which the oasis of Djazerta was famous; and the officer sent to the Agha a parcel of French books, or some new invention in the shape of a clock, such as Arabs love. Now he was sending his daughter.

The way of it was this: just before Sanda's surprise arrival, the Agha of Djazerta, chief of the Ouled-Mendil, had written a confidential letter to Colonel DeLisle. He had a young daughter whom he adored. Foolishly (he began to think) he had let her learn French, and allowed her to read French novels. These books had made the girl discontented with her cloistered life. Being the only child, and always rather delicate, perhaps she had been too much spoiled. Greater freedom than she had could not be granted; but seeing her sad Ben Raana had asked himself what he could do for her happiness. Before long she would marry, of course; but it had occurred to him that meanwhile it might be well if a companion could be found who would be a safe friend for a girl of Ourieda's position and religion. Did Colonel DeLisle know of any young gentlewoman, English or French, who would be willing to come to Djazerta? She must be educated and accomplished, but above all trustworthy; one who would not try to make Ourieda wish for a life that could never be hers: one who would not attempt to unsettle the child's religious beliefs. In writing this letter Ben Raana had shown a naif sort of conceit in his own broad-mindedness, which would have been rather comic if it had not been pathetic. But to DeLisle it was only pathetic, because, European though he was, he knew the hidden romance of the Agha's life: his worship of a beautiful Spanish wife who had died years ago, and for love of whom he had vowed never to take into his harem any other woman, although he had no son. His nearest male relative was a nephew, to whom DeLisle imagined that some day Ourieda would be married, though the young man was at least a dozen years older than she.

When the letter came, Colonel DeLisle knew of no such person as Ben Raana asked for; but he had not answered yet when Sanda unexpectedly appeared. Hardly had he recovered from the first shock of his surprise when he remembered the great march soon to be undertaken—a march ostensibly for maneuvers, but in reality to punish a band of desert raiders, and later, men of the Legion were to begin the laying of a new road in the far south, even beyond Djazerta. There would be no long rest for the colonel of the First Regiment for many months, consequently he would be unable to keep Sanda with him. She did not want to go back to France or Ireland, so she was told about the Agha of Djazerta and the sixteen-year-old girl, Ourieda, whose Arab name meant "Little Rose."

Next to staying at the headquarters of the Foreign Legion with its colonel, Sanda liked the idea of going into the desert and living for a while the life of an Arab woman with the daughter of a great chief of the south. The more she thought of it, the more it appealed to her. Besides, when her father pointed out Djazerta on the map, and not more than twenty kilometres away the douar, or tribal encampment under the rule of Ben Raana, she noticed that they seemed to be scarcely a hundred kilometres distant from Touggourt. Probably Richard Stanton would be spending many days or even weeks at Touggourt before he set off across vast desert spaces searching for the Lost Oasis. So the girl said to Colonel DeLisle that, since she could not at present stay with him, she would like beyond everything else such a romantic adventure as a visit to the Agha's house.

The one objection was that, if she went at all, she must start at once, because there was at the moment a great chance for her to travel well chaperoned. A captain of the Chasseurs d'Afrique had just been ordered from Sidi-bel-Abbes to Touggourt, and was leaving at once with his wife. They could take Sanda with them: and at Touggourt Ben Raana would have his friend's daughter met by an escort and several women servants. It was an opportunity not to miss; though otherwise Colonel DeLisle might have kept the girl with him for a fortnight longer.

Sanda would have liked to bid Max good-bye, or if that were not possible, to write him a letter. But DeLisle said it "would not do." Not that the newly enlisted soldier would misunderstand: but—he would realize why he heard nothing more from his colonel's daughter. She need not fear that he would be hurt. So Sanda could send only a thought message to her friend, and perhaps it reached him in a dream, for the night of her departure—knowing nothing of it—he was back again in the dim cabin of the General Morel gazing through the dusk at a long, swinging plait of gold-brown hair.

Sanda, with Captain Amaranthe and his wife, travelled to Oran, thence to Biskra, and from Biskra on the newly finished railway line to Touggourt. It was there that, twenty-two years ago, the beautiful Irish girl who had run away from home to her soldier lover, joined Georges DeLisle and married him. Sanda thought of that, and thought again also that in a few months more Richard Stanton would come to Touggourt for the getting together of his caravan. These two thoughts transformed the wild desert town with its palms, and tombs of murdered sultans, and its frame of golden dunes into a magical city of romance. She felt that some great thing ought to happen to her there. It was not enough that Touggourt should give her a first glimpse of the true Sahara. She wanted it to give her more. Nor was it enough that she should be met there by an escort of Bedouins with a chief's nephew at their head, and negro women to be her servants, and a white camel of purest breed for her to ride, she being hidden like an Arab princess in a red-curtained bassourah. All this was wonderful, and thrilling as an Eastern story of the Middle Ages; but it meant nothing to her heart. And something deep down in her expected more of Touggourt even than this. She told herself that a place with such associations owed more to a child of Georges DeLisle and Sanda De Lisle; and even when she and her cavalcade started away from the great oasis city, winding southward among the dunes, she still had the conviction that some day, before very long, Touggourt would pay its debt.

Ben Raana had done what he could to honour Colonel DeLisle through his daughter. He had sent a fine caravan to fetch the girl to Djazerta, and according to the ideas of desert travellers, no luxury was lacking for her comfort. His half-sister's son, Sidi Tahar Ben Hadj, had under him some of the best men of the Agha's goum, and there were a pair of giant, ink-black eunuchs to guard the guest and her two negresses. Silky-soft rugs from Persia lined her bassourah on the side where she would sit, the balance being kept on the other by her luggage wrapped in bundles; and the whole was curtained with sumptuous djerbi, striped in rainbow tints. Over the djerbi, to protect her from the sun, or wind and blowing sand, were hung heavy rugs made by the women of the Djebel Amour mountains, the red and blue folds ornamented by long strands and woollen tassels of kaleidoscopic colours. Sanda's camel (like that of Ben Hadj and the one which carried the two negresses) was a mehari, an animal of race, as superior to ordinary beasts of burden as an eagle is nobler than a domestic fowl. There was a musician among the camel-drivers, chosen especially—so said Ben Hadj—because he knew and could sing a hundred famous songs of love and war. Also he was master of the Arab flute, and the raeita, "Muezzin of Satan," strange instrument of the wicked voice that can cry down all other voices.

Lest the men should misunderstand and think lightly of the Agha's guest, his nephew did not look upon Sanda's face after the hour of meeting her at Touggourt, in the presence of her friends, until he had brought the girl to his uncle's house, three days later. She was waited upon only by the women and the two black giants who rode behind the white camels: and altogether Sidi Tahar Ben Hadj was in his actions an example of that Arab chivalry about which Sanda had read. Nevertheless she was not able to like him.

For one thing, though he had a fine bearing and a good enough figure (so far as she could tell in his flowing robes and burnous), in looks he was no hero of romance, but a disappointingly ugly man. Ourieda, the Agha's daughter, was only sixteen, and Tahar was supposed to be no more than a dozen years her elder, but he appeared nearer forty than twenty-eight. He had suffered from smallpox, which had marred his large features and destroyed the sight of one eye. It had turned white and looked, thought Sanda, like the eye of a boiled fish. He wore a short black beard that, although thick, showed the shape of a heavy jaw; and his wide-open, quivering nostrils gave him the look of a bad-tempered horse. Although he could speak French, he seemed to the girl singularly alien and remote. Sanda wondered if he had a wife, or wives, and pitied any Arab woman unfortunate enough to be shut up in his harem.

On the third morning the great dunes were left behind, and the bassourahs no longer swayed like towers in a rotary earthquake with the movements of the camels. Far away across a flat expanse of golden sand, silvered by saltpetre, a long, low cloud—blue-green as a peacock's tail—trailed on the horizon. It was the oasis of Djazerta, with its thousands of date palms.

At first the vision seemed to float behind a veil of sparkling gauze, unreal as a mirage; but toward noon it brightened and sharpened in outline, until at last the tall trees took individual form, bunches of unripe dates beneath their spread fan of plumes hanging down like immense yellow fists at the end of limp, thin arms cased in orange-coloured gloves.

There was a chott, or dried desert lake, glistening white and livid blue, full of ghostly reflections, to cross; but once on the other side all the poetic romance of fairy gardens and magic mirrors vanished. The vast oasis rose out of earthy sand and cracked mud; and the houses piled together beyond it were no longer cubes of molten gold, but squalid, primitive buildings of sun-dried brick crowding each other for shade and protection, their only beauty in general effect and bizarre outline.

"Am I to live in one of those mud hovels?" Sanda wondered. She was not disheartened even by this thought, for the novelty of the whole experience had keyed her up to enjoy any adventure; still it was a relief to go swaying past the huddled town, and to stop before a high, white-washed wall with a small tower on each side of a great gate. Over the top of the wall Sanda could see the flat roof of a large, low house, not yellow like the others, but pearly white as the two or three minarets that gleamed above the fringe of palms.

Somebody must have been watching from one of the squat towers by the gate—each of which had a loophole-window looking out over the caravan way—for even before the head man of the cavalcade could reach the shut portals of faded gray palm-wood, both gates were thrown open, and a dozen men in white rushed out. They uttered shouts of joy at sight of Sidi Tahar Ben Hadj, as though he had been absent for months instead of a few days, and some of the oldest brown faces bent to kiss his shoulders or elbows.

Sanda saw a bare courtyard paved only with hard-packed, yellow sand; and the long front of the house with its few small windows looked unsympathetic and unattractive. The girl felt disappointed. She had imagined a picturesque house, a sort of "Kubla Khan" palace in the desert; and she had expected that perhaps Ourieda and her father, the Agha, would come ceremoniously out through a vast arched doorway to welcome her. But here there was not even the arched entrance of her fancy, only two small doors set as far as possible from one another in the blank facade. Sanda's mehari was led in front of the eastern door, which was pulled ajar in a secretive way. One of the big negroes helped her out of the bassourah as usual, when he had forced the white camel to its knees; and to her surprise the other black man made of his long white burnous a kind of screen behind which she might pass without being seen. The women servants—already out of their bassourah—came hurrying along to join her, silver bracelets a-jingle, chattering encouragement in Arab, scarcely a word of which could Sanda understand.

Inside the house was a queer kind of vestibule, evidently intended for defence, with a jutting screen of wall behind the door, and then a passage with a sharp turn in it, and seats along the sides. A very old, withered negro let them in; and still it seemed to the girl an unfriendly greeting for her father's daughter, one who had come so far. But in a minute more she gave a little cry of pleasure, and suddenly understood the mystery. This part of the house was the harem, secret and sacred to the women, since the very meaning of the word "harem" is "hidden."

She had been ushered through a long, dim corridor, with a sheen of pink and purple tiles halfway up the white wall to the dark wood of a roughly carved ceiling, and instead of coming into a room at the end, she walked unexpectedly into a large fountain court, bright with the crystal brightness of spraying water and the colour of flowers, shaded with orange trees whose blossoms poured out perfume.

Perhaps it was not such a wonderful place really, for the house walls were only of sun-dried sand-brick, white-washed till they gleamed like snow in sunlight; and the wooden balustrades of the narrow balcony that jutted out from the upper story were but roughly carved in stars and crescents, and painted brown to represent cedarwood. Yet it was a picture. The stem of the octagonal tiled fountain was of time-worn, creamy marble; the white house was draped with cascades of wistaria, and pale pink bougainvillea; underneath the shadow of the overhanging balcony ran wall-seats covered and backed with charming old tiles of blue and white "ribbon" design; on them were spread white woollen, black-striped rugs delicately woven by Kabyle women; Tuareg cushions of stamped leather, and pillows of brilliant purple and gold brocade silk. Though no grass carpeted the earthy sand, there were beds of gorgeous flowers under the orange and magnolia trees that patterned the yellow sand with lacy shadow, and a girl like an Arabian Nights' princess stopped feeding a tame gazelle and a troop of doves, to come forward shyly at sight of Sanda. She was the soul of the picture for the moment. Sanda did not even see that there were other women in it. Nothing counted except the girl. Everything else was a mere background or a frame.

There was but a second of silence before words came to either, yet that instant impressed upon Sanda so sharply, so clearly, every detail of Ourieda's fantastic beauty, that if she had never seen the girl again, she could by closing her eyes have called up the vision.

The oval face was so fair and purely chiselled that it seemed Greek rather than Arab. The golden-brown eyes were large and full of dazzling light as the sun streamed into them under the curve of their heavy black lashes. But though they were bright they were very sad, keeping their infinite melancholy while the red lips smiled—the sad, far-off gaze of a desert creature caged. So long were the lashes that they curled up almost to the low-drawn brows which drooped toward the temples; and that droop of the eyebrows, with the peculiar fineness of the aquiline nose and the downward curve of the very short upper lip, gave a fatal and tragic look to the ivory face framed in dark hair. On either side its delicate oval fell a thick brown braid, not black, but with a glint of red where the light struck; and though Ourieda's hair was not so long as Sanda's, the two plaits lying over the shoulders and following the line of the young bust fell below the waist. The girl wore a loose robe of coral-red silk, low in the neck, and belted in with a soft, violet-coloured sash. Over this dress was a gandourah of golden gauze with rose and purple glints in its woof; and a stiff, gold scarf was wound loosely round the dark head. The colours blazed like flaming jewels in the African sunshine. As the Agha's daughter moved forward smiling her sad little smile, there came with her a waft of perfume like the fragrance of lilies; and the tinkling of bracelets on slender wrists, the clash of anklets on silk-clad ankles, was like a musical accompaniment, a faintly played leit motif. Perhaps Ourieda had dressed herself in all she had that was most beautiful in honour of her guest.

As usual, Sanda forgot herself with the first thrill of excitement. In her admiration she did not realize that the other girl was self-conscious, a little frightened, a little anxious, and even distrustful. It would have seemed incredible to Sanda DeLisle that any one on earth, even an inmate of a harem, could possibly be afraid of her.

She held out both hands impulsively, exclaiming in French: "Oh, are you Ourieda? But you are beautiful as a princess in a fairy story. You are worth coming all this long way to see!"

Then the Arab girl's smile changed, and for an instant was radiant, unclouded by any thought of sadness. She took Sanda's little gloved hands, and, pressing them affectionately, bent forward to kiss her guest on both cheeks. Her lips were soft and cool as flower petals, though the day was hot, and the scent of lilies swept over Sanda in a fragrant wave. As she kissed the stranger, Ourieda made little birdlike sucking sounds, in the fashion of Arab women when they would show honour to a favoured friend. First she kissed Sanda's right cheek, the right side of the body being nobler because the White Angel walks always on the right, jotting down in his book every good deed done; then she kissed the left cheek, since it is at the left side of man or woman that the wicked Black Angel stalks, tempting to evil acts, and hastily recording them before they can be repented.

"Why, you are as young as I am, and white and gold as the little young moon, and very, very sweet, like honey!" cried the girl, in French as good as Sanda's, though with the throaty, thrushlike notes that Spaniards and Arabs put into every language. "I am glad, oh, really glad, that you have come to be with me! Now I see you I know I was foolish to be afraid."

Sanda laughed as they stood holding each other's hands and looking into each other's eyes. "Afraid of me?" she echoed. "Oh, you couldn't have been afraid of me!"

"But I was," said Ourieda. "I was afraid until this minute."

"Why?" asked Sanda. "Did you fancy I might be big and old and cross, perhaps with stick-out teeth and spectacles, like Englishwomen in French caricatures?"

Ourieda shook her head, still gazing at her guest as if she would read the soul whose experiences had been so different from her own. "No, I have never seen any French caricatures," she answered. "I hardly know what they are. And I did not think you would be old, because the Agha, my father, told me you were but a baby when he first knew your father, the Colonel DeLisle. Still, I did not understand that you would look as young as I do, or that you would have a face like a white flower, and eyes with truth shining in them, as our wise women say it shines up like a star out of darkness from the bottom of a well."

"In my country they say the very same thing about truth and a well," returned Sanda, blushing faintly under the oddly compelling gaze of the sad young eyes. "But do tell me why you felt afraid, if you didn't think I should be old and disagreeable?"

Suddenly the other's face changed. A queer look of extraordinary eagerness, almost of slyness, transformed it, chasing away something of its soft beauty. "Hush!" she said, "we can't talk of such things now. Some time soon, perhaps! I forgot we were not alone. I must introduce you to my Aunt Mabrouka, my father's widowed half-sister, who"—and her voice hardened—"is like a second mother to me."

She stepped back, and an elderly woman, who had stood in the background awaiting her turn (though far from humbly, to judge by the flashing of her eyes), moved forward to welcome the Roumia—the foreigner.

Then for the first time Sanda realized that Ourieda, the soul of the picture, was not the only human figure in it besides herself. Lella[1] Mabrouka was a personality, too, and if she had been a woman of some progressive country, marching with the times, most probably she would have been among the Suffragists. She would have made a handsome man, and indeed looked rather like a stout, short man of middle age, disguised as an inmate of his own harem. She was dressed in white, Arab mourning, considered unlucky for women who have not lost some relative by death, and her square, wrinkled face, the colour of bronze, was dark and harsh in contrast. If she had not been partly screened by a great flowering pomegranate bush as she sat in her white dress against the white house wall, Sanda would have seen her on entering the court; but it was hopeless to try and appease the lady's scarcely stifled vexation with apologies or explanations. Lella Mabrouka, being of an older generation, had not troubled to learn French, and could understand only a few words which her naturally quick mind had assorted in hearing the Agha talk with his daughter. Ourieda acted as interpreter for the politeness of her aunt and guest, but Sanda could not help realizing that all was not well between the two. A tall old negress (introduced by the girl as a beloved nurse), a woman of haggard yet noble face, stood dutifully behind Lella Mabrouka, but stabbed the broad white back with keen, suspicious glances that softened into love as her great eyes turned to the "Little Rose."

[Footnote 1: Lella, lady.]

Honey could be no sweeter than the words of welcome translated by Ourieda, and when Sanda's answers had been put into Arabic, Lella Mabrouka received them graciously. Soon aunt and niece and servant were all chattering and smiling, offering coffee and fruit, and assuring the Roumia that her host was eagerly awaiting permission to meet her. Yet Sanda could not rid herself of the impression that some hidden drama was being secretly played in this fountain court of sunshine and flowers.



CHAPTER XIV

TWO ON THE ROOF

"Come up on the roof with me, and I will tell you that thing I have been waiting to tell you," said Ourieda. "Aunt Mabrouka will not follow us there, because she hates going up the narrow stairs with the high steps. Besides, she will perhaps think I really want to show you the sunset."

Sanda had been in the Agha's house for three days, and always since the first evening a fierce simoon had been hurling the hot sand against the shut windows like spray from a wild golden sea. It had not been possible to sit in the fountain court of the harem, the hidden garden of the women, protected though it was by four high walls. Sanda and Ourieda had scarcely been alone together for more than a few minutes at a time, and even if they had been, Ourieda would not have spoken. As she said, she had been waiting. Sanda had felt, during the three days, that she was being watched and studied, not only by Lella Mabrouka, but by the girl. Their eyes were always on her; and though Sanda DeLisle was very young, and had never tried consciously to become a student of human character, it seemed to her, in these new and strange conditions of life which sharpened her powers of discernment, that she could dimly read what the brains behind the eyes were thinking.

Lella Mabrouka's eyes, though old (as age is counted with Arab women) were beady-bright and keen as a hawk's, yet she was clever enough to veil thought by wearing the expressionless mask of an idol in the presence of the girls. Sanda had to pierce that veil; and she felt as if from behind it a hostile thing peered out, spying for treachery in the new inmate of the house, hoping rather than fearing to find it, and ready to pounce if a chance came. The stealthy watcher seemed to be saying, "What are you here for, daughter of Christian dogs? You must have some scheme in your head to defeat our hopes and wishes; but if you have, I'll find out what it is, and break it—break you, too, if need be."

No sinister thing looked out from the eyes of Ourieda, but something infinitely sad and wistful kept repeating: "Can I trust you? Oh, I think so, I believe so, more and more. But it is so desperately important to be certain. I must wait a little while yet."

Always, through the countless inquiries of Lella Mabrouka and the girl about France and England (Ireland meant nothing to them) and Sanda's bringing up, and the life of women in Europe, the visitor was conscious of the real questions in their souls. But on the third day the feverish anxiety had burnt itself out behind Ourieda's topaz-brown eyes. They were eager still, but clear, and her wistful smile was no longer strained. Whatever the burden was that she hid, she had decided to beg Sanda's help in carrying or getting rid of it. And instinctively realizing this, Sanda ceased to feel that the Arab girl was of an entirely different world from hers, remote as a creature of another planet. The Agha's daughter was transformed in the eyes of her guest. From a mere picturesque figure in a vivid fairy tale, she became pathetically, poignantly human. Sanda began to hear the call of another soul yearning to have her soul as its friend, and all that was warm and impulsive in her responded. A thrill of expectation stirred in her veins when, on the evening of the third day, after the wind had died a sudden, swift death, Ourieda whispered the real reason for going up to the roof.

Sanda had been looking forward to mounting those narrow stairs (with the steep steps which Lella Mabrouka hated), because Ourieda had several times spoken of the view far away to the dunes, and the wonderful colours of sunrise and sunset, when the sky flowered like a hanging garden. Perhaps the Arab girl had been cleverly "working up" to this moment, so that the suggestion, made instantly after the death of the simoon, might seem natural to her aunt. In any case it was as Ourieda had hoped. Lella Mabrouka did not follow the girls.

When they came out on the flat white expanse of roof, Sanda gave a cry of surprised admiration. She had known it would be beautiful up there, to see so far over the desert, but the real picture was more wonderful than her imagination could have painted. The sun had just dropped behind the waving line of dunes and dragged the fierce wind with him like a tiger in leash. All the world was magically still after the constant purring and roaring of the new-conquered beast. The voice of the Muezzin chanting the sunset call to prayer—the prayer of Moghreb—seemed only to emphasize the vast silence. Up from the shimmering gold of the western sky, behind the gold of the dunes, slowly moved along separate spears of flame-bright rose, like the fingers of a gigantic Hand of Fatma spread across the sapphire heaven to bless her father's people. From this flaming sign in the west poured a pink radiance as of falling rubies. The wonderful light rained over the marble whiteness of the distant mosque—the great mosque of Djazerta—and fired the whole mass of the piled oasis-town behind its dark line of palms. The light showered roses over the girls' heads and dresses, stained the snow of the roof, with its low, bubbling domes, and streaming eastward turned flat plain and far billowing dune into a sea of flame.

Sanda's spirit worshipped the incredible beauty of the scene, and then flew northward to the two men whom she loved. She thought of her father, and wondered where Richard Stanton was at that moment. Then Max Doran's face came between her and the man she had named "Sir Knight." She remembered her dream of herself and Max in the desert, and was vexed because she had not dreamed the same dream about Stanton instead.

"How wonderful it is here!" she half whispered, and Ourieda answered impatiently:

"Yes, it is wonderful; but don't let us talk of it, or even think of it any more, because I have so much to say to you, and Aunt Mabrouka will send to call us if my father comes. Besides, we can see this on any night when the wind does not blow."

She had in her hand a large silk handkerchief tied in the form of a bag; and sitting down on the low, queerly battlemented wall which protected the flat roof, she untied and opened the bundle on her lap. It was full of yellow grain, and she gave Sanda a handful. "That's for the doves," she said. "They will know somehow that we are here, and presently they will come. If Aunt Mabrouka sends her own woman, Taous, up to listen and spy on us she will find us feeding the doves."

"But why should Lella Mabrouka do such a thing?" Sanda ventured to ask, taking the grain, and seating herself beside Ourieda.

"You will understand that, and a great many other things, when I have told you what I am going to tell," answered the "Little Rose." "From books my father has let me read, and from things you have said, I have seen that Roumia girls are not like us, even in their thoughts. Perhaps you are thinking now that I am very sly; and so I am, but not because I love slyness. It is only because I have to be subtle in self-defence against those who are older and wiser than I am. Everything in our lives makes us women stealthy as cats. It is not our fault. At least, it is not mine. Some women—some girls—may enjoy the excitement, but not I. Perhaps I am different from others, because I have the blood of Europe in my veins. My father's mother was Sicilian. My own mother was Spanish. And he, my father, is an enlightened man, with broader views and more knowledge of the world than most Caids of the south. They all pride themselves on knowing a little French in these days, he tells me, and some have even made visits to Paris once in their lives. But you know already what he is."

"Yes, he is a magnificent man," Sanda agreed, "even greater than I expected from what my father said of him."

She had met the Agha only once, for a ceremonious half-hour on the evening of her arrival at his house, when he had begged permission as of a visiting princess to see and welcome her; yet this punctiliousness was not neglect, but Arab courtesy; and Ben Raana had talked to her of the world in general and Paris in particular, in French, which, though somewhat stilted and guttural, was curiously Parisian in wording and expression. He was one of the handsomest men she had ever seen, scarcely darker in colour than many Frenchmen of the Midi, and marvellously dignified, with his long black beard, his great, sad eyes whose overhanging line of brow almost met above the eagle nose, and the magnificent gray, silver embroidered burnous worn in the guest's honour. He had appeared to Sanda years younger than the widowed Mabrouka; and though she was a dark, withered likeness of him, it was not surprising to learn that Lella Mabrouka was only a half-sister of the Agha, born of an Arab mother.

"You know he has had but one wife, my own mother," Ourieda said proudly. "That is considered almost a sin in our religion, yet he could never bring himself to look with love on any woman, after her, nor to give her a rival, even for the sake of having a son. I adore him for that—how could I help it, since he says I am her image?—and for letting me learn things Arab girls of the south are seldom taught, in order that I may have something of her cleverness that held his love, as her beauty won it. Yet, if he had married a second wife when my mother died, and she had given him a son, my life would be happier now."

"How can that be?" asked Sanda. "I couldn't love my father in the way I do if he had put somebody else in my mother's place, and spoiled all the beautiful romance."

"My father's romance with my mother was like a strange poem, for she was the daughter of Catholic Spanish people, who had an orange plantation near Blida, and wished her to enter a convent. But my father rode by with some French officers and saw her on her way to church. That one look decided their whole lives. Yes, it would have been a pity to spoil their romance; yet, keeping its poetry is spoiling mine."

"You mean your Aunt Mabrouka. But a stepmother might be worse."

"No, it isn't only Aunt Mabrouka I am thinking of. It is her son, who is my father's heir because he has no son of his own. My father is very enlightened in many ways, but in others he is as narrow and hard as the rest of our people, who hold to their old customs more firmly than they hold to life. My father intends me for the wife of Si Tahar, who met and brought you to our house."

Sanda could not keep back a little gasp of dismay. "Oh, no! it's not possible!" she cried. "You're so beautiful, and so fair. He's so—so——"

"Hideous. Don't be afraid to say the word to me. I love you for it. But because Tahar's not deformed from birth, and the strength and beauty of the line isn't threatened, his looks make no difference to my father. To him it seems far more important that I should be the wife of the heir, so that money and land need not be divided after his death, than that I should love my husband before my marriage. You see, that can hardly ever happen to a girl of our race and religion. If Tahar were not my cousin I should never even have seen him, nor he me. And if I had not seen him, it would perhaps be a little better, for there would be the excitement and mystery of the unknown. We are brought up to expect that; and if already I hadn't learned to dislike Tahar for his own sake and his mother's, I should be no worse off than other girls—except for one thing: the great thing of my life."

Her voice fell lower than before, and her companion on the wall had to bend close to catch the whisper. "What is that thing?" Sanda dropped the words into a frightened pause, while Ourieda's glance went quickly to the well of the staircase.

"It is what I came here to tell you about," the Arab girl answered. "I forced myself to wait, but now I am sure of you as if you were my own sister. We are going to open our hearts to each other. Do you know what it is to have a man in your life—a man who is not father or brother, and yet is of great importance to you; so great that you think of him by day and dream of him by night?"

"Yes, there are two such men in my life," Sanda replied; and was surprised at herself that she should have said two. More truly there was only one man, not counting her father, who had a place in her thoughts.

"Two men!" Ourieda echoed, looking shocked. "But how can there be two?"

Sanda felt herself blushing and ashamed before the woman of another race. She tried to explain, though it was difficult, because she had given the answer without stopping to think: indeed, it had almost spoken itself. "I fancy I said that because you asked me about dreams," she apologized. "The man who has been my hero all my life—and always will be, I suppose, though he doesn't care for me and thinks of me as a child—I can't dream of, for some strange reason. He's seldom out of my thoughts by day for very long, I believe; but the other—I hardly know why I mentioned him!—is only a friend, and quite a new friend. He's nothing to me at all, really, though I'm interested in him because of the strange way we met and were thrown together. But the odd thing is, I dream of him—often."

"The women of my people say it is the man you dream of who has touched your soul," Ourieda said thoughtfully.

"That's a very poetical idea, but I'm sure it isn't true!" Sanda exclaimed. "Now tell me about yourself, because if Lella Mabrouka should send——"

"Yes, I am, oh, so anxious to tell you! But what you said about the man of your thoughts and the man of your dreams was very queer, and made me forget for an instant. I am glad you love some one, for that will help you to understand me, and by and by you will tell me more. Already I can see that you must be almost as unhappy as I am, because you say the one you care for doesn't care for you. That must be terrible, but you are free, and perhaps some day you can make him care. As for me, if I am not saved soon, I shall be married to Tahar and lost forever."

"But surely your father, who loves you so dearly, won't actually force you to marry against your will?"

"He will expect me to obey, and I shall have to obey or—kill myself. Rather that, only—oh, Sanda, I am a coward! At the last minute my courage might fail. The one thing my father would promise was that I should be left as I am till my seventeenth birthday. That very day is fixed for the beginning of the marriage feast. We shall have a whole week of rejoicing. Think of the horror of it for me! I had a year of hope when he made the promise. Now I have less than six months. And in all that time nothing has happened."

Sanda saw by the girl's look and guessed by the quiver of her voice that she was not speaking vaguely. There was something in particular which she had been praying for, counting upon from day to day. And that thing had not happened.



CHAPTER XV

THE SECRET LINK

The Hand of Fatma was gone from the sky. Ruby had turned to amethyst, amethyst to the gray-blue of star sapphire, and the red fire of the dunes had burned out to an ashen pallor. The change had come suddenly while the girls talked; and when Sanda realized it, she shivered a little, with a touch of superstition she had learned from her two Irish aunts. All this cold whiteness after the jewelled blaze of colour was like the death of youth and hope. She pushed the thought away hastily, telling herself it had come only because Ourieda had threatened to put an end to her own life rather than marry Tahar; yet it would not go far away. Like a vaguely visible, ghostly shape it seemed to stand behind the Arab girl as she talked on, telling the story of her childhood and a love that had grown with her growth.

There was another cousin, it appeared, the son of her mother's sister. He was all Spanish. There was not a drop of Arab blood in his veins, unless it came through Saracen ancestors in the days when Moorish kings reigned over Andalusia.

"You know, now you've been with us even these few days," Ourieda said, "that the harem of an Arab Caid isn't a nest of wives, as people in Europe who have never seen one suppose! My father has laughed when he told me Christians believed that. Now, Aunt Mabrouka and I and our servants are the only women in my father's harem; but when I was a little girl, before my mother died—I can just remember her—besides my mother herself there was her sister, whose Spanish husband had been drowned at sea. An Arab man thinks it a disgrace if any women related even distantly to him or his wife are thrown on the world to make their own living. It could never happen with an Arab woman if she were respectable. And even though my mother's sister was Spanish and a Christian, my father offered her and her boy a home. Already his own sister, Aunt Mabrouka, had come to stay with us, and had brought her son Tahar. Neither of the boys lived in the harem of course, for they were old enough to be in the men's part of the house, and have men for their servants; but they came every day to see their mothers. Even then, though I was a tiny child, I hated Tahar—and loved Manoeel Valdez. Tahar had had smallpox, and looked just as he looks now, only worse, because he has a bad chin that his beard hides; and Manoeel was handsome. Oh, you can't imagine how handsome Manoeel was! He was like the ideal all girls, even Arab girls, must dream of, I think. I can see him now—as plainly as I see you in this sad, pale light that comes up from the desert at night."

"Is it long since you parted?" Sanda asked quickly, to put away that persistent thought of trouble.

"We parted more than once, because when our two mothers died, one after another, of the same sickness—typhoid fever—Manoeel was sent away to school. He's nine years older than I am—twenty-five now; a little more than three years younger than Tahar. My father sent him to the university in Algiers, because, you see, he was Christian—or, rather, he was nothing at all then; he had not settled to any belief. Tahar was like Aunt Mabrouka, very religious, and did not care much to study, except the Koran and a little French. He went once to Paris, but he didn't stay long. He said he was homesick. Oh, he is clever in his way! He has known how to make himself necessary to my father."

"And Manoeel Valdez?" asked Sanda.

"My father loved him when he was a boy, because he was of the same blood as my mother. Although Aunt Mabrouka was jealous even then—for she ruled in the house after my mother's death—she couldn't prejudice my father's mind against Manoeel, hard as she tried. Manoeel was free to come here when he liked, for his holidays, or to the douar if we were there; and he loved life under the great tent. He had a wonderful voice, and he could sing our Arab songs as no one else ever could. Father wished him to be a lawyer, and gave money for his education, because we Arabs often need lawyers who understand us. But Manoeel cared more for music than anything else—except for me. When I was eight and he was seventeen I told him I meant to marry him when I grew up, and he said he would wait for me. I suppose he was only joking then; but the thought of him and the love of him in my heart made me begin to grow into a woman sooner than if I had had only the thoughts of a child. It was like the sun opening a flower bud. When he was away I felt hardly alive. When he came back from Spain to our house or to our tent in the douar I lived—lived every minute! It was three years ago, when I was thirteen, that he began to love me as a woman. I shall never forget the day he told me! I was not hadjaba yet. Do you know what that means? I was considered to be a child still, and I could go out with my aunt to the baths, or with one of our servants, unveiled. I was not shut up in the house as I am now. But in my heart I was a woman, because of Manoeel. And when he came home after nearly a year in Seville and other parts of Spain he felt and saw the difference in me. We were in the douar, and life was free and beautiful. For three months Manoeel and I kept our secret. He said he would do anything to have me for his wife. He would even become Mohammedan, since religion meant little to him, and love everything. He had no money of his own, but he had been told that he could make a fortune with his voice, singing in opera, and he had been taking lessons without telling my father. A Frenchman—is "impresario" the right word?—was having his voice trained, and by and by Manoeel would pay him back out of his earnings. We used to call ourselves "engaged," as girls and men in Europe are engaged to each other in secret. But one day, soon after my thirteenth birthday, Aunt Mabrouka, who must have begun to suspect and spy on us, overheard us talking. She told my father. At first he wouldn't believe her, but he surprised me into confessing. I should never have been so stupid, only, from what he said, I thought he already knew everything. After all, it was so little! Just words of love, and some dear kisses! He suspected there was more; and if I hadn't made him understand, he might have killed Manoeel, and me, too. But even as it was, my father and Aunt Mabrouka hurried me from the douar in the night, before Manoeel knew that anything had happened. I was brought here; and never since have I been outside this garden without a veil. It was months before I went out at all. And Manoeel was sent away, cursed by my father for ingratitude and treachery, warned never to come again near Djazerta or the douar as long as he lived, unless he wished for my death as well as his."