Part 28 (2/2)

Max would have liked to break the mirror, but, instead, he saw that it was safely hung on one of the tent-hooks and supported by a brightly painted Moorish chest.

As he stepped out of the tent when all was finished and ready for the bride--even to a vase of orange blossoms brought by the priest from Touggourt--the caravan, which had been moving slowly at the last, had not yet arrived. Two elderly Arabs hovered near, however, the men who lived in the oasis to guard the well and the date palms in season. As Max spoke to them in his laboured Arabic he saw in the distance the form of a woman. Standing as she did, in the open ground with no trees between her and the far silver horizon, she was a n.o.ble and commanding figure, slender and tall like a daughter of the palms. She was for Max no more than a graceful silhouette, majestically poised, for he could not see her face, or even be sure that the effect of crown and plumes on her high-held head was not a trick of shadow. Indeed it seemed probable that it was a mere illusion, for crowns and waving plumes were worn by desert dancers, and it did not appear likely that a wife or daughter of the well-guardians should be so adorned.

As he exchanged elaborate compliments with the Arabs the woman's figure vanished and he thought no more of it, for Sanda and Stanton were arriving. Max turned away his eyes as Stanton took the bride out of her ba.s.sourah and half carried her toward their tent without waiting to thank the man who had placed it. Max busied himself feverishly in superintending the arrangements of the camp, which Stanton had asked him as his ”lieutenant” to undertake that night.

The kneeling camels were tethered in long lines. No zareba would be raised, for there would be many a long march before the caravan reached perilous country. Here a fire could be built, for there was no danger in showing smoke and raising a rose-red glow against the silver. The unveiled women, whom Stanton had diplomatically allowed to accompany their husbands, began to cook supper for the men; couscous and coffee and thin, ash-baked bread. It was a long time since Stanton had taken Sanda to the tent under the little grove of palms, but he had given no orders yet for food to be prepared. Max thought it unlikely that he should be asked to eat with them, but if he were invited he intended to refuse. In spite of himself, he could not help glancing now and then toward the tent. The door-flaps had not been let down, but there was no light inside. Turning involuntarily that way, as iron turns to a magnet, at last he saw a man and woman come out of the tent. But the woman was not Sanda!

Max realized this with a shock. He saw both figures for an instant painted in blue-black against the light, khaki-coloured canvas. The woman was very tall, as tall as Stanton, and on her head was something high, like a crown set with plumes. Stanton led her away, walking quickly. They went toward the low, black tents of the guardians of the oasis.

Max stood still with a curious sensation of being dazed after a stunning blow half forgotten. How long he remained without moving he could not have told. His eyes had not followed the two figures very far. They returned to the tent and focussed there in anguish. Some scene there must have been between those three. He was not surprised when, after a short time--or a long time, he did not know which--Sanda appeared. He wondered if his soul had called her, and she was coming in answer to the call.

She hesitated at first, as if not sure where to go. Then catching sight of him at a distance, with the light of the fire ruddy on his face, she began to run. Almost instantly, however, she stopped, paused for a second or two, and it seemed to Max that she swayed a little as if she might fall. He started toward her with great strides; but he had not taken more than three or four when he saw that she was walking slowly but steadily straight toward him. He felt then, with a mysterious but complete certainty, that she wished him to go no farther, but to wait.

He stopped, and in a moment she was by his side. She did not speak, but stood with her head drooping. Max could not see her face. After the first eagerly questioning glance he turned his eyes away. She did not wish him to look at her or break the silence. He held his tongue, but he was afraid she might hear the pounding of his heart and his breath coming and going. If she did she would guess that he knew something which, perhaps, she did not mean to let him know. At last, however, he could bear the strain no longer; besides, Stanton might come back. If there were anything he could do for her, if she wanted him to take her away--G.o.d! how his blood sang at the thought of it!--there was no more time to waste.

His tone sounded flat and ineffectual in his own ears as he spoke. The effort to keep it down to calmness made it almost absurd, as it would have been to mention the weather in that tingling instant. He asked simply: ”Is there something--something I can do?”

”No,” she said. ”Nothing, thank you. Nothing any one can do.”

The voice was not like the voice of Sanda, which Max had once compared in his mind to the ripple of a brook steeped in suns.h.i.+ne. It was thin and weak, almost like the voice of a little, broken old woman. But, praise heaven, she was young, so very young that she would live this down, and, some day, almost forget. If she would let him take her back to Sidi-bel-Abbes after all! This marriage by a priest without sanction of the law need not stand. She was not a wife yet, but a girl, oh! thank G.o.d for that! It was not too late. If only he could say these things to her. But it seemed that he must stand like a block of wood and wait for her to point the way.

”Are you--perhaps you're homesick?” he dared to give her a cue.

”Homesick?” Her voice broke and, instead of being like an old woman's, it was like a little child's. ”Yes, that's it, I'm homesick! And--and I think I'm not very well. I want my father, I want him so much!”

The heart of the man who was not her father yearned toward the girl.

”Shall I take you back?” he panted. ”We're not far past Touggourt.

To-morrow it will be too late, but now--now----”

”Now it's already too late. Oh, Soldier! to have yesterday again!”

He did not ask her what she meant. He did not need to ask.

”It can be yesterday for you,” he urged.

”No. Yesterday I was Sanda DeLisle. To-day I'm Sanda Stanton. Nothing can change that.”

”If you're unhappy your father can change it. You see, it's only the church that----”

”_Only_ the church!”

”Forgive me. But the law would say----”

”It doesn't matter to me what the law would say. It's the thing what you don't think matters that matters entirely to me. And even if it were so--even if I were--unhappy instead of only homesick, and somehow ill, I wouldn't go back if I could. I've written to my father. And that priest from Touggourt will have told the Amaranthes. Every one knows. It would be a disgrace to----”

”No! Not to you.”

”I think it would. And to Richard. I have taken him by storm and almost forced him to marry me. I would die and be left alone in the desert rather than disgrace him in the world's eyes just when he's starting out on the crowning expedition of his life.”

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