Part 31 (1/2)

”Since that fellow is above taking a message, go you, and deliver it,”

roared Stanton, repeating in Arabic the orders flung at Max. ”Her ladys.h.i.+p knows enough of your language to understand. Say to her, if she isn't at my tent door in ten minutes I'll fetch her. She won't like that.”

Max had not meant to go near Sanda, but fearing insult for her from the Arab woman, he changed his mind, and put himself between Ahmara and Sanda's tent. As the tall figure in its full white robes came floating toward him in the moonlight, he blocked the way. But the dancer did not try to pa.s.s. She paused and whispered sharply: ”Thinkest thou I want the girl to go to him? No, I'd kill her sooner. But he is watching. Let me only tell her to beware of him. If she is out of her tent when he searches, what can he do? And by to-morrow night I shall have had time to make him change his mind.”

”You shan't speak to Mrs. Stanton if I can help it,” said Max. ”Besides, I won't trust you near her. You're a she-devil and capable of anything.”

”Speak to her at the door thyself, if thou art afraid my breath will wither thy frail flower,” Ahmara sneered. ”Tell her to escape quickly into the shadows of the oasis, for the master will not care to lose his dignity in hunting her. As for thee, thou canst run to guard her from harm, as thou hast done before when she wandered, and I will carry word to the Chief that the White Moon refuses to s.h.i.+ne for him. In ten minutes he will set out to fetch her, according to his word; but when he finds her tent empty he will return to his own with Ahmara, I promise thee, to plan some way of punishment. Shelter thy flower from that also if thou canst, for it may not be to my interest to counsel thee then, as it is now.”

Max turned from the dancer without replying, and she hovered near while he spoke at the door of Sanda's tent, within which the light had now gone out.

”Mrs. Stanton!” he called in a low voice. ”Mrs. Stanton!”

Sanda did not answer; and he called for the third time, raising his voice slightly, yet not enough for Stanton to hear at his distance.

Still all was silence inside the tent, though it was not five minutes since the light had been extinguished, and Sanda could hardly have fallen asleep. Could she have heard what he and Ahmara were saying? He wondered. It was just possible, for he had stepped close to the tent in barring the dancer away from it. If Sanda had heard hurrying footsteps and voices she might have peeped through the canvas flaps; and having made an aperture, it would have been easy to catch a few words of Ahmara's excited whispers.

”Perhaps she took the hint and has gone,” Max thought; and an instant later a.s.sured himself that she had done so, for the pegs at the back of the tent had been pulled out of the sand. The bird had flown, but Max feared that it might only be from one danger to another. In spite of the friendly reception given to the caravan at Darda, a young woman straying from camp into the oasis would not be safe for an instant if seen; and in the desert beyond Sanda might be terrified by jackals or hyenas. Bending down Max saw, among the larger tracks made by himself and the men who had helped him pitch the tent, small footprints in the sand: marks of little shoes which could have been worn by n.o.body but Sanda. The toes had pressed in deeply, while the heelprints were invisible after the first three or four. As soon as she was out of the tent, Sanda had started to run. She had gone away from the direction of the dying fire, in front of which the men of the caravan still squatted, and had taken the track that led toward the oasis. There was a narrow strip of desert to be crossed, and then a sudden descent over rocks, down to an _oued_ or river-bed, which gave water to the mud village high up on the other side. This was the way the oasis dwellers had taken after a visit of curiosity to the camp; and as the night was bright and not cold, some might still be lingering in the _oued_, bathing their feet in the little stream of running water among the smooth, round stones. Max followed the footprints, but lost them on the rocks, and would have pa.s.sed Sanda if a voice had not called him softly.

The girl had found a seat for herself in deep shadow on a small plateau between two jutting ma.s.ses of sandstone.

”I saw you,” she said as he stopped. ”I wondered if you would come and look for me.”

”Weren't you sure?” he asked. ”When I found the tent-pegs up, I knew you'd gone; and I followed the footprints, because it's not safe for you to be out in the night alone.”

”Safer than in my tent, if he----” she began breathlessly, then checked herself in haste. She was silent for a minute, looking up at Max, who had come to a stand on the edge of her little platform. Then, for the first time since she had begged him to join the caravan instead of going back to Bel-Abbes, she broke down and cried bitterly.

”What am I to do, Soldier?” she sobbed. ”You know--I never told you anything, but--you _know_ how it is with me?”

”I know,” said Max.

”I've been always hoping I should die somehow, and--and that would make an end,” the girl wept. ”Other people have died since we have started: three strong men and a woman, one from a viper's bite and the others with fever. But I can't die! Soldier, you never _let_ me die!”

”I don't mean to!” Max tried to force a ring of cheerfulness into his voice, though black despair filled his heart. ”You've got to live for--your father.”

”I hope I shall never see him again!” she cried sharply. ”He'd know the instant he looked into my eyes that I was unhappy. I couldn't bear it.

Oh, Soldier, if only I had let you take me back when you begged to, even as late as that morning--before Father Dupre came out from Touggourt.

But it makes things worse to think of that now--of what might have been!”

”Let's think of what will be, when we get through to Egypt,” Max encouraged her.

”I don't want to get through. The rest of you, yes, but not I! Soldier, what am I to do if he tries to make--if he won't let me go on living alone?”

”He _shall_ let you,” said Max between his teeth.

”You mean that you--but that would be the worst thing of all, if you quarrelled with him about me. You've been so wonderful. Don't you think I've seen?”

Max's heart leaped. What had she seen? His love, or only the acts it prompted?

”Don't be afraid, that's all,” he said. His voice shook a little. As her face leaned out of the shadow looking up to him, lily-pale under the moon, he feared her sweetness in the night, feared that it might break down such strength as he had and make him betray his secret. How he would hate himself afterward, if in a mad moment he blurted out his love for this poor child who so needed a faithful friend! In terror of himself he hurried on. ”Better let me take you back now,” he suggested almost harshly. ”You can't stay here all night.”