THE HEART OF MAX

Max had resigned himself days ago to Juan Garcia's desertion from the Legion, since the girl must be saved. But he was far from happy about his own position. The danger was that the day when he was due to report himself at Sidi-bel-AbbÉs would come and he would be absent. His letter of explanation ought to have arrived by that time, but it might be considered the trick of a deserter. And even when he appeared, the news of Garcia's desertion from his caravan must be told. The loss of a man would be a black mark against him, and he would probably forfeit the stripe on which he had been congratulated by the colonel.

There was consolation in the thought of seeing Sanda again, and the certainty that she would "stand up" for him; but he did not realize just how much that consolation would mean, until, after the delay of a day and a half, word came that Mademoiselle DeLisle was ready to leave her friend. The caravan had been assembled and waiting for the last hour, and Max knew that the bride must have gone to her husband's tent. The music had been wilder than before, the women's cries of joy louder and more triumphant; and while he had been examining the trappings of Sanda's camel a procession had gone by carrying aloft several big boxes draped with brocade and cloth-of-gold: the bride's luggage on its way to her new home. The feasting in the tente sultane would continue all that night, as on other nights; but OurÏeda and Tahar would be left quietly in the tent of the bridegroom, alone until after dawn, when Tahar would steal away and the girl's women friends would rush in to wish her joy. That would be the hour, Max told himself, when all would be found out, and the chase would begin. He had seen ManÖel once since the last details of the plot to rescue OurÏeda had been settled. He knew that ManÖel had sent a letter to her through Sanda, to whom it had been given; but he was not sure if Sanda had been warned of the part she would have to play.

It was of this, more than the personality of Sanda herself, that he thought, as he waited, expecting her to come out from the Agha's tent. But instead, she came from another direction, and he did not recognize the slim figure in Arab dress until the well-remembered voice spoke through the white veil:

"It is—my Soldier St. George!" Sanda cried in English, and a thrill ran through the young man's blood. He forgot all about himself, his risks and his perplexities, and nothing seemed to matter except that Sanda DeLisle had come back into his life—the girl whose long, soft hair brushed his face in dreams, the girl who had saved his belief in womanhood and raised up for him, in his black need, a new ideal.

A tall negro woman, whose forehead was a strip of ebony, whose eyes were beads of jet above her snowy veil, accompanied Mademoiselle DeLisle, and the two had arrived from the bridegroom's tent, where doubtless Sanda had been bidding the bride good-bye. Max realized that her attendant would be shocked if he should offer to shake hands with the girl, so he only bowed, and answered hastily in English that he was glad—glad to see her again—glad to have the honour of being her guide. Khadra was brought forward, and Sanda spoke a few words to her in Arabic. Then the girl was helped into her bassourah, luggage being brought out by eunuchs from the Agha's tent and packed in to balance the other side. Only when the Roumia had retired behind the blue and red and purple curtains did Ben RÂana appear to wish his friend's daughter and messenger the blessing of Allah on their journey. The caravan started, and it was not until after the douar, with its green daya and background of trees, was dim in the distance that Sanda's curtains parted. Max, riding the only horse in the party, saw the trembling of the rainbow-coloured stuff, and glanced up, expectant. He found that his heart and all his pulses were hammering, and as the girl's gold-brown head appeared, her veil thrown off, something seemed to leap in his breast, something that gave a bound like that of a great fish on a hook. She looked down and smiled at him rather sadly, yet more sweetly it seemed to Max than any other woman had ever smiled. He had not realized or remembered how beautiful she was. Why, it was the most exquisite face in the world! An angel's face, yet the face of a human girl. He adored it as a man may adore an angel, and he loved it as a man loves a woman. A great and irresistible tide of love rushed over him. What a fool, what a young, simple fool he had been to think that he had ever loved Billie Brookton! That seemed hundreds of years ago, in another incarnation, when he had been undeveloped, when his soul had been asleep. His soul was awake now! Something had awakened it; life in the Legion, perhaps, for that had begun to show him his own capabilities; or else love itself, which had been waiting to say: "I am here, now and forever."

Max was almost afraid to look at Sanda lest she should read through his eyes the words written on his heart. But then he remembered in a flash her love for Stanton, which would blind her to such feelings in other men. He felt sick for an instant in his hopelessness. Wherever he turned, whatever he did, happiness seemed never to be for him.

"You don't know how glad I am to see you!" the girl explained. "I've thought of you so often and—" she was going to add impulsively—"and dreamed about you, too!" but she remembered the Arab saying which OurÏeda had told her: that when a woman dreams of a man, that is the man she loves. It was a silly saying, and untrue; yet she kept back the words in a queer sort of loyalty to Stanton—Stanton, who neither thought nor dreamed of her.

"I was so thankful when I heard my father had sent for me," she quickly went on. "I heard about it only through that letter—you know the one I mean."

"Yes, I know," said Max. "I felt they didn't mean to tell you till the last minute, though I could see no reason why. I—I was more than glad and proud to be the one to come."

He was not hoping unselfishly that Colonel DeLisle mightn't have told in his letter how the great march and the expected fight had been sacrificed for her sake. He was not hoping this, because in his sudden awakening to love he had forgotten the march. He was thinking of Sanda and the wild happiness that would turn to pain in memory of being with her for days in the desert. If, when he reached Sidi-bel-AbbÉs, he were blamed for the delay, and punished by losing his stripe, or even by prison, it would be nothing, or almost a joy, because he would be suffering for her.

"It was only to-day they gave me father's letter, which you brought," Sanda was saying. "It was short, written in a hurry, in answer to one I sent begging him to take me away. Yet he mentioned one thing: that he didn't order you, but only asked if you were willing, to come. And he told me what you answered. I can never thank you, but I do appreciate it—all!"

"It was my selfishness," answered Max. "I said that the colonel was giving me the Cross of the Legion of Honour. I felt that, then. I feel it a lot more now." There was more truth in this than he wished her to guess.

"You are the realest friend!" cried Sanda. "Why, do you know, now I come to think of it, unless I count my father, you are the only real friend I have in the world?"

"You forget Mr. Stanton!" Max reminded her, without intending to be cruel.

She blushed, and Max hated himself as if he had brought the colour to her face with a blow.

"No," she answered quietly. "I never forget him. But you understand, because I told you everything, that in my heart I can't call him my friend. He doesn't care enough, and I—care too much."

"Forgive me!" Max begged. "All the same I know he must care. He wouldn't be human not to."

"He isn't human! He's superhuman!" She laughed, to cover her pain of humiliation. "I suppose—long ago—he has started out on his wonderful mission. I keep thinking of him travelling on and on through the desert, and I pray he may be safe, and succeed in finding the Lost Oasis he believes in. He told me in Algiers that to find it would crown his life."

"He hadn't started when I left Touggourt," Max said rather dryly.

"What—he was still there? Then my father must have seen him. How strange! He didn't refer to him at all."

"You mentioned that the colonel wrote in a hurry." Max hinted at this explanation to comfort her, but he guessed why DeLisle had not been in a mood to speak of Stanton to his daughter. "There is a reason," he had said, "why I don't want to ask Stanton to put off starting and go to Djazerta." And Max, having seen the dancer, Ahmara, had known without telling what the reason was.

"Do you think Richard may be there when we get to Touggourt?" she asked, shamefaced, yet not able to resist putting the question.

"I think it's very likely." Max tried to keep his tone at reassuring level, though he hoped devoutly that Stanton might be gone. He could not bear to think of his seeing Sanda again after the Ahmara episode. With a man of Stanton's strange, erratic nature and wild impulses, who could be sure whether—but Max would not let the thought finish in his mind.

Sanda suddenly dropped the subject. Whether this was because she saw that Max disliked it, or whether she had no more to say, he could not guess.

"Tell me about yourself, now," she said. "My father has told me some things in letters, but I long to know from you if I made a mistake in wanting you to try the Legion."

"You made no mistake. It's one of the things I have to thank you for—one of several very great things," said Max.

"What other things? I can't think of one unless you thank me for having a splendid father."

"That's one thing."

"Are there more?"

"Yes."

"Tell me, please. Anyway, the greatest, or I shan't believe in any."

Max was silent for an instant. Then he said in a voice so low she could hardly hear it, bending down from her bassourah, "For giving me back my faith in women."

"I? But you hadn't lost it."

"I was in danger of losing it, with most of my mental and moral baggage. Through you—I've kept the lot."

"That's the most beautiful thing ever said to me. And it does me so much good after all I've gone through and been blamed for!"

"Who's dared to blame you for anything?"

"I asked you to tell me about yourself. When you have done that I'll tell you things that have happened here, things concerning ManÖel Valdez and OurÏeda—poor darling OurÏeda, whom I ought to be thinking of every instant! And so I am, only I can't help being happy to get away—with you."

There was sweet pain in hearing those last words, and the emphasis the caressing girl-voice gave. Max hurried through a vague list of such events as seemed fit for Sanda's ears. They were not many, since he did not count his fights among the mentionable ones. He told her, with more detail, about his acquaintance with Valdez, whose face she had remarked at the railway station at Sidi-bel-AbbÉs; and then claimed her promise. She must tell him, if she would (with a sudden drop from the happy way of Max Doran with women to the humbler way of Max St. George, Legionnaire), what she had gone through in the Agha's house.

She began by asking a question. "Didn't you think it queer that no one but a servant came out to see me off?"

"I did a little, but I put it down to Arab manners."

"It was because I left in disgrace. Oh! no one was ever rude! They were polite always. It was like being stuffed with too much honey. And I don't mean OurÏeda, of course. OurÏeda's a darling. I'd do anything for her. I've proved that! Did my father give you any idea why he had to send for me in a hurry, though he has to leave me alone—or rather in charge of people I don't know—at Bel-AbbÉs? He must have told you something, as he asked such a sacrifice."

"He needn't have told me anything at all. But he took me into his confidence—it was like him—far enough to say the Agha was offended somehow, and you were anxious to leave."

"I should think the Agha was offended! I tried to help OurÏeda to escape, even though she hadn't heard from her ManÖel. She had lots of jewels, and thought she might get to France. We failed in our attempt, and after that we were never alone together, though they—her father and aunt—didn't want me to go till she was married. The idea at first was—when I arrived, I mean—that my visit shouldn't end till father came back. They meant me to stop on with OurÏeda, as she and her husband would live at her old home at Djazerta. The last plot wasn't mine. It was got up by an old nurse they'd sent away, and a weird woman, a kind of Arab beauty-doctor. But all the same they were afraid of me. They longed to have me gone, yet, for their own superstitious, secretive reasons, they were afraid to let me go. As I had to stay so long, I'd rather have stopped a little longer, so as to know what becomes of OurÏeda. They made me say good-bye to her in Tahar's tent, where she is waiting, all dressed up like a doll, till the hour at night when her husband chooses to come to her. Instead, we hope—— But I can hardly bear it, not to know! Shall we ever know?"

"It may be a long time before ManÖel can send us any word," said Max. "But we shall hear, I suppose, about Tahar."

"Oh, ManÖel doesn't mean to kill him, does he? OurÏeda said he wouldn't do that! But Arab women are so strange, so different from us, I don't believe she'd care much if he did; except that if he were a murderer they could seize him, even in another country—Spain, where they both hope to go when they can get out of Djazerta."

"ManÖel wouldn't care much, either, except for that same reason," Max admitted. "But he does care for that. He intends only to surprise and stun Tahar. He doesn't want his life with OurÏeda spoiled, for he'll be a public character, you know, if he succeeds in escaping from Algeria. He'll be a great singer. He can take back his own name."

"Why not France?" Sanda wanted to know. "Surely France would be better for a singer than Spain, or even Italy?"

"Perhaps, but, you see, he has had to desert from the Legion. In France he could be brought back to Algeria to the penal battalion."

"Oh, I hadn't thought of that!"

"It was—a hateful necessity, his deserting."

Sanda looked at him anxiously. "Will it make trouble for you?"

"Possibly. I hoped it needn't happen. But it had to. There was no other way in the end."

"How he must love OurÏeda, to risk all that for her sake!"

"He risked a great deal more."

"What—but, oh, yes, you told me! The way he came into the Legion, and all that. I wonder—I wonder if there are many men in the world who would do as much for a woman?"

"I think so," said Max quietly. "You don't count the cost very much when you are in love."

He was to remember that speech before many days.

"They're wonderful, men like that!" Sanda murmured. "And there's more risk to come, for OurÏeda and himself. A little for us, too, isn't there?"

"Not for you, please God! And very little for any of us. But I see you know what ManÖel expects to happen."

"Oh, yes, that they'll run after us, thinking that he has followed with OurÏeda, to join our caravan. I do hope the Agha will send his men after us, for that will make us sure those two have got away. If we hear sounds of pursuit we'll hurry on quickly. Then the chase will have farther to go back, and ManÖel and OurÏeda will gain time. The more ground we can cover before we're come up with by the Agha's camels, who'll be superior to ours, the better it will be, won't it?"

"Yes, for if the Agha lets Djazerta alone, ManÖel may contrive to slip out of the town sooner than he dared hope, well disguised, in a caravan of strangers not of Ben RÂana's tribe. In that case the Agha of Djazerta would have no right to search among the women. And ManÖel's splendid at disguise. His actor's training has taught him that."

"I feel now that he will get OurÏeda out of the country. They've suffered too much and dared too much to fail in the end."

"I hope so; I think so," Max answered. But he knew that in real life stories did sometimes end badly. His own, for instance. He could see no happy ending for that.

They pushed on as fast as the animals could go when a long march and not a mere spurt of speed was before them. Through the mysterious sapphire darkness of the desert night the padding feet of the camels strode noiselessly over the hard sand. Sanda asked Max to offer extra pay to the men if they would put up with an abbreviated rest. Only three hours they paused to sleep; and then, in the dusk before dawn, when all living things are as shadows, the camels were wakened to snarl with rage while their burdens were ruthlessly strapped on again. As Max gave Sanda a cup of hot coffee (which he had made for her, as Legionnaires make it, strong and black) she said, shivering a little, "Do you think they'll have found Tahar yet if—if——"

"Hardly yet! Not till daylight," answered Max. "Are you cold? These desert nights can be bitter, even in summer. Won't you let me put something more around you?"

"No, thanks. It's only excitement that makes me shiver. I'm thinking of OurÏeda and ManÖel. I've been thinking of them instead of sleeping. But I'm not tired. I feel all keyed up; as if something wonderful were going to happen to me, too."

Something wonderful was happening to Max. But she had no idea of that. She would never know, he thought.

All day they journeyed on, save for a short halt at noon, and Max was happy. He tried to recall and quote to himself a verse of Tennyson's "Maud"—"Let come what come may; What matter if I go mad, I shall have had my day!" He was having his day—just that one day more, because on the next they would come to Touggourt, and if Stanton were there he would spoil everything.

At night they went on till late, as before; but the camel-men said that the animals must have a longer rest. Luckily it did not matter now if they were caught. If ManÖel and OurÏeda had escaped they had had a long start. A little after midnight the vast silence of the sand-ocean was broken with cries and shoutings of men. The Arabs, not knowing of the expected raid, stumbled up from their beds of bagging and ran to protect the camels; but Max, who had not undressed, walked out from the little camp to meet a cavalcade of men.

Ben RÂana himself rode in advance, mounted on a swift-running camel. In the blue gloom where the stars were night lights Max recognized the long black beard of the Agha flowing over his white cloak. None rode near him. Tahar was not there. Max took that as a good sign.

"Who are you?" demanded the uniformed Legionnaire in his halting Arabic. "In the name of France, I demand your business."

Ben RÂana, recognizing him also, impatiently answered in French, "And I demand my daughter!"

"Your daughter? Ah, I see! It is the Agha of Djazerta. But what can we know of your daughter? We left her being married."

"I think thou knowest well," Ben RÂana cut him short furiously, "that her marriage was not consummated. I cherished a viper in my bosom when I entertained in my house the child of George DeLisle. She has deceived me, and helped my daughter to deceive."

"I cannot hear Mademoiselle DeLisle spoken of in that way, even by my colonel's friend, sir," said Max. "If your daughter has run away——"

"If! Thou knowest well that she has run away with her lover, who has half murdered the man who should by now be her husband. Thou knowest and Mademoiselle knows!"

"You are mistaken," broke in Max, not troubling to hide his anger. "If you think your daughter——"

"I think she is here! But thou canst not protect her from me. Try, and thou and every man with thee shall perish."

"Search our camp," said Max.

As he spoke, Sanda appeared at the door of the mean little tent hired for her at Touggourt. From the shelter of the bassourah, close by on the sand, Khadra peeped out. The search was made quickly and almost without words. If the power of France had not been behind the soldier and the girl whom Ben RÂana now hated, he would have reverted—"enlightened" man as he was—to primitive methods. He would have killed the pair with his own hand, while the men of his goum put the Arabs to death, and all could have been buried under the sand save the camels, which would have been led back to Djazerta. But France was mighty and far reaching, and he and his tribe would have to pay too high for such indulgence.

When he was sure that OurÏeda and ManÖel Valdez were not concealed in the camp, with cold apologies and farewells he turned with his men and rode off toward the south—a band of shadows in the night. The visit had been like a dream, the desert dream that Sanda had had of Max, Max of Sanda. Yet dimly it seemed to both that these dreams had meant more than this. The girl let her "Soldier St. George" warm her small, icy hands, and comfort her with soothing words.

"You were not treacherous," he said. "You did exactly right. You deserve happiness for helping to make that girl happy. And you'll have it! You must! You shall! I couldn't stand your not being happy."

"Already it's to-day," she half whispered, "to-day that we come to Touggourt. The greatest thing in my father's life happened there. I thought of that when I passed through before, and wondered what would happen to me. Nothing happened. But—what about to-day?"

"May it be something very good," Max said steadily. But his heart was heavy, as in his hands her own grew warm.