A Soldier of the Legion Part 27

"I think so," said Max warily, beginning to guess the trend of her questions.

"What time does it start?"

"I don't know precisely."

"In the morning or at night?"

"I really can't tell."

"You mean you won't. But that _does_ tell me, all the same. It goes in the morning. Soldier, I've made you late. I see now you've been very anxious all the time about overstaying your leave, but you wouldn't speak because it was for my sake."

"I've written to the officer in command at Sidi-bel-Abbes, explaining.

It will be all right."

"It won't! You're keeping the truth from me. I see by your face. You've overstayed your leave already. I calculated it out last night. Even as it is, you are a day late."

"What of it? There's nothing to worry about."

"Do you suppose I can be a soldier's daughter and not have learned anything about army life? Soldier, much as I'd want you to stand by me if it could be right for you, it isn't right, and you must go! Go now, and be in time for that train this morning. One day late won't be so bad. But there won't be another train till Monday. By _diligence_, it's two days to Biskra. That means--oh! go, my friend! Go, and forgive me!

Let us say good-bye now!"

"Not for the world," Max answered. "Not if they'd have me shot at Bel-Abbes, instead of putting me into _cellule_ for a few days at worst.

Nothing would induce me to leave you until"--he choked a little on the words--"until you're married."

"_Cellule_" she echoed. "You, in _cellule_! And your corporal's stripe?

You'll lose it!"

"What if I do? I value it more for--for something Colonel DeLisle said than for itself."

"I know you were an officer in your American army at home. To be a corporal must seem laughable to you. And yet, the stripe is more than just a mere stripe. It's an emblem."

"I didn't mean you to think that I don't value it! I do! But I value other things more."

Day was quickening to life; Sanda's wedding day. In the wan light that bleached the desert they looked at each other, their faces pale. Max could not take his eyes from hers. She held them, and he felt her drawing from them the truth his lips refused to speak.

"You are like a man going to his death," she sobbed. "Oh, what have I done? It will be something worse, a thousand times worse, than _cellule_. _Mon Dieu!_ I know what they do to men of the Legion when they've deserted--even if they come back. I implore you to go away now.

Do you want me to beg you on my knees?"

"For G.o.d's sake, Mademoiselle DeLisle!"

"Then will you go?"

"No! I told you nothing could make me leave you till--after it's over.

What would be the use anyhow, even if I would go? If they're going to call me a deserter, I'm that already."

"Ah!" she hid her face in her hands, s.h.i.+vering with sobs. "_I've_ made you a deserter. I've ruined you! Your career my father hoped for! If he were at Bel-Abbes he'd save you. But he's far away in the desert." The girl lifted her face and brushed away the tears. "Soldier, _if you don't go now, don't go at all_! Don't offer yourself up to punishment for what is not your fault, but mine, the fault of your colonel's daughter. Stay with me--stay with us! Keep the trust my father gave you, watching over me. Will you do that? _Will_ you, instead of going back straight to prison and spoiling your life? Join us and help us to find the Lost Oasis."

The young man's blood rushed to his head. He could not speak. He could only look at her.

"You say that already you've made yourself a deserter," she went on.

"Then desert to us, I wanted you to join the Legion, and you did join; so I've called you '_my soldier_.' Now I want you not to go back to the Legion. It would be a horrible injustice for you to be punished as you would be. I couldn't be happy even with Richard, thinking of you in prison."

"The world is a prison, if it comes to that!" laughed Max.

"For some people. Not for a man like you! Besides, some of the cells in the world's prison are so much more terrible than others. Come with us, and by and by, if we live, we shall reach Egypt. There you'll be free, as Manoel Valdez will be free outside Algeria and France."

"My colonel's daughter asks me to do this?" Max muttered, half under his breath.

"Yes, _because_ I am his daughter as well as your friend. Do you think he'd like you to go back to Sidi-bel-Abbes under a cloud, with him far away, not able to speak for you? I know as well as if you'd told me that, if they tried you by court-martial at Oran, you wouldn't defend yourself as you would if my father had _ordered_ you to give up the march, instead of _asking_ you to go on a private errand for him with your friend. Because he did an irregular thing and trouble has come of it, don't I know you'd suffer rather than let details be dragged from you which might injure my father's record as an officer?"

"His record is far above being injured."

"Is any officer's? From things I've heard, I'm afraid not! Once I told you that you were one of those men who think too little of themselves and sacrifice themselves for others. I only felt it then. I know it now.

I'm so much better acquainted with you, my Soldier! You promised, if you answered my questions, to answer them truly. Would you explain in a court-martial that my father took you off duty, and told you, whatever happened, to look after me?"

"I have already explained in a letter to the deputy commanding officer.

Probably the colonel has explained, too--more or less, as much as necessary."

"I don't believe father would have thought it necessary to say much about me. He's old fas.h.i.+oned in his ideas of women and girls. And, you see, he had no reason to dream that anything could go wrong. He supposed that you would arrive on time. How much did you explain in your letter?"

"I said I had been unavoidably delayed in finis.h.i.+ng my official errand."

"What would you say if you were court-martialled for losing Manoel and being five days late yourself?"

"I don't know. It would depend on the questions."

"Would you answer in any way that might do harm to my father, or would you sacrifice yourself again for him and for me?"

"It wouldn't be a sacrifice."

"Do you think you could save yourself from prison?"

"Perhaps not, but I shouldn't care."

"_I'd_ care. It would break my happiness. Father couldn't tell you, as I do, to join us, but I know enough about his interest in you to be sure that in his heart he would wish it, rather than come back to Sidi-bel-Abbes and find you in the _Bat d'Aff_. I've heard all about that, you see."

Max was silent for a moment, thinking, and Sanda watched his face in the growing light. It was haggard and set for a face so young, but there was still in the eyes, which stared unseeingly across the desert, the warm, generous light that had once convinced her of the man's heroic capacity for self-sacrifice. "He is one who always gives," she thought. And something within her said that Stanton was not of those. He was one born not to give, but to take. Yet how glad every one must be, as she was, to give to him!

Max was greatly surprised and deeply touched by Sanda's care for him at such a time. And he was almost bewildered by the strange answer that had come to his self-questioning. He had felt a pa.s.sionate reluctance to leave her with Stanton, not only because he himself loved and wanted her, but because her marriage was to be only half a marriage, and because Stanton was what he was. If the man tired of her, if he found her too delicate for the trials she would have to endure, the girl's life in the desert would be terribly hard. Max dared not think what it might be. He had felt that it would tear his heart out to see her going unprotected except by that fanatic, to be swallowed up by the merciless mystery of the desert. But because she had decided to go, and because she thought she had need of no one in the world except Stanton, Max had made up his mind that he must stand by and let her go. Now, suddenly, it was different. She wanted him as well as Stanton. True, it was only because she wished to save him, but she would be grieved if he refused.

What if he should accept--that is, if Stanton were of the same mind as Sanda--and let them both suppose that his motive in joining them was to keep out of prison? He knew that his true reason would be other than that if he went. But searching his soul, he saw there no wrong to Stanton's wife. He would not go with that pair of lovers for his own pleasure, and no suffering he could endure, even in the _Bat d'Aff_, would be equal to seeing Sanda day after day, night after night, when she had given herself to Stanton. All he wanted was to be near her if he were needed. He could never justify himself to Colonel DeLisle or to any one else in the world by telling the truth; but because it was the truth, in his own eyes perhaps he might be justified.

"Have you thought long enough?" Sanda asked. "Can't you decide, and save my happiness?"

Save her happiness!...

"I have decided," Max said. "If Mr. Stanton will let a deserter join his caravan I will go."