A Soldier of the Legion Part 8

"Are you very miserable?"

"I don't know. I haven't had time to think."

"Don't take time--yet. Stay with me, as we planned before--before----"

"But Mr. Stanton? Aren't you----"

"No, I'm not. He left me fifteen minutes after you went. I shan't see him again."

"Not at the train?"

"No, not anywhere. You see, he has such important things to do, he hasn't time to bother much with--with a person he still thinks of as a little girl. Why, I told you, he would hardly have known me if I hadn't spoken to him! He's going away to-morrow, leaving for Touggourt. There are all sorts of exciting preparations to make for a tremendous expedition he means to undertake, though it will be months before he can be ready to start. He can think of nothing else just now. Oh, it was only 'How do you do?' and 'Good-bye' between us, I a.s.sure you, over there at the little tea-table I'd been keeping for you and me."

"It didn't look like anything so superficial," Max found himself trying once more to console her. "I'm sure it must really have meant a lot to him, meeting you. I could see even in the one glance I had, how absorbed he was----"

"Yes, in his map! He was pointing out his route to me, after Touggourt.

He's chosen Touggourt for his starting-place, because the railway has just been brought as far as there. And there's a man in Touggourt--an old Arab explorer--he wants to persuade to go with him if he's strong enough. He--and some other Arab Richard came to Algiers to see, are the only two men alive, apparently, who firmly believe in the Lost Oasis that Sir Knight means to try to find, when he can get his caravan together, and start across the desert early next autumn after the hot weather."

"The Lost Oasis? I never heard of it," said Max. "Is there really such a place somewhere?"

"Richard doesn't know. He only believes in it; and says nearly every one thinks he's insane. But you must have heard--I thought every one had heard the old legend about a Lost Oasis--lost for thousands of years?"

"I'm afraid not. I haven't any desert lore." As Max made this answer, last night's dream came back, rising for an instant before his eyes like a s.h.i.+mmering picture, a monochrome of ochre-yellow. Then it faded, and he saw again the silver sky behind darkening pines, plumed date-palms, the delicate fringe of pepper trees, and black columns of towering cypress.

"All mine has come from Sir Knight: stories he's told me and books he's given me. Long ago he talked about the Lost Oasis. I thought of it as a thrilling fairy story. But he believes it may exist, somewhere far, far east, beyond walls of mountains and s.h.i.+fting sand-dunes, between the Sahara and the Libyan deserts."

"Wouldn't other explorers have found it, if it were there?"

"Lots have tried, and been lost themselves: or else they've given up hope, after terrible privations, and have struggled back to their starting-place. But Richard says he has pledged himself to succeed where the rest have failed, or else to die. It was awful to hear him say that--and to see the look in his eyes."

"He's done some wonderful things," Max said, trying to speak with enthusiasm.

"Yes; but this seems different, and more terrifying than any of his other adventures, because in them he had men for his worst enemies. This time his enemy will be nature. And its venturing into the unknown--almost like trying to find the way to another world. Everybody knew there was a Thibet and a Central Africa, and what the dangers would be like there; but no one knows anything of this place--if it is a place."

"What's the story that makes Mr. Stanton feel the thing is worth risking?" Max asked.

"The story is, that there's a blank in Egyptian history which could be filled up and accounted for, if a great ma.s.s of people had moved away and begun a new civilization somewhere, safe from all the enemies who had disturbed them and stolen their treasure."

"Splendid story! But it sounds as much of a fable as any other myth, doesn't it?"

"It might, if there hadn't been other stories of lost oases which have proved to be true."

"I never heard of them," Max confessed his ignorance.

"Nor I, except from Sir Knight. He says that only lately people have found several oases south of Tripoli, which were talked about before in the same legendary way as this one he's going to search for. Only a few people know about them now: but they _are_ known. And they're inhabited by Jews who fled by tribes from the Romans when Solomon's Temple was destroyed, in the reign of the Emperor t.i.tus. They never trade, except with each other, but have everything they need in their hidden dwelling-places. They speak the ancient language that was spoken in Palestine all those centuries ago, and wear the same costume, and keep to the same laws. That's why Sir Knight thinks the greater Lost Oasis may exist, having been even better hidden than those. There was a famous explorer named Rholf who believed that he'd found traces of a way to it, but he lost them again. And there were Caillaud and Cat, and other names he spoke of to-day, that I've forgotten. I wish, though, that he were not going--or else that I could go with him, in the way I used to plan when I was small." The girl paused and sighed.

"What way?"

"Oh, it was only nonsense--silly, romantic nonsense, that I'd got out of books. I used to make up stories about myself joining Sir Knight on some expedition, dressed as a boy, and he not recognizing me." She laughed a little. "I constantly saved his life, of course! But now we won't talk of him any more. You and I will make up a story about _ourselves_. We're alone on a desert island, and we have to find food and shelter, and be as comfortable and as happy as we can. In the story, you have cause to hate me, but you don't, because you're generous. So you forage for game and fruit, and help me to escape. Which means, if you've really forgiven my horridness, that you'll take pity on me and ask me to dine with you before you put me into my train as you promised."

"I will do all that," said Max, almost eagerly. "And if you'll let me I'll go with you in the train to Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't consent to such a sacrifice."

"I must go either by your train or another."

"Why--why?"

"I've found out that the woman I came to search for is not only alive, but living at Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"It's Fate!" the girl half whispered. "But _what_ Fate? What does it all mean?"

"I've been asking myself that question," Max said, "and I can't find an answer--yet."

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE STATION PLATFORM

They dined together in a gla.s.s-fronted restaurant opening out on to the terrace, and Sanda was sweet, but absent-minded. Max could guess where her thoughts were, and almost hated Stanton. How could the man let some wretched engagement, with a few French officers, keep him from this poor little girl who adored him? How could Stanton let her go alone to meet her unnatural father (it was thus that Max thought of Colonel DeLisle) when as her one-time guardian he might have taken her to Sidi-bel-Abbes himself, and persuaded his old friend, DeLisle, to be lenient. All that Max had heard against the explorer came back to him, and he was ready to believe Stanton the cruel and selfish egoist that gossip sketched him.

Poor Sanda!

Miss DeLisle had meant to finish her long journey as she had begun it, second-cla.s.s; but Max persuaded the girl to let him take for her a first-cla.s.s ticket, with _coupe lit_, in a compartment for women, as far as the station where at dawn they must change for Sidi-bel-Abbes. She was surprised at the smallness of the price, but did not suspect that she owed her new friend anything more substantial than grat.i.tude for all the trouble he had taken for her comfort.

Max himself went second-cla.s.s, packed in with seven men who would have thought opening the window a symptom of insanity.

One of the seven was the man with whom Sanda DeLisle had chatted on board the _General Morel_ at dinner. He was the hero of the compartment, for he was going to Sidi-bel-Abbes to fight a boxing match with the champion of the Legion, a soldier named Pelle. Four of the travellers (three men of Algiers and a youth of Sidi-bel-Abbes) were accompanying the French boxer, having met him at the s.h.i.+p.

Dozing and waking, Max heard excited talk of _la boxe_ and the coming event. He was vaguely interested, for he had been the champion boxer of his regiment--a hundred years ago!--but he was too weary in body and mind to care much about a match at Sidi-bel-Abbes. When he was not trying to sleep, he was mentally composing a letter to his colonel, with discreet explanations, and a justification of his forthcoming immediate resignation from the army: or else a written explanation of his farewell to Billie, following up the telegram; or thinking out business directions to Edwin Reeves. Suddenly, however, as he was dully wondering how best to send the heiress to New York without going back himself, a name spoken almost in his ear had the blinding effect of a searchlight upon his brain.

"La pet.i.te Josephine Delatour," said the young man who lived at Bel-Abbes. He was evidently answering some question which Max had not caught.

"The handsomest, would you call her?" disputed a commercial traveller, who also knew the town. "Ah, _that_, no! she is too strange, too bizarre."

"But her strangeness is her charm, _mon ami_! She has eyes of topaz, like those of a young panther. If she were not bizarre, would she--a little n.o.body at all--be strong enough to draw the smart young officers after her? There are girls in Bel-Abbes, daughters of rich merchants, who are jealous of the secretary at the Hotel Splendide. Before she came, it was only the officers of high rank who messed there. Now it is also the lieutenants. It is not the food, but Mademoiselle Josephine who attracts!"

"Once upon a time she thought me and my comrades good enough for a flirtation," said the commercial traveller. "But she looks higher in these days, especially since her namesake in the Spahis joined his regiment at Bel-Abbes. She told me they had found out that they were cousins."

"The lieutenant doesn't go about boasting of the relations.h.i.+p," laughed the youth from Bel-Abbes. "He comes to my father's cafe, which is the best in the town, as you well know. If any one speaks to him of _la pet.i.te_, he laughs: and it is a laugh she would not like."

Max's ears tingled. He felt as if he were eavesdropping. He wished to hear more, though at the same time it seemed that he had no right to listen. Luckily or unluckily, the boxer broke in and changed the subject.

Early in the morning, pa.s.sengers for Sidi-bel-Abbes had to descend from the train going on to Oran, and take a slow one, on a branch line. It was a very slow one, indeed, and it was also late, so that it would be nearly midday and the hour for _dejeuner_ when they reached their destination. Max saw himself inquiring for Mademoiselle Delatour just at the moment when the admirers of her topaz eyes were a.s.sembling for their meal. He did not like the prospect; but said nothing of his own worries to Sanda, whom he joined on changing trains. Now the meeting with her father was so near, she had to hold her courage with both hands. She had realized for the first time that she would not know where to look for Colonel DeLisle. He might be in barracks. She could hardly go to him there. He would perhaps be angry, should a girl arrive, announcing herself as his daughter, at the house where he had rooms. The third alternative was the Hotel Splendide, where he took his meals. He might already be there when she reached Sidi-bel-Abbes. What a place for a first meeting! Max agreed, sympathetically. It seemed that everything at Sidi-bel-Abbes must happen at the Hotel Splendide!

"If you could only be with me and help, as you have helped me all along!" she sighed. "Though of course you can't. If Sir Knight had come---- But I couldn't easily explain _you_ to my father. At least, not just at present."