CHAPTER XXVIII
SANDA SPEAKS
It was Max's policy, for Sanda's sake, never to give Stanton a pretextto send him away. He kept his temper under provocations almostintolerable; and now he obeyed the truculent summons.
"What do you want?" he asked stiffly when he had come near enough tospeak in an ordinary tone.
"I'll tell you inside my tent," the explorer answered, stalking in firstand leaving his guest to follow. Stanton was somewhat surprised to seeAhmara sitting on her feet, her ringed hands on her knees, her crownedhead thrown back against the canvas wall; but on the whole, he was notsorry that she was there. She might be useful. He only smiledsarcastically when, at sight of her, Max stopped on the threshold.
"Don't be afraid to come in," Stanton laughed; "the lady won't mind."
"But _I_ do," Max returned, with the curt politeness of tone whichirritated Stanton. "I'll stand here if you please."
"All right. My orders won't take long to give. I want you to go to yourfriend's tent with a message from me."
"My friend's tent?" Max's eyes sent out a spark in the dull yellowlight.
"My wife's tent, then, if you think the name's more appropriate. Ibelieve she's likely to favour you as a messenger, and she hasn't goneto bed, for her tent's lit up. Tell her from me, I find it subversive ofdiscipline in this caravan for a woman to set her will up against theleader and live apart from her husband. Entirely for that reason and notbecause I want anything to do with her, after the way I've been treated,I've made up my mind that she and I must live together like othermarried people. I wish the change to be made with the knowledge of thewhole caravan. Go and tell her to come here; and then give my orders toMahmoud and Zaid to bring anything over she may need."
If eyes could kill, Stanton would have dropped like a felled ox. But Maxwould not give him the satisfaction of a blow or even of a word. With alook of disgust such as he might have thrown at a wallowing drunkard ina gutter, St. George turned his back on the explorer and walked away.Before he could escape out of earshot, however, the Chief was bawlinginstructions to Ahmara.
"Since that fellow is above taking a message, go you, and deliver it,"roared Stanton, repeating in Arabic the orders flung at Max. "Herladyship knows enough of your language to understand. Say to her, if sheisn't at my tent door in ten minutes I'll fetch her. She won't likethat."
Max had not meant to go near Sanda, but fearing insult for her from theArab woman, he changed his mind, and put himself between Ahmara andSanda's tent. As the tall figure in its full white robes came floatingtoward him in the moonlight, he blocked the way. But the dancer did nottry to pass. She paused and whispered sharply: "Thinkest thou I want thegirl to go to him? No, I'd kill her sooner. But he is watching. Let meonly tell her to beware of him. If she is out of her tent when hesearches, what can he do? And by to-morrow night I shall have had timeto 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 willwither thy frail flower," Ahmara sneered. "Tell her to escape quicklyinto the shadows of the oasis, for the master will not care to lose hisdignity in hunting her. As for thee, thou canst run to guard her fromharm, as thou hast done before when she wandered, and I will carry wordto the Chief that the White Moon refuses to shine for him. In tenminutes he will set out to fetch her, according to his word; but when hefinds her tent empty he will return to his own with Ahmara, I promisethee, to plan some way of punishment. Shelter thy flower from that alsoif thou canst, for it may not be to my interest to counsel thee then, asit is now."
Max turned from the dancer without replying, and she hovered near whilehe spoke at the door of Sanda's tent, within which the light had nowgone out.
"Mrs. Stanton!" he called in a low voice. "Mrs. Stanton!"
Sanda did not answer; and he called for the third time, raising hisvoice slightly, yet not enough for Stanton to hear at his distance.
Still all was silence inside the tent, though it was not five minutessince the light had been extinguished, and Sanda could hardly havefallen asleep. Could she have heard what he and Ahmara were saying? Hewondered. It was just possible, for he had stepped close to the tent inbarring the dancer away from it. If Sanda had heard hurrying footstepsand voices she might have peeped through the canvas flaps; and havingmade an aperture, it would have been easy to catch a few words ofAhmara's excited whispers.
"Perhaps she took the hint and has gone," Max thought; and an instantlater assured himself that she had done so, for the pegs at the back ofthe tent had been pulled out of the sand. The bird had flown, but Maxfeared that it might only be from one danger to another. In spite of thefriendly reception given to the caravan at Dardai, a young womanstraying from camp into the oasis would not be safe for an instant ifseen; and in the desert beyond Sanda might be terrified by jackals orhyenas. Bending down Max saw, among the larger tracks made by himselfand the men who had helped him pitch the tent, small footprints in thesand: marks of little shoes which could have been worn by nobody butSanda. The toes had pressed in deeply, while the heelprints wereinvisible after the first three or four. As soon as she was out of thetent, Sanda had started to run. She had gone away from the direction ofthe 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 narrowstrip 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 highup on the other side. This was the way the oasis dwellers had takenafter a visit of curiosity to the camp; and as the night was bright andnot cold, some might still be lingering in the _oued_, bathing theirfeet in the little stream of running water among the smooth, roundstones. Max followed the footprints, but lost them on the rocks, andwould have passed Sanda if a voice had not called him softly.
The girl had found a seat for herself in deep shadow on a small plateaubetween two jutting masses of sandstone.
"I saw you," she said as he stopped. "I wondered if you would come andlook for me."
"Weren't you sure?" he asked. "When I found the tent-pegs up, I knewyou'd gone; and I followed the footprints, because it's not safe for youto be out in the night alone."
"Safer than in my tent, if he----" she began breathlessly, then checkedherself in haste. She was silent for a minute, looking up at Max, whohad come to a stand on the edge of her little platform. Then, for thefirst time since she had begged him to join the caravan instead of goingback to Bel-Abbes, she broke down and cried bitterly.
"What am I to do, Soldier?" she sobbed. "You know--I never told youanything, 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 makean 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 otherswith 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 hisvoice, though black despair filled his heart. "You've got to livefor--your father."
"I hope I shall never see him again!" she cried sharply. "He'd know theinstant 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, evenas late as that morning--before Father Dupre came out from Touggourt.But it makes things worse to think of that now--of what might havebeen!"
"Let's think of what will be, when we get through to Egypt," Maxencouraged 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 livingalone?"
"He _shall_ let you," said Max between his teeth.
"You mean that you--but that would be the worst thing of all, if youquarrelled with him about me. You've been so wonderful. Don't you thinkI've seen?"
Max's heart le
aped. What had she seen? His love, or only the acts itprompted?
"Don't be afraid, that's all," he said. His voice shook a little. As herface leaned out of the shadow looking up to him, lily-pale under themoon, he feared her sweetness in the night, feared that it might breakdown such strength as he had and make him betray his secret. How hewould hate himself afterward, if in a mad moment he blurted out his lovefor this poor child who so needed a faithful friend! In terror ofhimself he hurried on. "Better let me take you back now," he suggestedalmost harshly. "You can't stay here all night."
"Why can't I?"
"Because--it's best not. I'll walk with you as far as the camels, andthen drop behind--not too far off to be at hand if--anything disturbsyou. Did you hear all that woman said to me?"
"About his looking into my tent and then going back to his own--thatshe'd promise he _should_ go back? Yes, I listened before I ran away.Those were the last words I waited for."
Max was glad she had not overheard the threat of future punishment.
"Well, then, your tent will be safe."
"Safe?" she echoed. "Safe from him--from my _hero_! What fools girls canbe! But perhaps there was never one so foolish as I. It seems aeons sinceI was that person--that happy, silly person. Well! It doesn't bearthinking of, much less talking about; and I never did talk before, didI? We'll go back, since you say we must. But not to my tent. I'd rathersit by the fire all night, if the men have gone when we get there. Afterdawn I can rest, as we're not to travel to-morrow."
She held out both hands to be helped up from her low seat, and Maxfought down the impulse to crush the slender white creature against hisbreast. Slowly they walked back over the rocks and through themoon-white sand, until they could see not only the glow of the fire, butthe smouldering remnants of palm-trunks. Dark, squatting figures werestill silhouetted against the ruddy light, and Sanda paused to considerwhat she should do. She stopped Max also, with a hand on his arm.
"It's a wonderful picture, or would be if one were happy!" she muttered;and then Max could feel some sudden new emotion thrill through herbody. She started, or shivered, and the fingers lying lightly on hiscoat-sleeve tightened.
"What is it?" he asked, but got no answer. The girl was standing withslightly lifted face, her eyes closed, as if behind the shut lids shesaw some vision.
"Sanda!" he breathed. It was the first time he had called her by thatname, though always in his thoughts she was Sanda. "You're frighteningme!"
"Hush!" she said. "I'm remembering a dream; you and I in the deserttogether, and you saving me from some danger, I never found out what,because I woke up too soon. Just now it was as if a voice told me thiswas the place of the dream."
What caused Max to tear his eyes from the rapt, white face of the girlat that instant, and look at the sand, he did not know. But he seemedcompelled to look. Something moved, close to Sanda's feet; somethingthin and long and very flat, like a piece of rope pulled quickly towardher by an unseen hand. Max did not stop to wonder what it was. Heswooped on it and seized the viper's neck between his thumb and fingerand snapped its spine before it had time to strike Sanda's ankle withits poisoned fang. But not before it had time to strike him.
The keen pin-prick caught him in the ball of the thumb. It did not hurtmuch, but Max knew it meant death if the poison found a vein; and he didnot want to die and leave Sanda alone with Stanton. Flinging the deadviper off, he whipped the knife in his belt from its sheath, and withits sharp blade slit through the skin deep into the flesh. A slightgiddiness mounted like the fumes from a stale wine-vat to his head ashe cut down to the bone and hacked off a bleeding slice of his righthand, then cauterized the wound with the flame of a match; but he washardly conscious of the pain in the desperate desire to save a lifenecessary to Sanda. It was of her he thought then, not of himself at allas an entity wishing to live for its own pleasure or profit; and he wasdimly conscious, as the blood spurted from his hand, of hoping thatSanda did not see. He would have told her not to look, but the need toact was too pressing to give time for words. Neither he nor she haduttered a sound since his dash for the viper had shaken her clingingfingers from his arm; and it was only when the poisoned flesh and theburnt match had been flung after the dead snake that Max could glance atthe girl.
When he did turn his eyes to her, it was with scared apology. He wasafraid he had made her faint if she had seen that sight; luckily,though, blood wasn't quite so horrid by moonlight as by day.
"I'm sorry!" he stammered. But the words died on his lips. She waslooking straight at him with a wonderful, transfiguring look. Manyfleeting expressions he had seen on that face of his adoration, butnever anything like this. He did not dare to think he could read it, andyet--yet----
"Have you given your life for me this time?" she asked, in a strange,deadly quiet tone.
"No, no. I shall be all right now I've got rid of the poison," heanswered. "I'll bind my hand up with this handkerchief----"
"I'll bind it," she cut him short; and taking the handkerchief from himshe tore it quickly into strips. Then with practised skill she bandagedthe wound. "That must do till we get to my tent," she told him. "ThereI've lint and real bandages that I use for the men when they hurtthemselves, and I'll sponge your hand with disinfectant. But, mySoldier, my poor Soldier, how can I bear it if you leave me? You won't,will you?"
"Not if I can possibly help it," said Max.
"How soon can we be sure that you've cut all the poison out?"
"In a few minutes, I think."
"And if you haven't, it's--death?"
"I can't let myself die," Max exclaimed.
"It's for my sake you care like that, I know!" Sanda said. "And _I_can't let you die--anyhow, without telling you something first. Does thepoison, if you've got it in you, kill very quickly?"
"It does, rather," Max admitted, still apologetically, because he couldnot bear to have Sanda suffer for him. "But it's a painless sort of anend, not a bad one, if it wasn't for--for----"
"For leaving me alone. I understand. And because you may have to--verysoon, though I pray not--I shall tell you what I never would have toldyou except for this. Only, if you get well, you must promise not tospeak of it to me--nor even to seem to remember; and truly to forget, ifyou can."
"I promise," Max said.
"It's this: I know you care for me, Max, and I care for you, too,dearly, dearly. All the love I had ready for Richard flowed away fromhim, like a river whose course had been changed in a night by atremendous shock of earthquake. Gradually it turned toward you. You wonit. You deserve it. I should be a wretch--I shouldn't be natural if Ididn't love you! That's all I had to tell. I couldn't let you go withoutknowing. And if you do go, I shall follow you soon, because I couldn'tlive through a day more of my awful life without you."
"Now I _know_ that I can't die!" Max's voice rang out. "If there waspoison in my blood, it's killed with the joy of what you've said to me."
"Joy!" Sanda echoed. "There can be no joy for us in loving each other,only sorrow."
"There's joy in love itself," said Max. "Just in knowing."
"Though we're never to speak of it again?"
"Even though we're never to speak of it again."
So they came to Sanda's tent; and Stanton, sitting in his open doorway,saw them arrive together. With great strides he crossed the strip ofdesert between the two tents, and thrust his red face close to theblanched face of Max. His eyes spoke the ugly thing that was in his mindbefore his lips could utter it. But Sanda gave him no time for wordsthat would be unforgivable.
"I had gone to the river," she said, with a hint of pride and command inher voice that Max had never heard from her. It forbade doubt and rangclear with courage. "Monsieur St. George was afraid for me, and came tobring me back. On the way he killed a viper that would have bitten me,and was bitten himself. He has cut out the flesh round the wound andcauterized it; and he will live, please God, with care and rest."
Taken aback by the challenging air of one who usually sh
rank from him,Stanton was silenced. Sanda's words and manner carried conviction; andeven before she spoke he had failed in goading himself to believe evil.Drunk, he had for the moment lost all instincts of a gentleman; but,though somehow the impulse to insult Sanda was beaten down, the wish topunish her survived. Max's wound and the fever sure to follow, if helived, gave Stanton a chance for revenge on both together, whichappealed to the cruelty in him. Besides, it offered the brutal openinghe wanted to show his authority over the sullenly mutinous men.
"Sorry, but St. George will have to do the best he can without rest,"Stanton announced harshly. "We start at four-thirty. It is to be asurprise call."
"But we were to stop till to-morrow and refit!" Sanda protested inhorror.
"I've changed my mind. We don't need to refit. In five hours we shall beon the march."
"No!" cried Sanda. "You want to kill my only friend, but you shall not.You know that rest is his one chance, and you'd take it away. I won'thave it so. He stays here, and I stay with him."
"Stay and be damned," Stanton bawled.
The men sitting by the distant fire heard the angry roar, and somejumped to their feet, expecting an alarm.
"Stay and be damned, and may the vultures pick the flesh off yourlover's bones, while the sheikh takes you to his harem. He's welcome toyou," Stanton finished.
Before the words were out Max leaped at the Chief's throat. All theadvantage of youth was his, against the other's bulk; but as he sprangAhmara bounded on him from behind, winding her arms around his body andthrowing on him all her weight. It made him stagger, and, snatching upthe heavy campstool on which he had been sitting, Stanton struck Maxwith it on the head. Weakened already by the anguish in the torn nervesof his hand (most painful centre for a wound in all the body), Max felllike a log, and lay unconscious while Ahmara wriggled herself free.
"He asked for that, and now he's got it," said Stanton, panting. "Servehim right, and nobody will blame me if he's dead. But he isn't, no fear!Fellows like him belong to the leopard tribe, and have as many lives asa cat. Good girl, Ahmara, many thanks."
And without another glance toward Max, beside whom Sanda was on herknees, Stanton threw the campstool into the tent and yelled to the menby the fire. He called the names of two who were his special servants,but most of the band followed, knowing from the roar of rage and the onesharp cry in a woman's voice that something important had happened.
Stanton was glad when he saw the dark crowd troop toward him, though inhis first flush of excitement he had not thought to summon every one.
"Come on, all of you!" he shouted. "Now halt! You see the man lyingthere--at my feet, where he belongs. He was my trusted lieutenant, buthe took too much upon himself. I knocked him down for insubordination.He doesn't go farther with the caravan. And we start in five hours. Zaidand Mahmoud, put this carrion out of my sight. I've shown you all whathappens when black or white men disobey my orders."
No one came forward. From her knees beside Max Sanda rose up slim andstraight and stood facing the Arabs and negroes.
"Men," she cried to them, "I've done my best for you. I've defended you,when I could, from injustice. When you have been sick with fevers orwith wounds I have nursed you. Now my father's friend, and my friend,who to-night has saved my life, lies wounded. If you leave him, youleave me, too, for I stay as his nurse. What do you decide?"
Stanton was on her in two strides. Seizing her arm he twisted it with asavage wrench and flung her tottering behind him. The pain forced a cryfrom the girl, and Ahmara laughed. That was more than the men couldstand, for to them Sanda was always the White Angel, Ahmara the Black;and over there by the fire they had discussed a deputation to Stanton,announcing that, since starting, they had heard too much evil of thehaunted Libyan desert to dare venture across its waterless wastes. Thespirit of mutiny was in them, having smouldered and flashed up,smouldered and flamed again at Stanton's cruelty. This was too much! Thespark was fired. A Senegalese whom Sanda had cured of a scorpion bite--ablack giant to whom Max had lent his camel when Stanton would have lefthim in the desert--leaped like a tiger on the Chief. Steel flashed underthe moon, and Stanton fell back without a groan, striking the hard sandand staining it red.
For an instant there was silence. Then burst forth a wild shout of hateand joy....
A Soldier of the Legion Page 29
