Sanda's cheeks, which had been pale, brightened to carnation as she read; but the dancer held all eyes. The girl crumpled up the letter and palmed it again, wondering how to show it to Ourïeda, for they had not once been allowed a moment alone in each other's company since the scene with la hennena. Not that Sanda was suspected of a hand in that affair, but she might have a hand in another plot. The thing was, politely and kindly, to keep her a prisoner until after Ourïeda had gone to her husband. Then Tahar could protect his property; and once an Arab girl is married, she is seldom asked to elope, even by the bravest and most enterprising of lovers. Some pretext must be thought of for the giving of Manöel's letter. But what—what?
The answer was not long in coming. After the dance all the women, with the exception of the throned, bejewelled bride, sprang or scrambled up from their cushions to congratulate the celebrity. Some of them testified their admiration by offering her rings, anklets, or little gilded bottles of attar-of-rose which they had been holding in their handkerchiefs; and even Aunt Mabrouka's sharp eyes did not see Sanda slip the ball of paper into Ourïeda's hand when passing the throne to give a gold brooch to the favourite.
The bride herself was forgotten for a few minutes. Every one was caressing the dancer, patting her much-ringed hands, or touching her bracelets and counting the almost countless gold coins of her head ornaments and necklace. When Sanda dared glance across the crowd toward Ourïeda she saw by the look in her eyes that the girl had read the letter.
CHAPTER XXII
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.