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.