A Soldier of the Legion

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

They had to go by the new railway line to Touggourt, as Sanda DeLisle had gone, but instead of travelling by passenger train, the soldiers went as Max had seen the batch of recruits from Oran arrive at Bel-Abbés: in wagons which could be used for freight or France's human merchandise: "32 hommes, 6 cheveaux." After Touggourt their way would diverge from Sanda's. There was no chance for Colonel DeLisle to go and see his daughter, but in a letter he had told her the date of his arrival in the oasis town and the hope he had—a hope almost a certainty—of hearing from his girl there, or having a message of love to take with him on the long march, warmed his heart. It was very strange, almost horrible, to remember how he had felt toward his daughter until the day she came to him, in the image of his dead love, at Sidi-bel-Abbés. He had not wanted to see her. He had even felt that he could not bear to see her. Unjust and brutal as it was, he had never been able to banish the thought that, if it had not been for her, his wife might have been with him through the years. Sanda had cost him the happiness of his life.

He had easily persuaded himself that in any case, even if he had wanted her with him, for her sake it was far better not. Such an existence as his was not for a young woman to share, even after she had passed the schoolgirl age. It had seemed to DeLisle that the only place for Sanda was with her aunts, and passing half her time in France, half in Ireland, gave the girl a chance to see something of the world. She was not poor, for she had her mother's money; and because he wished to contribute something toward his daughter's keep, rather than because she needed it, he always paid for her education and her board. What she had of her own, from her mother, must be saved for her dot when she married; and half unconsciously he had hoped that she would marry early.

After he saw her—the lovely young thing who had run away to him, as her mother had—all that had been changed in an instant. His heart was at her little feet, as it had been at the feet of the first Sanda, whose copy she was.

His time for the next few months was so mapped out that he could not have the girl with him for more than the first few days of joy, for she could not be left in Sidi-bel-Abbés while he was away on duty. He had done the best he could for his daughter by giving her a romantic taste of desert life in the house of a tried friend whom he believed he might trust; but he thought tenderly and constantly of la petite, and of future days when they might be together—if he came back alive from those "maneuvers" near El Gadhari. Approaching Touggourt, the first scene of his life's great love tragedy, he could hardly wait for the letter he hoped for from Sanda. He expected another event, also the pleasure of meeting Richard Stanton, whom he had not seen for years, and who would be, he knew, at Touggourt, getting together a caravan for that "mad expedition" (as every one called it) in search of the Lost Oasis. But if Stanton had cared as much for his old friend as in past days, he had protested, he would have given a day or two to go out of his way and visit the Colonel of the Foreign Legion at its headquarters. He had not done that, and though DeLisle told himself that he was not hurt, his enthusiasm at the thought of the meeting was slightly dampened. He looked forward more keenly to Sanda's letter than to an encounter with his erratic friend. It was good to have something heart-warming to hope for in a place so poignantly associated with the past.

There was plenty for the Legionnaires to do in Touggourt. Having come by rail, their first camp was made in the flat space of desert between the big oasis town and the dunes. They were to stay only a few hours, for the first stage of their march would begin long before sun-up, and most of their leisure was to be spent in sleep. Yet somehow there was time for a look at the sights of the place. One of these was a large Arab café on the outskirts of the town where the trampled sand of the streets became a vast, flowing wave of gold. Four Eyes had been in Touggourt more than once, having marched all the way from Bel-Abbés, long before the railway was begun or thought of. He urged Max to come into the low white building where at dusk the räita and the tomtom had begun to scream and throb.

"Prettiest dancing girls of the Sahara," he said, "and a fellow there I used to know in Bel-Abbés—in the Chasseurs—has just told me there's a great show for to-night."

There were several cafés in Sidi-bel-Abbés, where the proprietors engaged Arab girls to dance, but Max, who had paid one visit, in curiosity, thought the women disgusting and the dancing dull. He said that he had no faith in the Touggourt attractions, and would rather take a stroll.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Four Eyes scouted his objections. "Haven't you heard the scandal about this Stanton, the exploring man, who's here—our colonel's old pal?"

"No, I've heard that Stanton's at Touggourt. But I've heard no scandal," answered Max. "What has he got to do with the dancing girls?"

As he spoke, it was as if he saw Stanton sitting with Sanda DeLisle at one of the little tea-tables on the terrace of the Hotel St. George at Algiers; the square, resolute, red-tanned face, and the big, square blue eyes, burning with aggressive vitality.