“And your men—and the little Saba?” drawled Sanois, drawing patterns with his pencil on the marble-topped table.
Carew eyed him with a faint smile. Sanois’ solicitude was touching but not convincing.
“How much for my men and Saba—and how much for your own schemes, General?” he retorted. The General grinned frankly, as he hoisted himself on to his feet. “Touché!” he said with a little bow, “but my schemes are less mad than yours, my friend. In the meantime we can count on you?”
“Only if it becomes absolutely necessary,” Carew replied again quickly. And unwilling to risk a total refusal by premature argument Sanois reserved his inducements for a future time. “We can talk of it again,” he said pleasantly, and shook hands with even more than his usual cordiality. To Carew the cool night air was a welcome relief after the heated atmosphere of the club. The fresh wind blowing against his face seemed to clear his brain and enabled him to think more calmly of the disturbing incidents of the evening. But calm reflection did not elucidate the extraordinary and violent hatred that had come to him. It was as much beyond his power of comprehension as it was beyond his power to ignore it. It seemed burnt into him. And the girl—he swore at himself angrily. He had thought enough about the girl. What had he to do with her or any other woman—he, who had cursed all women. Had he no strength of mind, no strength of purpose left? He sneered in bitter self mockery as the carriage stopped before the villa gateway.
Utterly weary of himself and the turmoil of his thoughts he walked up to the house wondering how he was going to get through the remaining hours of the night. Sleep in his present state of mind seemed out of the question. It was not rest he wanted but hard physical exercise that in bodily fatigue he might forget the mental upheaval that had assailed him during these last three weeks of comparative inactivity. He paused at the foot of the verandah steps, looking up at the star-lit sky, and the drifting scent of orange blossom made him think with sudden regret of the camp he had left amongst the hills near Blidah. What a night for a ride! If he started now he could be there by dawn. For a few minutes he played with the idea and then reluctantly put it from him. Despite his whole inclination something seemed to be dragging him back, something that made it impossible for him to leave Algiers.
With a heavy sigh he went slowly into the house.
CHAPTER VI
During the days that followed it became more and more borne in upon Carew that his cherished dream of visiting the mysterious City of Stones was doomed if not to failure certainly to indefinite postponement. General Sanois, who had thrown himself heart and soul into the new scheme for which Carew’s information had paved the way, was plying him hard, pressing for his acceptance of the mission offered him. Carew’s success in the past had made the General very sanguine of the outcome of the present proposed embassage and very tolerant of the Englishman’s lack of enthusiasm in a venture that presented far fewer difficulties than others which had been negotiated and which, moreover, promised to further the prestige of the military governor of the Sahara. By turns he argued and expostulated, throwing forward every possible inducement to secure his voluntary agent’s co-operation and losing no opportunity of urging his insistent demands. To each and every objection Carew raised he responded with an unusual flow of rhetoric that was wasted on his silent and equally determined listener whose desire to return to his own work he brushed aside as secondary to the needs of the country. Mounted orderlies arrived at the villa at all hours of the day, and it seemed to Carew that the telephone bell never ceased ringing. In despair at last of obtaining the peace and quiet for which he longed, he had taken Hosein and slipped away for a couple of days to the camp near Blidah. Within a mile of his own camp he found the tents of a desert sheik who was making a leisurely way to Algiers for the annual gathering of chiefs.
The Arab was an old acquaintance whose hospitality Carew had enjoyed on several occasions and an interchange of visits was both necessary and advantageous. But it was not to listen to the querulous outpourings of a chief with a perpetual grievance that he had fled from General Sanois’ importunity, and foiled in his purpose, he had set out alone this morning an hour or so before the dawn to return to Algiers, leaving Hosein to follow later in the day when he had completed some arrangements in the camp.
But in spite of the tedious interruptions which the old sheik’s demands on his time had made the two days had proved beneficial to him. Away from Algiers he had in a measure conquered the agitation of mind that had possessed him since the night he had rescued Lady Geradine from Abdul el Dhib.