CHAPTER VII
SIR KNIGHT
Max hurried back to the St. George, knowing that he would be late, andarrived somewhat breathless on the terrace, at a quarter-past five. MissDeLisle would forgive him when he explained. And he would explain! Hewas half minded to tell everything to the one human being within fourthousand miles who cared.
It was March, and the height of the season in Algiers. Many people werehaving tea on the flower-draped terrace framed by a garden of orangetrees and palms, and cypresses rising like burnt-out torches against theblue fire of the African sky. Max's eyes searched eagerly among thegroups of pretty women in white and pale colours for a slim figure in adark blue travelling dress. Sanda had said that she would come out totake a table and wait for him; but he walked slowly along withoutseeing, even in the distance, a girl alone. Suddenly, however, he caughtsight of a dark blue toque and a mass of hair under it, that glitteredlike molten gold in the afternoon sun. Yes, there she was, sitting withher back to him, and close to a gateway of rose-turned marble pillarstaken from the fountain court of some old Arab palace. But--she was notalone. A man was with her. She was leaning toward him, and he towardher, their elbows on the little table that stood between them.
The man sat facing Max, who recognized him instantly from many newspaperportraits he had seen--and the photograph in Sanda's bag. It was RichardStanton, _poseur_ and adventurer, his enemies said, follower andnamesake of Richard Burton: first white man to enter Thibet; discovererof a pigmy tribe in Central Africa, and--the one-time guardian of SandaDeLisle.
Max had thought vaguely of the explorer as a man who must be growingold. But now he saw that Stanton was not old. His face had that look ofeternal youth which a statue has; as if it could never have beenyounger, and ought never to be older. It was a square face, vividlyvital, with a massive jaw and a high, square forehead. The large eyeswere square, too; very wide open, and of that light yet burning bluewhich means the spirit of mad adventure or even fanaticism. The skin wastanned to a deep copper-red that made the eyes appear curiously pale incontrast; but the top of the forehead, just where the curling brown hairgrew crisply up, was very white.
The man had thrown himself so completely into his conversation with thegirl, that Max, drawing nearer, could stare if he chose without dangerof attracting Stanton's attention. He did stare, taking in every detailof the virile, roughly cut features which Rodin might have modelled, andof the strong, heavy figure with its muscular throat and somewhatstooping shoulders. Richard Stanton was not handsome; he was ratherugly, Max thought, until a brief, flashing smile lit up the sunburntface for a second. But it was in any case a personality of intensemagnetic power. Even an enemy must say of Stanton: "Here is a man." Helooked cut out to be a hero of adventure, a soldier of fortune, and insome sleeping depth of Max's nature a hitherto unknown emotion stirred.He did not analyse it, but it made him realize that he was lonely andunhappy, uninterestingly young; and that he was a person of noimportance. He had come hurrying back to the hotel, anxious to explainwhy he was late; but now he saw--or imagined that he saw--even fromSanda's back, her complete forgetfulness of him. He might have been farlater, and she would not have known or cared. Perhaps she would be gladif he had not come at all.
Max had until lately been subconsciously aware (though it was nothing tobe proud of!) that he was rather an important personage in the eyes ofthe world. He had been a petted child, and flattered and flirted with asa cadet and a young officer, one of the richest and best looking at hispost. Suddenly he stood face to face with the fact that he had no longera world of his own. He was an outsider, a nobody, not wanted here noranywhere. If he could have stolen away without danger of rudeness toSanda, he would have gone and left her to Stanton, even though by sodoing he lost his chance of seeing her again. But there was the dangerthat, after all, she had not quite forgotten him, and that she might betaking it for granted that he would keep his appointment. He decided notto interrupt the eager conversation at this moment, but to hover near,in case Miss DeLisle looked around as if thinking of him. He hardlyexpected her to do so, until the talk flagged, but perhaps some subtlethought-transference was like a reminding touch on her shoulder. Sheturned her head and saw Max Doran. For an instant she gazed at him halfdazedly, as if wondering why he should be there. Her face was sotransfigured that she was no longer the same girl; therefore it did notseem strange that she should have forgotten so small a thing as aninvitation to tea given to a chance acquaintance. Instead of being paleand delicately pretty, she was a glowing, radiant beauty. Her dilatedeyes were almost black, her cheeks carnation, her smiling lips not coralpink, but coral red. She made charming little gestures which turned herinstantly into a French girl. "Oh, Mr. Doran!" she exclaimed. "Here isMr. Stanton. Only think, he's staying in this hotel, and we found eachother by accident! I came out here and he walked past. He didn't knowme--it's such ages since I saw him--till I spoke."
Max had felt obliged to draw near, at her call, and to stand listeningto her explanation; but it was clear that to Stanton he was irrelevant.The explorer had spread a folded map on the table. It was at that theyhad been looking, and as Sanda talked to the newcomer, Stanton's eyesreturned to the map again. Max must have been dull of comprehensionindeed if he had not realized that he was wanted by neither. The girlfollowed up her little preamble by introducing her new friend to her oldone, and the explorer half rose from his chair, bowing pleasantlyenough, though absent-mindedly; but there was nothing for Max to do saveto excuse himself. He apologised by saying that his business would keephim occupied for the rest of the afternoon, and that he must forego thepleasure of having tea with Miss DeLisle. The expression of the girl'sface as she said that she was very sorry contradicted her words. She wasevidently enchanted to have Stanton to herself, and Max departed,smiling bitterly as he thought of his impatience to give her the news.This was what all her pretty professions of friendship amounted to inthe end! He had been a fool to believe that they meant anything morethan momentary politeness. She had not referred to his invitation fordinner, so had probably forgotten it in the flush of excitement atmeeting her hero. It seemed cruel to recall it to her memory, as by thistime no doubt Stanton and she were planning to spend the eveningtogether, up to the last moment. Still, the situation was difficult, asshe might remember and consider it an engagement. Max decided at last tosend a card up to her room, where she would find it when her tete a tetewith Stanton was over. He scribbled a few words in pencil, saying thathis business would be over in an hour; that if Miss DeLisle cared to seehim he would be delighted; but she must not consider herself in any waybound. He did not even mention the fact which a little while ago he hadbeen eager to tell: that he was going to Sidi-bel-Abbes. Perhaps, asStanton was a friend of Colonel DeLisle's, he, too, was on his waythere, in which case Max would lurk in the background. The card, in anenvelope, he gave to the concierge, and then went gloomily out to walkand think things over. Passing the terrace he could not resist glancingat the table nearest the marble pillars. The two still sat there,absorbed in each other, their heads bent over the map. Stanton looked upas if in surprise when a waiter appeared with a tray. They hadapparently asked for tea, and then forgotten the order.
During that hour of absence Max Doran passed some of the worst momentsof his life. He lived over again his anguish at Rose's death; heardagain her confession which, like a sharp knife, with one stroke had cuthim loose from ties of love; and gazed ahead into a future swept bare ofall old friendships, luxuries, and pleasures. His "business," of whichhe had made much to Miss DeLisle, consisted solely in walking down theMustapha hill from the garden of the Hotel St. George to the smallwhite-painted post-office, and there sending off two telegrams. One wasto Edwin Reeves: the other was the message for which Billie Brookton hadthriftily asked in her special postscript. "Have lost everything," hewrote firmly. "Will explain in letter following and ask you to treat itin confidence. Good-bye, I hope you may be happy always. Max."
As he paid for the telegrams he wo
ndered that the framing of Billie'sdid not turn one more screw of the rack which tortured heart and brain,but he felt no new wrench in the act of giving up the girl whom all menwanted. She seemed strangely remote, as if there had never been anychance of her belonging to him. Max had something like a sensation ofguilt because he could not call up a picture of her, traced with thesharp clarity of an etching. In thinking of Billie, he had merely animpressionist portrait: golden hair, wonderful lashes, and a suddenupward look from large, dark eyes, set in a face of pearly whiteness.Because Sanda DeLisle was somewhat of the same type, having yellow-brownhair, and a small, fair face, her image would push itself in front ofthat other far more beautiful image; far more beautiful at least, savein the one moment of glowing radiance which had illumined Sanda, as arose--light within might illumine a pale lily. No woman on earth couldhave been more beautiful than she, at that instant; but the magic firehad been kindled by, and for, another man; and if Max had not alreadyguessed, it would have revealed her whole secret.
The impression was so vivid that it clouded everything else, just as awhite light focussed upon one figure on the stage dims all others there.He thought of himself, and what he should do with life after his missionwas finished; whether he should take the name of Delatour, which wasrightfully his, or choose a new one; yet suddenly, in the midst of somepressing question, he would forget to search for the answer, as SandaDeLisle's transfigured face seemed to shine on him out of darkness.
He stayed away from the hotel for precisely an hour, and then,returning, asked at the desk of the concierge whether there were amessage for him. Yes, there was a letter. Max took it, thinking thatthis was perhaps the last time he should ever see the name of Doran onan envelope addressed to him. The direction had been scrawled in haste,evidently, but even so, the handwriting had grace and character. Itsdelicacy, combined with a certain firmness and impulsive dash, expressedto Max the personality of the writer. The letter was of course from MissDeLisle; a short note asking if he would look for her on the terrace atsix-thirty. She would be alone then. Max glanced at the hall clock. Itwanted only three minutes of the half hour, and he went out at once.The scene on the terrace was very different from what it had been anhour ago. It might have been "set" for another act, was the fancy thatflashed through the young man's mind. The hyacinth-pink of thesunset-sky was now faintly silvered with moonlight. All the gay groupsof tea-drinking people had disappeared. Many of the crowding chairs hadbeen taken away from the little tables and pushed back against theirregular wall of the house. The floor was being slowly inlaid withstrips of shadow-ebony and moon-silver. Even the perfume of the flowersseemed changed. Those which had some quality of mystery and sensuoussadness in their scent had prevailed over the others.
At first Max saw no one, and supposed that Miss DeLisle had not yet cometo keep the appointment; but as he slowly paced the length of theterrace, he discerned, standing on the farther side of thepillar-gateway, a figure that paused close to the carved balustrade andlooked out over the garden. There was a suggestion of weariness anddiscouragement in the pose, and though the form had Sanda's tallslimness he could hardly believe it to be hers, until passing throughthe gateway he had come quite close to her. She turned at the sound offootsteps; and in the rose-and-silver twilight he could see that hereyes were full of tears.
Somehow it struck him as characteristic of the girl that she should nottry to pretend she had not been crying. He could scarcely imagine herbeing self-conscious enough to pretend anything.
"Is it half-past six already?" she asked, in a very little voice, almostlike that of a child who had been punished. "I'm glad you've come. Willyou forgive me?"
"Forgive you for what?" Max asked, though he guessed what she meant, andadded hastily, "I'm sure there's nothing to forgive."
"Yes, there is," she insisted; "you know that as well as I do. But youwill forgive me, because--because I think you must have _understood_. Iwas not myself at all."
Max hesitated and stammered. He did not dare admit how well he hadunderstood, though it seemed a moment for speaking clear truths, here inthis wonderful garden which they two had to themselves, with the magiclight of sunset and moonrise shining into their souls.
"You needn't be afraid of shaming me," the girl went on. "I felt thatyou understood everything, so we can talk now, when I've come back alittle to myself. I didn't mind your seeing, then, because everythingseemed unimportant except--_just him_, and my being there with him. AndI don't mind even now, because there's so much that's the same in mylife and yours. I feel (as I felt before I was carried out of myself)that we've drifted together at a time when we can help each other. Youcan forgive me for being selfish and thoughtless to you, because I wasat a great moment of my life, and you realized it. Didn't you?"
"Yes," said Max.
"I've always adored him. He was the one I meant, of course, when I toldyou about caring for somebody," Sanda confessed. "You see, my father hasnever let me love him, in a personal sort of way. He has held me off,though I hope it's going to be different when he sees me. Sir Knight(that's what I always called Richard, ever since I was small) was verykind whenever he had time. He didn't mind my worshipping him. He neverwrote, because he was too busy; but when he came home from his wonderfulexpeditions and adventures, he generally had some present for me. I'vealways followed him as far as I could, through the newspapers, and--I_knew_ he was somewhere in Algeria now. I'm afraid--that's partly whatmade my wish to come so--terribly, irresistibly strong. I didn't quiterealize that, until I saw him. Honestly, I thought it was because Icouldn't live with my aunts any longer, and because I wanted so much towin my father before it was too late. But meeting Richard here,unexpectedly, when I imagined him somewhere in the South, showed me--thetruth about myself. I'd been so anxious for you to come back, and tohear all that had happened to you; but meeting him put everything elseout of my head!"
"It was natural," said Max. "You wouldn't be human if it hadn't."
"I think it was _in_human. For when I remembered--other things, I didn'tseem to care. I was--_glad_ when you said you had business and couldn'tstay to tea. I hoped you'd forget that you'd asked me to dinner, becauseI wanted so much to have it with Sir Knight--with Richard. I thoughthe'd be sure to invite me, and take me to the train afterward. I wasgoing to apologize to you as well as I could; but even if you'd beenhurt, I was ready to sacrifice you for him."
"Please don't punish yourself by confessing to me," Max broke in."Indeed it's not necessary. I----"
"I'm not doing it to punish myself," Sanda exclaimed. "I've _been_punished--oh, sickeningly punished!--already. I'm confessing to youbecause--I want our friendship to go on as if I hadn't done anythingungrateful and cruel to spoil it. I'm trying to atone."
"You've done that a thousand times over," Max comforted her, feelingthat he ought to be comforted at the same time, yet aware that it wasnot so. He began to realize that he was boyishly jealous of the greatman whose blaze of glory had made his poor rushlight of friendshipflicker into nothingness.
"Then if I have atoned, tell me quickly your news," said the girl.
"The news is, that I haven't any past which belongs to me--and God knowswhether I've a future." Max gave lightness to the sombre words with alaugh.
"Then the worst has happened to you?"
"One might call it that." Still he managed to laugh.
"Are you very miserable?"
"I don't know. I haven't had time to think."
"Don't take time--yet. Stay with me, as we planned before--before----"
"But Mr. Stanton? Aren't you----"
"No, I'm not. He left me fifteen minutes after you went. I shan't seehim again."
"Not at the train?"
"No, not anywhere. You see, he has such important things to do, hehasn't time to bother much with--with a person he still thinks of as alittle girl. Why, I told you, he would hardly have known me if I hadn'tspoken to him! He's going away to-morrow, leaving for Touggourt. Thereare all sorts of exciting preparation
s to make for a tremendousexpedition he means to undertake, though it will be months before he canbe ready to start. He can think of nothing else just now. Oh, it wasonly 'How do you do?' and 'Good-bye' between us, I assure you, overthere at the little tea-table I'd been keeping for you and me."
"It didn't look like anything so superficial," Max found himself tryingonce more to console her. "I'm sure it must really have meant a lot tohim, meeting you. I could see even in the one glance I had, how absorbedhe was----"
"Yes, in his map! He was pointing out his route to me, after Touggourt.He's chosen Touggourt for his starting-place, because the railway hasjust been brought as far as there. And there's a man in Touggourt--anold Arab explorer--he wants to persuade to go with him if he's strongenough. He--and some other Arab Richard came to Algiers to see, are theonly two men alive, apparently, who firmly believe in the Lost Oasisthat Sir Knight means to try to find, when he can get his caravantogether, and start across the desert early next autumn after the hotweather."
"The Lost Oasis? I never heard of it," said Max. "Is there really such aplace somewhere?"
"Richard doesn't know. He only believes in it; and says nearly every onethinks he's insane. But you must have heard--I thought every one hadheard the old legend about a Lost Oasis--lost for thousands of years?"
"I'm afraid not. I haven't any desert lore." As Max made this answer,last night's dream came back, rising for an instant before his eyeslike a shimmering picture, a monochrome of ochre-yellow. Then it faded,and he saw again the silver sky behind darkening pines, plumeddate-palms, the delicate fringe of pepper trees, and black columns oftowering cypress.
"All mine has come from Sir Knight: stories he's told me and books he'sgiven me. Long ago he talked about the Lost Oasis. I thought of it as athrilling fairy story. But he believes it may exist, somewhere far, fareast, beyond walls of mountains and shifting sand-dunes, between theSahara and the Libyan deserts."
"Wouldn't other explorers have found it, if it were there?"
"Lots have tried, and been lost themselves: or else they've given uphope, after terrible privations, and have struggled back to theirstarting-place. But Richard says he has pledged himself to succeed wherethe rest have failed, or else to die. It was awful to hear him saythat--and to see the look in his eyes."
"He's done some wonderful things," Max said, trying to speak withenthusiasm.
"Yes; but this seems different, and more terrifying than any of hisother adventures, because in them he had men for his worst enemies. Thistime his enemy will be nature. And its venturing into theunknown--almost like trying to find the way to another world. Everybodyknew there was a Thibet and a Central Africa, and what the dangers wouldbe like there; but no one knows anything of this place--if it is aplace."
"What's the story that makes Mr. Stanton feel the thing is worthrisking?" Max asked.
"The story is, that there's a blank in Egyptian history which could befilled up and accounted for, if a great mass of people had moved awayand begun a new civilization somewhere, safe from all the enemies whohad disturbed them and stolen their treasure."
"Splendid story! But it sounds as much of a fable as any other myth,doesn't it?"
"It might, if there hadn't been other stories of lost oases which haveproved to be true."
"I never heard of them," Max confessed his ignorance.
"Nor I, except from Sir Knight. He says that only lately people havefound several oases south of Tripoli, which were talked about before inthe same legendary way as this one he's going to search for. Only a fewpeople know about them now: but they _are_ known. And they're inhabitedby Jews who fled by tribes from the Romans when Solomon's Temple wasdestroyed, in the reign of the Emperor Titus. They never trade, exceptwith each other, but have everything they need in their hiddendwelling-places. They speak the ancient language that was spoken inPalestine all those centuries ago, and wear the same costume, and keepto the same laws. That's why Sir Knight thinks the greater Lost Oasismay exist, having been even better hidden than those. There was a famousexplorer named Rholf who believed that he'd found traces of a way to it,but he lost them again. And there were Caillaud and Cat, and other nameshe spoke of to-day, that I've forgotten. I wish, though, that he werenot going--or else that I could go with him, in the way I used to planwhen I was small." The girl paused and sighed.
"What way?"
"Oh, it was only nonsense--silly, romantic nonsense, that I'd got out ofbooks. I used to make up stories about myself joining Sir Knight on someexpedition, dressed as a boy, and he not recognizing me." She laughed alittle. "I constantly saved his life, of course! But now we won't talkof him any more. You and I will make up a story about _ourselves_. We'realone on a desert island, and we have to find food and shelter, and beas comfortable and as happy as we can. In the story, you have cause tohate me, but you don't, because you're generous. So you forage for gameand fruit, and help me to escape. Which means, if you've really forgivenmy horridness, that you'll take pity on me and ask me to dine with youbefore you put me into my train as you promised."
"I will do all that," said Max, almost eagerly. "And if you'll let meI'll go with you in the train to Sidi-bel-Abbes."
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't consent to such a sacrifice."
"I must go either by your train or another."
"Why--why?"
"I've found out that the woman I came to search for is not only alive,but living at Sidi-bel-Abbes."
"It's Fate!" the girl half whispered. "But _what_ Fate? What does it allmean?"
"I've been asking myself that question," Max said, "and I can't find ananswer--yet."