Chapter XVII: Out of the Desert

From a dreamy little villa, whose walls were streaming with bougainvillea, Miss Redmond looked over Algiers, over the tumult and hum of it, to the sea. Tremont, by her side, looked at her. From head to foot the girl was in white. On one side the bougainvillea laid its scarlet flowers against the stainless linen of her dress, and on her other arm was the Red Cross.

The American girl and the Frenchman had become the best of friends. She considered him a sincere companion and an unconscious confederate. He had not yet decided what he thought of her, or how. His promise to remain on the yacht had been broken and he paid his godmother and Miss Redmond constant visits at their villa, which the marquise rented for the season.

There were times when Tremont thought Miss Redmond's exile a fanatical one, but he always found her fascinating and a lovely woman, and he wondered what it was that kept him from laying his title and his fortune at her feet. It had been understood between the godmother and himself that he was to court Miss Redmond _à l'americaine_.

"She has been brought up in such a shocking fashion, Robert, that nothing but American love-making will appeal to her. You will have to make love to her, Robert. Can you do it?"

"But, _marraine_, I might as well make love to a sister of charity."

"There was _la Belle Heloise_, and no woman is immune."

"I think she is engaged to some American cowboy who will come and claim her, _marraine_."

His godmother was offended.

"Rubbish!" she said. "She is engaged to no one, Bob. She is an idealist, a Rosalind; but that will not prevent her from making an excellent wife."

"She is certainly very beautiful," said the Duc de Tremont, and he told Julia so.

"You are very beautiful," said the Duc de Tremont to Miss Redmond, as she leaned on the balcony of the villa. The bougainvillea leaned against her breast. "When you stood in the hospital under the window and sang to the poor devils, you looked like an angel."

"Poor things!" said Julia Redmond. "Do you think that they liked it?"

"Liked it!" exclaimed the young man enthusiastically, "couldn't you see by their faces? One poor devil said to me: 'One can die better now, Monsieur.' There was no hope for him, it seems."

Tremont and the Marquise d'Esclignac had docilely gone with Julia Redmond every day at a certain hour to the different hospitals, where Julia, after rendering some slight services to the nurses--for she was not needed--sang for the sick, standing in the outer hallway of the building open on every side. She knew that Sabron was not among these sick. Where he was or what sounds his ears might hear, she could not know; but she sang for him, and the fact put a sweetness in her voice that touched the ears of the suffering and uplifted those who were not too far down to be uplifted, and as for the dying, it helped them, as the soldier said, to die.

She had done this for several days, but now she was restless. Sabron was not in Algiers. No news had been brought of him. His regiment had been ordered out farther into the desert that seemed to stretch away into infinity, and the vast cruel sands knew, and the stars knew where Sabron had fallen and what was his history, and they kept the secret.

The marquise made herself as much at home as possible in Algiers, put up with the inefficiency of native servants, and her duty was done. Her first romantic élan was over. Sabron had recalled to her the idyl of a love-affair of a quarter of a century before, but she had been for too long the Marquise d'Esclignac to go back to an ideal. She pined to have her niece a duchess, and never spoke the unfortunate Sabron's name.

They were surrounded by fashionable life. As soon as their arrival had been made known there had been a flutter of cards and a passing of carriages and automobiles, and this worldly life added to the unhappiness and restlessness of Julia, Among the guests had been one woman whom she found sympathetic; the woman's eyes had drawn Julia to her. It was the Comtesse de la Maine, a widow, young as herself and, as Julia said, vastly better-looking. Turning to Tremont on the balcony, when he told her she was beautiful, she said:

"Madame de la Maine is my ideal of loveliness."

The young man wrinkled his fair brow.

"Do you think so, Mademoiselle? Why?"

"She has character as well as perfect lines. Her eyes look as though they could weep and laugh. Her mouth looks as though it could say adorable things."

Tremont laughed softly and said:

"Go on, you amuse me."

"And her hands look as though they could caress and comfort. I like her awfully. I wish she were my friend."

Tremont said nothing, and she glanced at him suddenly.

"She says such lovely things about you, Monsieur."

"Really! She is too indulgent."

"Don't be worldly," said Miss Redmond gravely, "be human. I like you best so. Don't you agree with me?"

"Madame de la Maine is a very charming woman," said the young man, and the girl saw a change come over his features.

At this moment, as they stood so together, Tremont pulling his mustache and looking out through the bougainvillea vines, a dark figure made its way through the garden to the villa, came and took its position under the balcony where the duke and Miss Redmond leaned. It was a native, a man in filthy rags. He turned his face to Tremont and bowed low to the lady.

"Excellency," he said in broken French, "my name is Hammet Abou. I was the _ordonnance_ of Monsieur le Capitaine de Sabron."

"What!" exclaimed Tremont, "what did you say?"

"Ask him to come up here," said Julia Redmond, "or, no--let us go down to the garden."

"It is damp," said Tremont, "let me get you a shawl."

"No, no, I need nothing."

She had hurried before him down the little stairs leading into the garden from the balcony, and she had begun to speak to the native before Tremont appeared. In this recital he addressed his words to Julia alone.

"I am a very poor man, Excellency," he said in a mellifluous tone, "and very sick."

"Have you any money, Monsieur?"

"Pray do not suggest it," said the duke sharply. "Let him tell what he will; we will pay him later."

"I have been very sick," said the man. "I have left the army. I do not like the French army," said the native simply.

"You are very frank," said Tremont brutally. "Why do you come here at any rate?"

"Hush," said Julia Redmond imploringly. "Do not anger him, Monsieur, he may have news." She asked: "Have you news?" and there was a note in her voice that made Tremont glance at her.

"I have seen the excellency and her grandmother," said the native, "many times going into the garrison."

"What news have you of Captain de Sabron?" asked the girl directly. Without replying, the man said in a melancholy voice:

"I was his _ordonnance_, I saw him fall in the battle of Dirbal. I saw him shot in the side. I was shot, too. See?"

He started to pull away his rags. Tremont clutched him.

"You beast," he muttered, and pushed him back. "If you have anything to say, say it."

Looking at Julia Redmond's colorless face, the native asked meaningly:

"Does the excellency wish any news?"

"Yes," said Tremont, shaking him. "And if you do not give it, it will be the worse for you."

"Monsieur le Capitaine fell, and I fell, too; I saw no more."

Tremont said:

"You see the fellow is half lunatic and probably knows nothing about Sabron. I shall put him out of the garden."

But Miss Redmond paid no attention to her companion. She controlled her voice and asked the man:

"Was the Capitaine de Sabron alone?"

"Except," said the native steadily, with a glance of disgust at the duke, "except for his little dog."

"Ah!" exclaimed Julia Redmond, with a catch in her voice, "do you hear that? He must have been his servant. What was the dog's name?"

"My name," said the native, "is Hammet Abou."

To her at this moment Hammet Abou was the most important person in North Africa.

"What was the little dog's name, Hammet Abou?"

The man raised his eyes and looked at the white woman with admiration.

"Pitchouné," he said, and saw the effect.

Tremont saw the effect upon her, too.

"I have a wife and ten children," said the man, "and I live far away."

"Heavens! I haven't my purse," said Julia Redmond. "Will you not give him something, Monsieur?"

"Wait," said Tremont, "wait. What else do you know? If your information is worth anything to us we will pay you, don't be afraid."

"Perhaps the excellency's grandmother would like to hear, too," said the man naively.

Julia Redmond smiled: the youthful Marquise d'Esclignac!

Once more Tremont seized the man by the arm and shook him a little.

"If you don't tell what you have to say and be quick about it, my dear fellow, I shall hand you over to the police."

"What for?" said the man, "what have I done?"

"Well, what have you got to tell, and how much do you want for it?"

"I want one hundred francs for this," and he pulled out from his dirty rags a little packet and held it up cautiously.

It looked like a package of letters and a man's pocketbook.

"You take it," said the Duc de Tremont to Julia Redmond, "you take it, Mademoiselle." She did so without hesitation; it was evidently Sabron's pocketbook, a leather one with his initials upon it, together with a little package of letters. On the top she saw her letter to him. Her hand trembled so that she could scarcely hold the package. It seemed to be all that was left to her. She heard Tremont ask:

"Where did you get this, you miserable dog?"

"After the battle," said the man coolly, with evident truthfulness, "I was very sick. We were in camp several days at ----. Then I got better and went along the dried river bank to look for Monsieur le Capitaine, and I found this in the sands."

"Do you believe him?" asked Julia Redmond.

"Hum," said Tremont. He did not wish to tell her he thought the man capable of robbing the dead body of his master. He asked the native: "Have you no other news?"

The man was silent. He clutched the rags at his breast and looked at Julia Redmond.

"Please give him some money, Monsieur."

"The dog!" Tremont shook him again. "Not yet." And he said to the man: "If this is all you have to tell we will give you one hundred francs for this parcel. You can go and don't return here again."

"But it is not all," said the native quietly, looking at Julia.

Her heart began to beat like mad and she looked at the man. His keen dark eyes seemed to pierce her.

"Monsieur," said the American girl boldly, "would you leave me a moment with him? I think he wants to speak with me alone."

But the Duc de Tremont exclaimed in surprise:

"To speak with you alone, Mademoiselle! Why should he? Such a thing is not possible!"

"Don't go far," she begged, "but leave us a moment, I pray."

When Tremont, with great hesitation, took a few steps away from them and she stood face to face with the creature who had been with Sabron and seen him fall, she said earnestly:

"Now speak without reserve. Tell me everything."

The face of the man was transformed. He became human, devoted, ardent.

"Excellency," he said swiftly in his halting French, "I loved Monsieur le Capitaine. He was so kind and such a brave soldier. I want to go to find Monsieur le Capitaine, but I am ill and too weak to walk. I believe I know where he is hid--I want to go."

The girl breathed:

"Oh, can it be possible that what you say is true, Hammet Abou? Would you really go if you could?"

The man made, with a graceful gesture of his hand, a map in the air.

"It was like this," he said; "I think he fell into the bed of an old river. I think he drew himself up the bank. I followed the track of his blood. I was too weak to go any farther, Excellency."

"And how could you go now?" she asked.

"By caravan, like a merchant, secretly. I would find him."

Julia Redmond put out a slim hand, white as a gardenia. The native lifted it and touched his forehead with it.

"Hammet Abou," she said, "go away for to-night and come to-morrow--we will see you." And without waiting to speak again to Monsieur de Tremont, the native slid away out of the garden like a shadow, as though his limbs were not weak with disease and his breast shattered by shot.

When Monsieur de Tremont had walked once around the garden, keeping his eyes nevertheless on the group, he came back toward Julia Redmond, but not quickly enough, for she ran up the stairs and into the house with Sabron's packet in her hand.