give
myself a little indulgence, if it's for the last time."

So they settled it. Max was to be "St. George" and keep off dragons for
a few hours more.

The _General Morel_ was supposed to do the distance between Marseilles
and Algiers in twenty-four hours, but on this trip she had an unusually
good excuse to be late. The storm had delayed her, and every one was
thankful that it was only half-past three when the ship steamed into the
old "pirate city's" splendid harbour.

Max Doran and Sanda DeLisle stood together watching the Atlas mountains
turning from violet blue to golden green, and the clustered pearls on
hill and shore transform themselves into white domes. The two landed
together, also, and Sanda let Max go with her in a big motor omnibus to
the Hotel Saint George, the hotel of her patron saint, whose name Max
remembered well because of postcards picturing its beautiful terrace and
garden, sent him long ago by Rose when he was a cadet at West Point.
They discovered that the first train in which Sanda could leave for
Sidi-bel-Abbes would start at nine o'clock that evening, so the proposed
dinner became possible; and Sanda, by the advice of Max, took a room at
the hotel for the rest of the day, inviting him to have tea with her on
the terrace at five, if he were free to come back.

He waited until the girl had disappeared with a porter and her
hand-luggage, and then inquired of the concierge whether the
Hotel-Pension Delatour still existed. He put the question carelessly, as
though it meant nothing to him, adding, as the man paused to think, that
he had looked in vain for the name in the guide-book.

"Ah, I remember now, sir," said the concierge. "There used to be a hotel
of that name, close to the old town--the Kasbah; quite a little place,
for _commercants_, and people like that. Why, yes, to be sure! But the
name has been changed, five or six years ago it must be. I think it is
the Hotel-Pension Schreiber now."

"Oh, and what became of Delatour?" Max heard himself ask, still in that
carefully careless tone which seemed to his ears almost too well done.

"I'm not sure, sir, but I rather think he died. Yes, now I recall
reading something in _La Depeche Algerienne_, at the time. He'd been a
brave soldier, and won several medals. There was a paragraph, yes, with
a mention of his family. He came from the aristocracy, it said. Perhaps
that's why he didn't turn out a good man of business. Or maybe he drank
to