short halt at noon, and Max was
happy. He tried to recall and quote to himself a verse of Tennyson's
"Maud"--"Let come what come may; What matter if I go mad, I shall have
had my day!" He was having his day--just that one day more, because on
the next they would come to Touggourt, and if Stanton were there he
would spoil everything.

At night they went on till late, as before; but the camel-men said that
the animals must have a longer rest. Luckily it did not matter now if
they were caught. If Manoeel and Ourieda had escaped they had had a long
start. A little after midnight the vast silence of the sand-ocean was
broken with cries and shoutings of men. The Arabs, not knowing of the
expected raid, stumbled up from their beds of bagging and ran to protect
the camels; but Max, who had not undressed, walked out from the little
camp to meet a cavalcade of men.

Ben Raana himself rode in advance, mounted on a swift-running camel. In
the blue gloom where the stars were night lights Max recognized the long
black beard of the Agha flowing over his white cloak. None rode near
him. Tahar was not there. Max took that as a good sign.

"Who are you?" demanded the uniformed Legionnaire in his halting Arabic.
"In the name of France, I demand your business."

Ben Raana, recognizing him also, impatiently answered in French, "And I
demand my daughter!"

"Your daughter? Ah, I see! It is the Agha of Djazerta. But what can we
know of your daughter? We left her being married."

"I think thou knowest well," Ben Raana cut him short furiously, "that
her marriage was not consummated. I cherished a viper in my bosom when I
entertained in my house the child of George DeLisle. She has deceived
me, and helped my daughter to deceive."

"I cannot hear Mademoiselle DeLisle spoken of in that way, even by my
colonel's friend, sir," said Max. "If your daughter has run away----"

"If! Thou knowest well that she has run away with her lover, who has
half murdered the man who should by now be her husband. Thou knowest
and Mademoiselle knows!"

"You are mistaken," broke in Max, not troubling to hide his anger. "If
you think your daughter----"

"I think she is here! But thou canst not protect her from me. Try, and
thou and every man with thee shall perish."

"Search our camp," said Max.

As he spoke, Sanda appeared at the door of the mean little tent hired
for her at Touggourt. From the shelter of the bassourah, close by on the
sand, Khadra peepe