e sacrifice!" It did not occur to him that Max was
offering himself on the altar of another temple of sacrifice. He thought
the young man was "jolly lucky" to escape from the mess he had tumbled
into and get the chance of a glorious adventure with Richard Stanton. It
had been a blow and even a humiliation to the explorer that all the
Europeans he had asked to accompany him had refused, either on the spot,
or after deliberation. He believed in himself and his vision so
completely, and had snatched so many successes out of the jaws of
disaster, that it was galling not to be believed in by others, in this,
the crowning venture of his life. If he could find the Lost Oasis he
would be the most famous man in the world, or so he put it to himself;
and any European with him would share the glory. It had been almost
maddening to combat vainly, for once in his career, the objections and
sneers of skeptics.

People had said that if no European, not even a doctor, would join him
in his "mad mission," he would be forced to give it up. But he had found
a fierce satisfaction in disappointing them and in showing the world
that he, unaided, could carry through a project which daunted all who
heard of it. He had triumphed over immense obstacles in getting together
his caravan, for Arabs and Soudanese had been superstitiously depressed
by the fact that the mighty Stanton could persuade no man of his own
race to believe in the Lost Oasis. It was only his unique force of
character that had made the expedition possible at last; that and his
knowledge of medicine, even of "white and black" magic, his mastery of
desert dialects, his eloquence in the language of those who hesitated,
working them up to his own pitch of enthusiasm by descriptions of what
he believed the Lost Oasis to be: a land of milk and honey, with wives
and treasure enough for all, even the humblest. Napoleon, the greatest
general of the French, had wished to search for the Lost Oasis, marching
from Tripolitania to Egypt, but had abandoned the undertaking because of
other duties, not because he ceased to believe. The golden flower of the
desert had been left for Stanton and his band to pluck. Threats,
persuasion, bribes, had collected for him a formidable force. If he had
lingered at Touggourt, after getting the necessary men together, no one
had dared to suggest in his hearing that it was because a desert
dancing-woman was beautiful. He had always had weighty reasons to
alle