persons in different parts of the world who were working
for him in different ways. There was Manoeel Valdez in Rome, where he had
arrived with Ourieda by way of Tunis and Sicily, instead of getting to
Spain according to his earlier plan. Manoeel, singing with magnificent
success in grand opera, proclaimed himself Juan Garcia, a
fellow-deserter with St. George, in order to gild St. George's escapade
with glory. Not only did he talk to every one, and permit his
fascinating Spanish-Arab bride to talk, but he let himself be
interviewed by newspapers. Perhaps all this was a good advertisement in
a way; but he was making a _succes fou_, and did not need advertisement.
Genuinely and sincerely he was baring his heart and bringing his wife
into the garish limelight because of his passionate gratitude to Max St.
George.

The interview was copied everywhere, and Sanda read it in Cairo,
learning for the first time not only many generous acts of St. George of
which she had never heard, but gathering details of Ourieda's escape
with Valdez, at which till then she had merely been able to guess. The
entire plot of Manoeel's love drama, from the first grim scene of
stunning the prospective bridegroom on the way to his unwilling bride,
to the escape from the _douar_ in the quiet hours when Tahar was
supposed to be left alone with the "Agha's Rose," on to the hiding at
Djazerta, and stealing away in disguise with a caravan while the hunt
took another direction, all had played itself out according to his plan.
Valdez attributed the whole success to St. George's help, advice, and
gifts of money, down to the last franc in his possession. And now Manoeel
began to pay the debt he owed, by calling on the world's sympathy for
the deserter, who might not set foot on French soil without being
arrested. Thus the singer's golden voice was raised for Max in Italy. In
Algeria old "Four Eyes" was working for him like the demon that he
looked; having returned with his colonel and comrades to Sidi-bel-Abbes
after the long march and a satisfactory fight with the "Deliverer," he
soon received news of the lost one. With roars of derision he refused to
believe in the little "corporal's" voluntary desertion, and from the
first moment began to agitate. What! punish a hero for his heroism?
That, in Four Eyes' vilely profane opinion, expressed with elaborate
expletives in the Legion's own choicest vernacular, was what it would
amount to if St. George were bran