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If in his heart Sanda's father could ever secretly pardon a deserter, it must be of his own accord, not because of what that deserter had to say on his own behalf. Out of the little caravan Max had to discharge, Stanton kept the mehari with the bassourah which Sanda had ridden during the journey from Ben Râana's douar.
Their skill as marksmen, gained in the glens and mountains of Sutherlandshire, was equally effective on different game, in the desert of the Sahara. One shot brought a white mehari to its knees. Another caused a masked man in a striped gandourah to wring his hand and squeal.
Stanton rode all day at the head of the caravan, with Sanda, on her mehari, looking down at him, "like the Blessed Damozel" as he had said, between her curtains. Max, on a strong pony which Stanton had bought as an "understudy" for his own horse, kept far in the rear. The desert had been beautiful for him yesterday. It was hideous to-day. He thought it must always be hideous after this.
Maïeddine told her how, as the camel rose, she must first bow forward, then bend back; and, obeying carefully, she laughed like a child as the tall mehari straightened the knees of his forelegs, bearing his weight upon them as if on his feet, then got to his hind feet, while his "front knees," as she called them, were still on the ground, and last of all swung himself on to all four of his heart-shaped feet.
Riding slowly and keeping back the men of his own little caravan, who wished to dash forward now their superstitious fears were put to flight, Max saw Stanton rein up his horse as the mehari, bearing a woman's bassourah, loped toward him; saw him stop in surprise, and then, no doubt recognizing the face framed by the curtains, jump off his horse and stride forward through the silky mesh of sand holding out his arms.
"Thank you," I called to him, turning back in the saddle. "Thank you, Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh, and farewell." I heard his voice replying in the distance: "Au revoir, Lieutenant de Saint Avit." During the first hour of our flight, the great mehari of Ceghéir-ben-Cheikh carried us at a mad pace. We covered at least five leagues.
"Stop him," she repeated. Her hand pulled sharply at my right arm. I obeyed. The camel slackened his pace with very bad grace. "Listen," she said. At first I heard nothing. Then a very slight noise, a dry rustling behind us. "Stop the camel," Tanit-Zerga commanded. "It is not worth while to make him kneel." A little gray creature bounded on the camel. The mehari set out again at his best speed.
He rode beside Victoria's mehari, when good-byes had been said, blessings exchanged, and the little caravan had started. Looking out between the haoulis which protected her from sun and wind, the handsome Arab on his Arab horse seemed far below her, as Romeo must have seemed to Juliet on her balcony; and to him the fair face, framed with dazzling hair was like a guiding star.
But even Maïeddine himself became insignificant as the procession from the Zaouïa was joined by that from the city, the glittering line in the midst of which Sidi El Hadj Mohammed sat high on the back of a grey mehari.
The first surprise which was given me by this singular companion was occasioned by the baggage that followed him. On his inopportune arrival, alone, from Wargla, he had trusted to the Mehari he rode only what can be carried without harm by such a delicate beast, his arms, sabre and revolver, a heavy carbine, and a very reduced pack.
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