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Updated: July 15, 2025
How dare he look at her like that, after Ahmara!" thought Max. His blood sang in his ears like the wicked voice of the räita following the caravan. All that was in him of primitive man yearned to dash between the two and snatch Sanda from Stanton. But the soldier in him, which discipline and modern conventions had made, held him back. Sanda was Mademoiselle DeLisle, the daughter of his colonel.
Sanda did not answer; and he called for the third time, raising his voice slightly, yet not enough for Stanton to hear at his distance. Still all was silence inside the tent, though it was not five minutes since the light had been extinguished, and Sanda could hardly have fallen asleep. Could she have heard what he and Ahmara were saying? He wondered.
All the advantage of youth was his, against the other's bulk; but as he sprang Ahmara bounded on him from behind, winding her arms around his body and throwing on him all her weight. It made him stagger, and, snatching up the heavy campstool on which he had been sitting, Stanton struck Max with it on the head. "He asked for that, and now he's got it," said Stanton, panting.
As for Sanda, if she ever thought that Ahmara might stab her some night when Max was off guard, she told herself that she did not care. She longed for death as the one way out of the cage into which she had foolishly flown, and would have prayed for it, if such a prayer were not to her mind sacrilegious. She was too young to realize that to wish is to pray.
For himself, Stanton would have had a shaving-glass a foot square, and the gaudy ornament made Max's blood boil. Stanton had certainly brought it for a woman: Ahmara. Before the quarrel, then, he had intended to take her with him! It was only by a chance that he had gathered a fair white lily instead of a desert poppy.
"Thou knowest without my telling, my Chief. The man whose idol she is. There is but one man the man who watches over her by day and night, and makes himself her slave." "You're a fool, Ahmara," Stanton said roughly. "Don't you suppose I've got sense enough to see why you want to put such ideas into my head? You're jealous of my wife. St. George and she are nothing to each other.
If he had not been there, a self-appointed watchdog, Ahmara would certainly have insulted Stanton's white bride, or might even have attempted to kill her. But Ahmara was afraid of Max St. George. She had caught a murderous glint in his eye more than once, and knew that if she crossed a certain dead line which that look defined he would not hesitate to deal with her as with a wildcat.
"Serve him right, and nobody will blame me if he's dead. But he isn't, no fear! Fellows like him belong to the leopard tribe, and have as many lives as a cat. Good girl, Ahmara, many thanks." And without another glance toward Max, beside whom Sanda was on her knees, Stanton threw the campstool into the tent and yelled to the men by the fire.
He who had been Max Doran was now nobody save Maxime St. George, a little corporal in the Foreign Legion, with hardly enough money left to buy cigarettes. Ahmara had been an episode. Now the episode was over, and in all probability Sanda, like most women, would have forgiven it if she knew. She was happy in Stanton's overmastering look.
But as it was, in all good faith, I let myself go one of my impulses that carry me along. I attribute most of my success in life to impulses; inspirations I call them. I honestly thought this was one, and that it would make for my happiness. But by jove, St. George, when I took Sanda into my tent an hour ago if there wasn't Ahmara waiting for me!"
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