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Noura had smuggled him into the Zaouïa, and she herself had trained him by giving him food that he liked, though his home was at Oued Tolga, the town. The birds from the mosque had waited for their second supply, for the same programme had been carried out many times before, and they had learned to expect it.
This part of the plan was to be subject to modification, in case Stephen saw Victoria, and she proposed any course of action concerning her sister. As for Sabine, having helped to make the plot he was to hold himself ready at Oued Tolga, the city, for Stephen's return from the Zaouïa. And the rest was on the knees of the gods. For the second time Stephen entered by the great gates of the Zaouïa.
A mule, a sturdy beast, was waiting to convey me from Metlaoui to Tozeur. Leaving my heavier baggage to follow with some camels, I rode into the dawn. Considerably less than half-way stands the rest-house of Guifla, kept by an Algerian with a pretty wife. Here I saw a few carved Roman stones which had been found, the man told me, in the neighbouring Oued Baghara.
"It's Sabine who has chased the Arabs. The others are just too late," he thought. And he saw that the rescuers from Oued Tolga must reach the bordj half an hour in advance of the men from Azzouz. He was anxious to know what news Sabine had, and the eagerness he felt to hear details soothed the pain and shame which weighed upon his heart.
In the market-place was the little hotel, newly built; the only French thing in Oued Tolga, except the military barracks, the Bureau Arabe, and a gurgling artesian well which a French officer had lately completed. But before Stephen could reach the market-place and the hotel, he had to pass through the quarter of the dancing-girls.
"I began to think you were not very desirous to hear my news," replied Stephen, "as I have been compelled to wait so long that my friends in Oued Tolga will be wondering what detains me in the Zaouïa, or whether any accident has befallen me." "As thou wert doubtless informed, I am not well, and was not prepared to receive guests.
"When you were a tiny thing, you used to have the weirdest thoughts, and do the quaintest things. I was sure you'd grow up to be absolutely different from any other human being. And so you have, I think. Only an extraordinary sort of girl could ever have made her way without help from Potterston, Indiana, to Oued Tolga in North Africa." "I had help every minute.
These small towers were intact, though the roof of one was covered with rubbish from the ruined shell rising above; and looking up at this, Stephen saw that much had fallen away since he passed with Nevill, going to Oued Tolga. One entire wall had been sliced off, leaving the inside of the tower, with the upper chamber, visible from below.
"Does not Madame think Irena beautiful as the moon on the waters of the Oued Beni-Mora?" "Indeed I don't," she replied bluntly. "And I think a man who can be afraid of such a little thing must be afraid of the children in the street." "Little! But Irena is tall as a female palm in Ourlana." "Tall!" Domini looked at her again more carefully, and saw that Batouch spoke the truth.
They had not made a hurried march from the desert city, for Stephen and Sabine had calculated the hour at which Nevill might have received the summons, and the time he would take on the return journey. It was possible, Lady MacGregor being what she was, that she might have rewired the telegram to a certain bordj, the only telegraph station between Touggourt and Oued Tolga.
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