Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
Not only was he being made friendly use of, in a complicated situation, but Sanda's father wished all who had seen the girl arrive with a man to know once for all that the man had his official approval. Soon Sanda's relationship to the Colonel of the First Regiment of the Foreign Legion would be known, and there must be no stupid gossip regarding the scene at the station.
The caravan started, and it was not until after the douar, with its green daya and background of trees, was dim in the distance that Sanda's curtains parted. Max, riding the only horse in the party, saw the trembling of the rainbow-coloured stuff, and glanced up, expectant.
They had to go by the new railway line to Touggourt, as Sanda DeLisle had gone, but instead of travelling by passenger train, the soldiers went as Max had seen the batch of recruits from Oran arrive at Bel-Abbés: in wagons which could be used for freight or France's human merchandise: "32 hommes, 6 cheveaux." After Touggourt their way would diverge from Sanda's.
Sanda had said farewell to Lella Mabrouka the night before, that the lady need not wake before her usual hour: but not only did she wake; she rose, very quietly, and saw Embarka tiptoeing along the balcony from Sanda's room to Ourïeda's with the new gandourah and extra thick veil she herself had given the guest to travel in.
The man sat facing Max, who recognized him instantly from many newspaper portraits he had seen and the photograph in Sanda's bag. It was Richard Stanton, poseur and adventurer, his enemies said, follower and namesake of Richard Burton: first white man to enter Thibet; discoverer of a pigmy tribe in Central Africa, and the one-time guardian of Sanda DeLisle.
Instantly Max understood the situation. The one thing that ought not to have happened, had happened. All Sanda's anxiously laid plans were swept away in the wind of emotion. She and the father she had meant to win with loving diplomacy had stumbled upon each other crudely in a railway station.
He had not done that, and though DeLisle told himself that he was not hurt, his enthusiasm at the thought of the meeting was slightly dampened. He looked forward more keenly to Sanda's letter than to an encounter with his erratic friend. It was good to have something heart-warming to hope for in a place so poignantly associated with the past.
All he did know was that he would give his life for Sanda. Yet it seemed that he could do nothing. When all was quiet he went to his tent and threw himself down just inside the entrance with the flap up. Lying thus, he could see Sanda's tent not far away, dim in the starlit night. He could not see her, nor did he wish to. But he knew she was sitting in the doorway with Stanton at her feet.
It was fair that he, too, should have a wife if he wanted one, and the men cared as little what became of the white girl they had not seen as Stanton cared about the fate of their strapping females. The mad music of the tomtoms and räitas played as Max, with his own hands, set up Sanda's little tent. "For the last time," he said to himself. "To-morrow night her tent will be Stanton's."
I'd been a soldier, and there seemed only one convenient way for a man without a name or country to start and become a soldier again. Miss DeLisle saw that." "You're talking of me?" inquired Sanda's voice at the half-open door. Both men sprang to open it for her.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking