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Updated: June 14, 2025
Do you know, I believe you are one whose greatest pleasure is in doing things for those not as strong as yourself." "I never noticed that in my character," laughed Max. "Yet there's something which tells me I'm right. I think you would, for that reason, make a good soldier. My father is a soldier. He's stationed at a place called Sidi-bel-Abbés."
Already he was obsessed by thoughts of it. Sidi-bel-Abbés, which at first had struck him as being a dull provincial town, now seemed the only place where he could have lived through his dark hours. Elsewhere he would have felt surrounded by a gay and happy world in which a man with his back to the wall had no place. Here at Sidi-bel-Abbés was the home of men with their backs to the wall.
And his whole past, with its fun and popularity and gay adventure, its one unfinished love story, its one tragic episode, had been a long road leading him on toward this day and Sidi-bel-Abbés. The temptation to go back, to forget his mission, a temptation which had come to life many times after it had first been "scotched, not killed," did not now lift its head.
Then he raised his eyes and fixed them upon the Legionnaire as if wondering how far he might be in his colonel's confidence. "My friend has sent thee to escort his daughter to Sidi-bel-Abbés," Ben Râana said thoughtfully. "Although he cannot be there himself, he believes the northern climate will be better for her health at this time of year.
It was very strange, almost horrible, to remember how he had felt toward his daughter until the day she came to him, in the image of his dead love, at Sidi-bel-Abbés. He had not wanted to see her. He had even felt that he could not bear to see her.
Sanda did not know, and would not know for many days, the news of Sidi-bel-Abbés, for she had started on a long journey, to the "wonderful place" of which she would have spoken to Max had she not been warned by her father's word and look that the story was "irrelevant."
Sidi-bel-Abbés at last! and the train slowing down along the platform of an insignificant station, which might have been in the South of France, save for a few burnoused Arabs.
At Oran he spent a day wandering through the narrow, crooked alleys of the Arab quarter enjoying the strange, new sights. The next day found him at Sidi-bel-Abbes, where he presented his letters of introduction to both civil and military authorities letters which gave no clew to the real significance of his mission.
Max had found out within less than an hour after landing that which would make him penniless and nameless; yet his most pressing wish seemed to be to get back in time for his appointment with Sanda DeLisle, and tell her that he, too, was going to Sidi-bel-Abbés. Max hurried back to the St.
Max guessed at first that she was English; then from some slight inflection of tone, wondered if she were Irish instead. It was a name which sounded like "Sidi-bel-Abbés" that made the girl start and blush, and turn to her neighbour with sudden interest. Again and again they mentioned "Sidi-bel-Abbés," which meant nothing for Max until he heard the girl say "La Legion Etrangére."
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