CHAPTER XVII
HE HAS WON THE RACE
Throughout the afternoon the Tawareks hung about El Kebr, keeping well out in the desert, beyond the farthest range of the invaders' firearms. They circled the oasis, warily, on the alert, from time to time giving tongue to fierce cries—signals, apparently, from one to another.
The little garrison of the oasis was left without an actual leader; le petit Lemercier, of course, was nominally the head of his empire, but without some more resolute nature to fall back upon in times of stress, lacking at his elbow some man of decided character, whether for good or for evil—such as O'Rourke, or Chambret, or even Monsieur le Prince—Leopold was invertebrate, vacillating, fearful alike of stepping forward or back.
Mouchon and his co-loiterer, D'Ervy, were naturally neither soldiers nor such men as O'Rourke's tried troopers could take orders from and retain their own self-respect. In such case the conduct of the soldiers devolved upon their own heads; and to their credit be it said that they behaved as true fighting men—went about their business as coolly and composedly as though O'Rourke himself were directing their movements.
By mutual consent they selected one man to act as their captain until O'Rourke should recover. This fellow, the Turco, Mahmud—he who had awakened the Irishman with news of murder—had served for years on the Algerian frontier, part of the time with the camel corps. He was cool-headed and clear-sighted—a man skilled in the ways of the desert, and acquainted with Tawarek methods of warfare.
Mahmud ordered affairs precisely as though he had been discharging the wishes of O'Rourke. He posted the pickets, charging them to increased vigilance throughout the day as well as during the night—though that were scarcely necessary, with the fate of their comrades ever in the minds of the men.
Drowsily the afternoon wore out its long, hot hours—hours punctuated by the cries of the far-swooping natives, by the calls of the pickets, and by an occasional bitter snap! as a Mauser cracked warning to some too ambitious or too daring Tawarek.
Madame had recovered; after a short interview with the nerveless and indifferent emperor—who stuck to his tent and to his champagne that was cooled by lowering the bottles to the bottom of the wells—Princess Beatrix had the unconscious Irishman conveyed to her own marquee, where, with the solitary assistance of a Spahi, she tended O'Rourke faithfully, doing what she might to restore his life to the man who had so nearly given it up to save her own.
But it seemed that there was not much she could do; and the fear that what she contrived for his comfort was all too inadequate struck into the heart of madame terribly—as nothing, not even the unhappiness of her married life, not even the almost maternal love she bore her scapegrace brother, had ever stirred her.
O'Rourke lay motionless as a log, scarce breathing for a time; he had passed into a coma of utter exhaustion. The sluggish blood seemed hardly to stir in his arteries; his pulse that for a time had boomed fiercely now crawled haltingly—as slow, as imperceptible as the shifting of the desert sands. His breath was so casual, his respiration so slight as to be almost inaudible; he had run himself dry, and not an atom of moisture stood out upon his fevered body. His face remained the color of that imperial purple which Leopold saw in his dreams.
They—the dainty and refined princess, and the swart, rough- soldier, together—labored over the Irishman incessantly, bathing him with the cool water from the wells, forcing swallows of water down his throat—his throat that had so swollen that he had almost died of strangulation.
But still his temperature continued so high that to touch his flesh was like putting a finger upon a heated stove; still he breathed so faintly as merely to dim the mirror which the princess held to his lips; still his blood seemed to stagnate in his veins.
In the end, indeed, it was to the Spahi that the credit for saving him must be given. The man, inured to the desert suns, remembered somewhat of the proper treatment for heat exhaustion, according to desert tradition. He left madame suddenly, without a word, and returned with Mahmud. Mahmud eyed the Irishman narrowly, then turned and went to the tent of Mouchon.
He stalked in without ceremony. Mouchon, lying listless upon his cot, jumped up, angry at the intrusion.
"What does this mean?" he demanded furiously.
"Monsieur," responded the Turco roughly, and to the point, "indulges in opium. I have seen it."
"You lie—"
"Monsieur le General lies at the point of death. Opium may save him. Give it me, monsieur."
"I have none—"
"Monsieur!"
Mahmud caught the little Frenchman by the back of the neck and shook him as a terrier does a rat.
"The opium!" he demanded, releasing Mouchon.
A third appeal was not necessary. The frightened fellow produced his little phial of white tablets. Mahmud saluted ceremoniously and left, returning to the tent of the princess.
Respectfully he requested her to withdraw, and to allow him and the Spahi time to operate on O'Rourke. She refused calmly, and he acquiesced as calmly and accepted her assistance in the dosing of O'Rourke with morphine and in something that was a worse trial to the nerves of the delicate woman—blood letting. A vein was opened in O'Rourke's arm; it saved his life.
Evening brought with it a breeze—the cold breeze that springs up, unaccountably, out of the sands. It helped. By nine in the evening O'Rourke was breathing more freely; he was perspiring slightly; his temperature was lower, his face of a color more nearly normal.
At midnight the woman was shivering with the cold; O'Rourke, at whose side she sat, was aflame with fever—but perspiring. He was saved.
Towards morning he moved for the first time since he had fallen at the end of his terrific run; he stirred, moaned, shut his mouth, opened his eyes—they were staring horribly—and began to babble.
The ripple of the words born of his febrile hallucinations and of the action of the opium upon his overstrained brain, was as music to the soul of madame. For a little while she bowed her head upon her arms and wept for happiness.
As for the Spahi, he rose and left the tent. His work was done; thereafter madame was competent. And, moreover, with instinctive delicacy, this son of the desert did not wish to be present when O'Rourke should come to his right senses. He was not of a strongly intuitive nature, that Spahi; but he could hazard a shrewd guess how matters stood with the heart of Madame la Princesse.
Presently, however, the tears of madame ceased. She began to listen to the words that fluttered between the clenched teeth of O'Rourke. For an hour she harkened—breathless—sometimes with her hand gripping hard above her heart as if to still its tumult in her bosom, at times more calmly, yet always with a great joy shining in her eyes.
Towards dawn there came a lull; the Irishman seemed again deep in stupor. But this was not a dangerous condition; it has become more rest than coma; he was recuperating.
"I dare leave him for a moment," considered Princess Beatrix.
She rose slowly and went to the door of the tent, looking over her shoulder at each step, reluctant to leave him even for a second. And yet—she must know. And the man lay quiescent as a child, breathing evenly as an infant by its mother's side.
She drew aside the flap of the tent, and stepped out.
It was barely the verge of that breathing twilight that precedes the dawn. The oasis was silent and dark; not a sound came to her ears to indicate that a soul moved within its borders. Only in her brother's tent a faint light glimmered, only at the edge of the date grove a dim palpitation of dusk seemed to be trembling, as if hesitant to intrude upon the immense sanctity of the night.
She paused, looked back again, listening, then hurriedly fled to the marquee of Monsieur l'Empereur. By the door a form stepped to her side and saluted—a sentry. She gasped with surprise—so suddenly had he come upon her.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"A guard for Monsieur l'Empereur, madame."
"By whose order?"
"His own."
"And there was no sentry ordered for me?" she asked bitterly.
The sentry was silent for a moment; then:
"Monsieur l'Empereur gave no order, madame. Possibly he knew that there was no need—that each man of us would lay down his life for madame—or for Monsieur le General O'Rourke."
"Possibly," she responded sharply, aware of the implied criticism of her brother's selfishness that had been in her question as much as in the sentry's reply. "Awake monsieur," she commanded. "Tell him I must speak to him. Then—go to the tent of Monsieur Mouchon and inform him that his presence is desired here."
Two minutes later Mouchon, staggering, rubbing his eyes, entered the marquee of le petit Lemercier. He was at once confronted by madame.
Lemercier, himself blinking with sleep, was sitting on the edge of his cot, striving to appear at ease.
"Monsieur," demanded the woman in a tone that instantly wakened both of the drowsy men, "I insist upon the truth."
"What truth, madame?" asked Mouchon, opening wide his eyes.
"The truth, monsieur! I warn you not to trifle with me! I understand that you accompanied Monsieur le Prince"—Mouchon started—"to the Eirene, last night?"
"That is so, madame."
"Who accompanied you?"
"Monsieur Chambret and the Irish adventurer—"
"You mean Monsieur O'Rourke? Then name him so. He is more of a man than either of you, messieurs, who sneer at him—'adventurer'! What happened? Tell me!" she insisted imperiously.
"Nothing, madame. Monsieur le Prince decided to go to Las Palmas—"
"And went—where? Come, the truth!"
Mouchon read determination in her attitude; he dared not resist her. He could not evade the answer, and yet …
"Monsieur O'Rourke told me not to tell on peril of my life," he murmured abjectly.
"Nevertheless, you had best tell me all. What happened?"
She stamped her foot. Le petit Lemercier, suddenly comprehending the drift of her inquiries, nodded approvingly.
"Speak up, Mouchon!" he encouraged his courtier.
Mouchon might not delay; he was a man of no stability, as has been indicated; he capitulated gracefully. In a few vivid words he outlined the tragedy that had made madame a widow—strong words they were, picturing the duel sharply, for the soul of the little Frenchman, or what served him for a soul, had been deeply moved by the horror of the thing.
He paused at the end. Lemercier, on his feet, staring blankly, dazed by the unexpectedness of the news, stupefied by the loss of the man who had been his constant mentor—Lemercier seemed to see the body on the sands, with Mouchon digging a narrow trench beside it, with Chambret and O'Rourke conversing amiably aside—for it was as hardened murderers that Mouchon had imaged them in his narrative.
"The assassins!" cried Lemercier, first to find his tongue.
But madame had slipped to the floor; again she was sobbing, her face covered with her hands—weeping such tears as the condemned criminal weeps when unexpectedly pardoned.
Mouchon did not comprehend. He looked from madame, the reality of whose emotion he might not question, to Lemercier. Mouchon knew that there had been little affection between madame and Prince Felix; and he fancied that the time was ripe for a move to ingratiate himself into the place the dead blackguard had left vacant in the graces of Leopold. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, in humorous deprecation of madame's attitude.
"This is truly touching—" he began.
Then le petit Lemercier was guilty of the manliest act of his life. His hand fell smartly across Mouchon's mouth.
"You puppy!" he cried. "Get out!"
Mouchon, his face flaming with resentment, hastily left the marquee. Lemercier sank into a chair, gazing at nothing, strangely conscious of a sensation as of relief—as though shackles had been struck from his wrists.
There followed a long silence, broken only at first by madame's subdued sigh—then suddenly shattered by the report of a rifle.
Another followed—and another—barking Mausers all; but in between the shots there rang faint echoes from afar.
"The Tawareks—attacking!" cried Lemercier, his face the hue of ashes.
Madame was already beyond the reach of his voice, hastening toward her marquee. Something had told her what to fear.
And her fears were justified. The marquee was empty; the cot whereon O'Rourke had reposed stood unoccupied.