her against what she mistakenly believed to be
her wish. Her confession of love for another man had shocked him at
first, but now he had come to feel that it had been but a stroke of
diplomacy on her part, and he valued her more than ever for her
subtlety. Though he realized dimly that with years his passion for her
might cool, it burned so hotly now that the world was only a frame for
the picture of her beauty. And he was sure that never in time to come
could he forget the thrill of this great passion, or grudge the price he
now offered and meant to pay.

Cassim ben Halim had begun his crusade under the name and banner of the
marabout, in the fierce hope of revenge against the power which broke
him, and with an entirely selfish wish for personal aggrandizement. But
as the years went on, he had converted himself to the fanaticism he
professed. Sidi El Hadj Mohammed ben Abd el Kadr had created an ideal
and was true to it. Still a selfish sensualist on one side of his
nature, there was another side capable of high courage and
self-sacrifice for the one cause which now seemed worth a sacrifice. To
the triumph of Islam over usurpers he was ready to devote his life, or
give his life; but having no mercy upon himself if it came to a question
between self and the Cause, he had still less mercy upon others, with
one exception; his son. Unconsciously, he put the little boy above all
things, all aims, all people. But as for Saidee's sister, the child he
remembered, who had been foolish enough and irritating enough to find
her way to Oued Tolga, he felt towards her, in listening to the story of
her coming, as an ardent student might feel towards a persistent midge
which disturbed his studies. If the girl could be used as a pawn in his
great game, she had a certain importance, otherwise none--except that
her midge-like buzzings must not annoy him, or reach ears at a
distance.

Both men were naturally schemers, and loved scheming for its own sake,
but never had either pitted his wits against the other with less
intention of hiding his real mind. Each was in earnest, utterly sincere,
therefore not ignoble; and the bargain was struck between the two with
no deliberate villainy on either side. The marabout promised his wife's
sister to Maieddine with as little hesitation as a patriarch of Israel,
three thousand years ago, would have promised a lamb for the sacrificial
altar. He stipulated only that before the marriage Maieddine shoul