Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/98

 to disillusionment, near to turning back and abandoning his project.

This land loomed so different from what he had been led to expect, from the empire in embryo his wishful imagination had pictured to him. Had he been deceived—or had he been merely self-deceived? Should he persist? Would his plans bear fruit?

Thus he vacillated; and would probably have acknowledged defeat ere giving battle with this wilderness but for Monsieur le Prince de Grandlieu.

Instinctively, the latter had dreaded the effect of Lemercier's first sight of the land he had come to conquer. Now he was ever at his dupe's elbow, an evil genius whispering encouragement in his ear.

"Irrigation! Ah, but wait, mon ami, and observe what irrigation shall accomplish here! The oasis? We have been misled; our information was erroneous. Beyond doubt it exists, either here or hereabouts. The makers of maps are prone to mistakes. Let us go on, down the coast—" and so forth.

Lemercier's mood changed under the stimulus of his men- tor's encouraging words. His brow cleared; he straightened his slight form, throwing back his shoulders proudly, frowning at the desert.

He had come to fight it. So—he would fight it! And he would conquer it,—conquer or die in the attempt.

By his order, for hours the Eirene shaped her course southwards, down the coast. By degrees almost imperceptible, the latter changed in aspect; the dunes became higher, more solid appearing to the eye, the lay of the country more rough and rugged.

At about four o'clock in the afternoon the yacht rounded a