Verbeena had thought when Musty Ale held back to have a talk with the
large gentleman in the white wrappings her sulky retainer was
doubtless obeying her order to tell the person who seemed to be the
Admiral Beattie of the desert ships, that in the matter of her joining
his particular caravan there would be nothing the whatsoever doing.
She was very much annoyed therefore to discover that this man in the
prominently large turban had evidently refused to take Musty's word
for it and meant to talk the matter over with her in person. It would
seem so. His black horse--Verbie could see it was no dog--was doing
about 1,59-1/2 in her direction.
There might be a whole lot that Verbeena did not know about the other
sex.
But she was fully cognizant what Arabic bargaining meant. Starting to
dicker at one in the afternoon of a perfect day in June one continued
to the following Shrove Tuesday.
They always had as much to say about a shilling purchase as Joseph
Conrad did about Lord Jim.
We who have witnessed the scene of tragic treachery against her on the
part of Musty Ale in conspiracy with the hard rider now abaft the
oasis in the rapidly diminishing offing, must tremble now for Verbeena
Mayonnaise. Although even we cannot as yet suspect the half of what is
coming to her.
And of all persons Verbeena!
So unprepared, untrained and sure to be boyishly baffled at finding
herself the object and victim of a large consignment of fiery, wild,
untamed, hectic and rrrrrrred-hot desert passion now being swiftly
shipped to her on horseback.
The sun was beating relentlessly on the roof of Verbeena's white
helmet and she did not propose to wait and let this big goof attempt
to sell her any fake rugs, bangles, beads or poor caravan
accommodations.
She gave the spurs, therefore, right heartily to her beloved steed
and he proceeded to cut down a large section of the Sahara ahead.
Let Musty and his gang follow. Unquestionably this person on his way
toward her would have sufficient Oriental subtlety to take the hint.
He would doubtless rein up his horse and save oats.
But--there was a loud crack of a whip behind her.
Verbeena was very much astonished when her noble Berb, Al Dobbin,
stopped nearly dead in his tracks, stood up on his hind legs and did
some waltz steps.
During the whirl she noticed that the big white chap was still coming
toward her.
She gave Al Dobbin the spurs again and once more he moved into a fast
gallop over the dunes.
Again the whip cracked behind her! And again! (Two cracks.)
Al Dobbin stood on his hind legs neatly and pawed gracefully.
Plainly he was bidding for a lump of sugar.
And all she could possibly have offered him was a cigarette!
Once more Verbeena spurred him to a start.
"A blooming circus creature," she gasped, "and in pursuit must be his
trainer. And where the deuce is Musty? He must have stolen this fancy
ballet horse from the husky white ulster now so rapidly approaching!
The rotter! I suspected Musty from the first but didn't care to
mention it to Tawdry. Wisht I had! Still, when one adventures,
why----"
Crack! Crack! Crack! (Three cracks.)
Immediately Al Dobbin knelt to pray.
Verbeena, not knowing the signals, smacked her helmet hard against the
desert of Sahara, matted her curls and stretched motionless, a lighted
cigarette in her hand.
One could read a symbol in its curling smoke of the fiery spirit yet
existent in the lithe, young, prone, boyish body as well as the
indubitable indication of an unbreakable habit.
But there was so little time for reading anything, although it must be
admitted that the light was excellent for even an Edison cannot vie
with that real thing which you get on the Sahara.
But to get back to Verbeena. And high time too!
For the big, brown devil had her! Right in his arms. Across his
horse! And wrapped up in his great, long white cloak. Not any too
white either.
She--already she was beginning to feel she was she--Verbeena
Mayonnaise, was caught, trapped, trussed up in the folds of that white
cloak of his, utterly helpless and like a week's wash!
It was horrible, awful, terrible and very uncomfortable.
Moreover, the humiliation of it was meticulously genuine.
And what could she do? Jiu jitsu she had but it wasn't worth a jitney
to a person in a cocoon! By the same token all her gymnasium and other
athletic perfections which had trained her fit to give Georges
Carpentier or Jacques Dempsey a stiff battle now went blah.
Additionally, this big heap Arab chief that had snared her she
knew--thrillingly knew--was hefty.
He was managing his fiery steed one-handed, beautifully, better than
any stableyard virtuoso she had ever known at 'ome.
His other arm about her was like a hoop of steel.
Or a lobster's claw.
She felt pinched. And, in truth, she was. She was in the hands of the
Shereef.
She tried to scream. But when she did so she only succeeded in eating
a section of his flowing white robe.
She tried to think. But she might as well have been her brother,
Tawdry.
She tried to smoke. And that was worst of all. Her arms were so
encumbered she couldn't get at any of her cigarette cases.
Not that she was left entirely without tobacco. The Sahara
lady-snatcher's garments rang with the odor of it.
To add to her agony, her snippy little nose smarted keenly and she
knew it must be red as a beet from sunburn. And she was helpless to
get out her powder puff.
Despite her manly training, the powder-puff habit was one which she
had always practiced in common with all the other Cambridge girls and
fellows.
Cumulatively upon these conditions of despair, she began to wonder
what the deuce this bally coot meant to do with her!
One thing certain was that he was seriously, perhaps permanently
upsetting her scheme, her plan, her idea for junketing forth by her
lonely into the desert. Such a perfectly good plan! One that would
forever end her being dependent on Lord Tawdry's luck at bridge and
forever relieve her of the necessity of getting Americans at the
foreign hotels to stake her at games of stud poker.
Ah--it had been no idle journey--no mere whimsy! It had been designed
to bring her wealth, fame, and a glory the most transcendent of her
times.
The marriage of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks had suggested it.
For had she not the pulchritude of Mary?
And girlishness could be acquired.
And had she not the athletic prowess to cut the didoes of Doug?
Thus she could go into the movies--if she could get in--like a sort of
one-person band.
She could double in sex.
Perhaps draw two salaries of $1,500,000 a week each! One lady and one
gentleman salary.
How to get in? That was the question Verbeena had demanded of herself
to answer. And answer it she had.
She would disappear into the desert. She would pick up with some nice
caravan at a fair rate for board and mileage and stick along with it
indefinitely.
She had been careful to announce all around the Biscuit that she would
be gone exactly one month.
When the month was up and no Verbeena she could depend on the Knitting
Needle Dearies to start their jaws awagging concerning her and run
away and leave them.
The foreign correspondents would soon get going on the cable regarding
the missing young, daring, delightful, ingenuous, adventurous,
amazing, remarkable, willful, bewitching bobbed haired beauty of
Mayfair who had recklessly essayed to navigate the Sahara without a
male rudder of her own, to journey far and alone save for an escort of
wicked and lowering Arabs!
As the days passed and the mystery deepened how the columns and
columns would accumulate in the dailies and weeklies and on the timely
topics movie films! The American papers particularly would rave.
Lord Northcliffe would begin by offering a good camera to any person
finding trace of her and end by setting up a reward of 1,000,000 pun.
No question of it. Hearst would offer the pick of his newspapers to
any reporter who could rescue her.
But if any reporters got around her caravan it would be so easy to
disguise herself. She would not even have to take off her ridin'
britches. Just slip a lady jelab around her and bring one end of it up
over her nose and get by.
Or if the hue and cry got the French Government so all-fired distrait
that they ordered a ruthless search of the caravan harems, she had
only to show up in her usual ridin' pants, paste a little blackberry
jam on her lip and chin for a glossy black Oriental beard and fool 'em
all.
Perhaps it would be wise to mix camel hair with the jam.
But that would be a matter to be decided upon when the emergency
arose.
Of course, there might be no jam in the caravan commissary. But surely
there would never be a lack of gum Arabic.
And when she, Verbeena, had thus vaulted into the top skies of
notoriety, she would communicate secretly with the largest of the
movie concerns.
What would they bid to star the "mystery girl of the Sahara" in a
magnitudinous thriller with her own company of devil-riding,
thrilling, stirring, fierce, wild, startling, arousing Arabs?
She saw herself getting a flood of checks from these sources blank of
everything but signatures.
Or a procession of 2000 camels laden with the gold of the Americas if
she preferred to do business that way.
"Just name your price, girlie," would inevitably be the message.
And here was this Arab rotter grabbing her around the girdle and
taking her somewhere west of Suez!
And what for?
What was the idea?
Not till then did it occur to Verbeena that it might be because she
was a woman. Naturally, this notion filled her with astonishment and
disgust. And rage, touched most lightly with the erotic.
She got madder and madder!
Indeed, Verbeena became virtuously vibrant with a revolt virginally
volcanic. Her eyes shone virescent with hatred and the tiny blue veins
on her white forehead under the tawny clubbed curls became varicose.
Besides, she was getting kind of scared.
There was a nifty strangle hold she knew which, could she ever get
free of that tail end of his Arabian wrapper, she would love to try
out on this rough bird. Her fingers, her small, lithe, delicate,
steel-like fingers, tingled at the thought.
Even if her nose was red, she determined to try and poke it out into
the air. She would gather new strength and see what the chances were
for coming out further. Cautiously she screwed her bobbed head about
and finally, poor little snail, managed to thrust her face forward and
out of the folds that were stifling her. She opened her mouth wide.
She took in great gulps of air.
Ah, it was good!
But next she took in several deep gulps of sand as it arose from the
flying hoofs of her captor's single footer.
Ah, not so good!
She became aware of a big, glaring face above her. How terribly it
frowned!
"Duckmong, Kid, duckmong!" her captor said sternly and pushed her head
back as though she was an India rubber doll.
Such was the awful strength of the man!
And then he squeezed her to him till she feared that Bertie
Butternut's fate would be her own. She felt crushed to the consistency
of malted milk.
Who could he be, this demon? Certainly nothing less than the local
Zabysko of Biscuit. And it was marvelous the way he managed at the
same time his great, big horse and herself as if she were the smallest
pony of a ballet.
She didn't faint. You'd never catch Verbeena Mayonnaise doing that.
But really she felt an awful lot like it!
He changed her position again. This time he hung her head down.
She looked up into his eyes. (There was no help for it.) The monster
laughed at her--laughed!
He was now, she saw, not only driving the horse with one hand and
holding her upside down with the other, but had inserted a cigarette
into an eighteen-inch amber holder clinched in his teeth.
And then, just to show her his class, he bent low until the end of his
cigarette touched the tip of her fiery little sunburned nose, lighted
the cigarette and all over again he laughed at her.
"You ----, ----!" she cried to him with a rush of words Brother Tawdry
himself, could not have excelled.
"By Allah!" he smiled back at her, "what a game little divvle!"
Not being able to get a look at her wrist watch, Verbeena then lost
all sense of time. She knew only that the sun was still up and burning
her nose ingloriously. But she would resist to the last pulsation of
her strong, young heart this desert creature of the strangely, burning
passionate orbs. They were rather nice eyes but, he would find
resistance to the last recalcitrant tissue of her turbulent nature.
He might use her as a cigar lighter.
But just let him try anything else and----