When Verbeena came to she was the only one present. Outside she could
hear the Sheik's horses whinnying among their oats and the incessant
chaffing of his men. They swarmed outside there. And inside were other
swarms. These were of flies and sandfleas. She was more or less
grateful to them. They kept her for some little time from thinking of
anything else.
But, of course, eventually she had to begin to draw a few conclusions.
The design of these proved cubistic and the coloring all to the
palpitant pink, Gaugin green and yammering yellow.
She sought pushing herself around on the divan trying to get away from
herself, but always returned.
Finally she sat up with her chin between her knees and her arms around
her ears in a posture known to her blithesome boyish days as the
"caterpillar crouch."
But by no mental arrangement could she devise for herself a dittology
regarding the cataclysmic cropper attendant upon her career and felt
herself, therefore, thoroughly unmanned as well as fatally deladyized.
She knew she'd never be able to look anybody in the face again.
Especially a camel. Camels always had such nasty, disdainful
expressions.
From thought of camels she passed to that of Lady Speedway, and this
caused Verbeena to do a full pinwheel on the cushions.
If this affair ever got out wouldn't it just be pickled walnuts for
old putty-faced, jabberwocking Speedway! O God! What a position she
was placed in! O, gosh!
She gave one of her old time boyish leaps from the couch and seized
the small object she saw on a nearby tabaret.
The object was the stump of a cigarette--a pretty long one. Thank
heavens, indeed, that it hadn't burned itself to naught in the night!
She remembered sticking it down there when she began the first round
of her terrific battle with Amut Ben Butler. She remembered, too,
that it had been her last fag.
But fate had been good to her.
Apparently the ciggy had gone out the same time she did.
She scuffled her britches for a match. She lighted up. She took a deep
inhale. It was tonic. She filled her lungs again.
A "V" now formed between her black eyebrows.
Verbeena was coming back!
She hopped into her pants. She began to stir about looking for other
things to put on. Just then a swarthy, black-haired young creature, a
slip of a girl about six feet tall, entered.
"Look here----" began Verbeena.
"Ay bane Hulda, the maid," said this little Arab girl. "You could have
a wash for yourself back of that curtain over there. It's a bath in
it. And your trunks bane come."
"Three cheers for both those things at least," murmured Verbeena. And
soon she had tossed her clothes back through the curtain and was
splashing about in her usual vigorous fashion.
When a little later she thrust her head through the curtain she saw
that Hulda had neatly arranged her riding britches and jacket, her
military brushes and her cigarette cases out upon the divan and was
digging deep in one of the satchels that was part of Verbeena's
luggage regarding which it would seem Sheik Amut Ben Butler must have
sent a retrieving party to grab it back from Musty Ale.
"What are you doing in that satchel?" asked Verbeena sharply.
"Ay bane looking for your razor, kiddo," said Hulda deferentially.
Verbeena laughed bitterly.
"My girl," she said, "don't you know there's no safety in this awful
place?"
By this time Hulda had a trunk open. It contained the pretty dresses
Verbeena had brought along for girlish evenings on the Sahara. Girlish
evenings! She choked back a sob.
Aw, gee! Why couldn't she have been let alone to swagger about always
in her cute boyish britches!
Hulda looked again and studied Miss Mayonnaise's head and shoulders as
they stuck before the curtain.
She stared more closely.
"Oho," cried Hulda, "Allah bane knock me dead for a dumbkopf! I git it
now what is it you is. Wait--I git a Turkish towel--we got lots of
'em, we have--and I give you a Swedish massage."
"Hulda, my desert child, I thank you," said Verbeena gratefully.
By the way, all this time they had been talking French as they did
later when Hulda was arranging Verbeena's clothing anew.
[Illustration: HULDA, AN AFRICAN MAID.]
She looked up at her mistress, her big black Swedish eyes puzzled as
she asked:
"_Homme_ or _femme_ this morning?"
"_Homme_," said Verbeena decidedly, "excepting that after I've got my
long boots on and everything, you can go into that third trunk to the
right and pass me a hatpin."
"There!" said Verbeena stamping into one boot heartily. "There," said
she stamping into the other. "Now, Hulda the hatpin."
She saw that Hulda watched her suspiciously as she handed up the
weapon.
"That will be all," said Verbeena.
But Hulda held on.
"Out you go," said the proud captive brusquely.
"But----" Hulda still watched to see what disposition Verbeena meant
to make of the hatpin.
"Off with you," repeated Verbeena. "What? Now, then, will you go!"
The distrait girl used the hatpin lavishly on Hulda.
"Yumping Yiminy Allah!" shrieked the Arab girl and hit the desert with
abandon.
Verbeena was rummaging her luggage for cigarettes when a soft voice
sounded behind her:
"Madame is doubtless ready for lunch?"
The voice was pleasant, indeed, operatic and even before she turned to
face him Verbeena knew she was about to get her second view of the
villain, Spaghetti.
"Don't you call me Madame," she said fiercely, "you cowardly sandbag
specialist. Don't you call me anything less than Sheika Verbeena.
There's going to be a wedding around here as soon as I lay my hands on
that unprincipled hoo-hoo of a Sheik of yours. And don't you forget
it."
With lithe, strong fingers she proceeded to put a Grecian bend in
Spaghetti's Roman nose.
"Do you hear?"
She followed up with a little hatpin treatment while the faithful
fellow let forth a coloraturo lyrico outbursto for the intervention of
from twelve to fifteen hundred saints.
"Hop about and get me about fifty boxes of cigarettes, one hundred
each, long, fat ones, do you hear? What's that? Remember, once for
all, Spaghetti, I want none of your sauce."
Outside the tent Spaghetti kissed his fingers with a fierce smack,
made a noise like a buzz saw through his teeth while drawing a
forefinger across his throat.
It was the high sign that in matters of terrible vengeance the Black
Hand never muffs.
"Gott in Himmel!" he snarled under his breath. "Joost wait teel da
padrone, da boss, de beega da fel' geet back! You catcha sometang. See
like maybe you, sapristi, don't!"
Despite his feelings, however, he hot-footed a return with the
cigarettes and it was to be noticed that when he bowed low and handed
them to her he said:
"Here, Queen."
Well aware was he that he would remember that hatpin at meals for days
to come and, expert chef that he was, he regarded with horror the idea
of a future in which he would figure as Spaghetti enbrochette.
But--aha! let the big fellow handle her! The padrone, the grand demon,
him, the goldo fellow, Monseigneur, he'd mighty quick show her who was
the real frito misto of that establishment!
Though why in the world the boss wanted to dally with a _donna_ that
looked and acted more like _wallyo_, presented a mystery Spaghetti
sadly admitted to himself was too much for him to un-ravioli. So he
stirred himself in her behalf for the nonce and fetched her some _cous
cous_ into which he let go the red pepper with a lavish, fine Italian
hand.
For if she strangled to death he could always pretend he had got mixed
and thought it was the cinnamon.