What Spaghetti was wishing for Verbeena was wondering concerning.
Whereabouts now was this bold devil, Amut? And when would he be home?
To be sure, Spaghetti had said, she sort of remembered, that the Sheik
would be home for dinner and that he ate at eight. But he might come
in any old time and surprise her. For, cogently considered, wouldn't
that be just like him? That he was a nasty feller, how could she doubt
it? Of the Machiavellian character of the black-whiskered, tow-headed
mazib hadn't she right then sufficient evidence to swing any jury?
"Boo-hoo, Boo-hoo!" sobbed Verbeena entirely in the feminine gender.
But six or seven cigarettes, the knowledge of the hatpin stick beneath
the left breast of her Norfolk jacket with the right hand fully
informed about it and something else that she had up her sleeve (I
can't tell you yet--no, really, honest, I can't, for it wouldn't be
fair to Verbeena--might give her away in a critical moment) something
else that she had up her sleeve reassured her mightily.
And if I could only tell you what she was thinking about doing just
then! "Durn it!" your heart would surely go out to the cute bantam!
Gaw, bless her!
Remembering as well that Britains never shall be slaves!
And that, moreover, if you are not that kind of a girl and are truly
indignant why then, my dear, your ship of Fate gathers no moral
barnacles.
Although, of course, in the matter of just what kind of a girl
Verbeena was, if any, a palpable ambiguousness veers to the verge of
anguish.
But while this juncture is pending in which passion is scheduled to
bridle and burst into tongues of flame high as a gas tank in eruption,
gave Verbeena a chance.
That is to look around Sheik Amut Ben Butler's wicked desert diggin's.
Huh--not that they were so much!
Some Oriental hangings showed up as if they were embroiderd by
blacksmiths and colored by accident and chewed by rats.
There were two silver inlaid Moorish stools that would hold you if you
were careful. There was a fine-looking, hand-carved chest, big and
impressive, that Verbeena peeked into thinking it would reveal
perhaps, wondrous stores of Bagdad lace curtains or--heaven alone
could tell!--perhaps the corpse of his former victim!
She opened it and then shut it in a hurry. A person may fairly be
curious. But not about somebody else's old shoes.
However, a splendid collection of ivory and silver and ivory and gold
and ivory and brass and ivory and tin and ivory and goodness-knew-what
cigarette cases, hit Verbeena right in the eye. She selected about
sixteen she thought she might like and put them aside in one of her
trunks to be called for later.
Should Amut miss 'em.
Although according to her designs, even if he did--even if he did----
Excuse me, for holding off a bit longer. No fault of the author truly.
He's coming is Amut. But you see he is doing a Sheridan on a flashing
steed and is as yet several miles away. Two at least.
Just let him gallop a few minutes because Verbeena has started
examining his book case and that if anything should tell her what kind
of a bibliophile, Francophile or Swissoup this strong-armed
philanderer was.
It was a surprise to Verbeena to find there this case of books for she
had always thought that all to be expected of the Sahara was volumes
of dates.
However, she stood corrected so she scanned the titles. At the very
first she drew back with a shudder having read: "Poems of Passion" by
Ring Lardner.
Then "The Children's Hour" by Ghee de Maupassant.
Pshaw, she'd read that!
Kraft-Ebing also was old stuff.
And she passed over without interest a corpulent tome entitled "Der
Vaw; Vhy Ve Dit Id Bad" by Ludendorff.
Then she came upon "Manly Beauty, Its Dangers and Temptations," by
Irvin Cobb and Paul Swan.
Two other titles, however, fascinated her. One was "Florinda of the
Furnished Rooms" by Robert W. Chalmers, and the other "Maurice of the
Monkey Glands" by Elinor Flynn in collaboration with the author of
"Arzan of the Apes."
"Eeny, meeny, minee, mo--" began Verbeena when another title clattered
against her vision. "The Passion Worm of the Sahara, an Account of its
Discovery," by Robert S. Hitchings.
At first she derived about ten degrees of comfort from the discovery
that Amut wasn't exactly a raw native, that he was probably half-baked
at least. She felt that it would be logically safe to presuppose that
she was mixed up with a king of the desert, who might be found to be
superficially coated with a veneer of civilization that was tenuous.
And yet dared she find comfort in that? Might it not make him the more
horrible, sinister, intolerable, cheekier and fresher than ever,
this desert devil in whom passion dictated the methods of a
chiropractitioner?
"O, hum!" screamed the distrait and fearful Verbeena doing a backfall
among the cushions.
There was one good thing she could say for him anyway--his cigarettes
were smokable. They were, she had seen by the boxes, of the famous
brand of Bull Camel.
Of one thing she was convinced. There would be no sandbagging this
evening.
[Illustration: SPAGHETTI.]
She had reduced Spaghetti to where she had only to show him the hat
pin and he would run right out and sit in the sand. She had made him
produce the sand-bag too, had ripped it open and poured the contents
back into the desert.
Also she had asked Spaghetti numerous questions about the Sheik Amut
and as far as she could make out his chief business was that of a
breeder, trainer and trapper of horses of a high-class character.
Nothing in the trucking way but mostly for society and circus uses.
The business of _femme_-_snatching_, her informant had assured her,
was totally new to him.
Did he have a harem?
No, Spaghetti thought not. It was very hard to keep one these days.
Especially when your business had you out on the desert running an
ambling horse farm. You were so likely to return to Biscuit or Orange
or Ammonia and find the harem had run out on you, bobbed its hair and
got jobs as manicure girls in Constantinople.
"That will be all," then had remarked Verbeena and had further taken a
tuck in Amut's devoted servant by saying:
"It is absurd; don't you think, for you to call yourself Spaghetti?
You're much too fat. Macaroni would be infinitely more suitable."
"Aw, Queena Verbeena!" protested Spaghetti.
"That will do. You may go, Mac."
He had backed out as becomes one departing from royalty and a hat pin.
Hulda she had entirely won over during the afternoon. She had given
the little six-foot thing one of her old evening gowns, yet a modest
garment withal, hanging well below Hulda's shoulder blades.
Dependably Verbeena was to be suspected of having something other than
sawdust under those clubbed curls of hers!
She was just wondering if she could go so far as to appoint Hulda
policewoman of the tent and entrust her with a sand-club when there
came loud yells without of "Hip hoy, hip hoy, hip, hip, hip! Allah,
Allah, Allah! AMUT!"
Three more "Allahs" were being heartily given still yet without when
the Sheik Amut Ben Butler strode haughtily into the tent, threw off
his creamy cloak and with a careless motion tossed his bejeweled
classy turban among the old gold and silver cushions, thus displaying
his shock of Sahara colored hair above his stick licorice black chin
muff.
Verbeena savagely and swiftly lighted nine cigarettes and faced him
peagreen with pyromania.
He touched off a cigarette himself.
"I hope Spaghetti didn't lay down on his job," said the Sheik. "Do you
know what we're going to have for dinner?"
He pushed Verbeena out of the way and stretched himself on the divan.
His cold manner was like a dash of water of the same temperature
against her face. Verbeena broke into a watery perspiration, her eyes
got watery with rage and her mouth watered to bite him the more so
that she could see, despite the nonchalant manner in which he was
looking at her, he was yet significantly appraising this outburst as a
valuable asset on any desert.
His presence was an offense and she would concede no amelioration of
it due to the nature of his occupation among horses. She wished with
passionate fierceness that she could dye his hair to match his
whiskers or his whiskers to match his hair. And the dreadful, cool way
he was lying there staring at her, the princely thing! My--such airs!
"You seem to think everything's nicely settled," said Verbeena icily.
"But when King and Lloyd George hear of this, they'll put such a flea
in the ear of the French Government, they'll be after you with a
hoop-la and a full set of gendarmerie armed with guillotines!"
"A pea for the French Government! And holler-woller for the Georges,
King and Lloyd."
"You seem very confident of immunity."
[Illustration: SHEIK AMUT BEN BUTLER, THE TERROR OF THE SANDS.]
"Of a certainty," said the Sheik. "I'm depending on Queen Mary. She's
an awful stiff one for the proprieties, you know, and when she hears
the way you defied conventions and went journeying out into the desert
without so much as a chaperon, if I know Mary, she'll say it served
you jolly well right. Anyway, what's one of those countries you speak
of got to do with it?"
He gave her the point of a finger--slightly cigarette stained, but
very stern.
"You forget, hussy,--I am the Sheik Amut Ben Butler. I'm the Grand
Monarch, the Monseigneur of this entire sand-patch--put that in a
cigarette paper and smoke it!
"There's another Sheik in these parts, one Abraham O'Mara who goes
around as if he cuts some didoes until he hears I'm in the
neighborhood and then, Allah behold him bolt for his simoon cellar!
"Besides, he'll soon be going back to Ireland or Palestine now and
I'll be taking over all his sandlots as well. So you can see for
yourself what a grass-cutter I am.
"Don't stand there shaking your sassy red curls at me or I'll get up
to you, do you understand?"
Verbeena gulped grandiloquently.
The Sheik sneered at her violently.
"See here," he said, "you'd have made a fine chorus boy but it was not
as a chorus boy or any other kind I saw you in Biscuit. So shake those
Reginald fixings and get yourself into something with fancy trimmings,
something decolleté and dashy. I'm surprised to find you so prone to
forget that you are a lady."
"In Biscuit--in Biscuit? You saw me in Biscuit, you underbred loafer?"
gasped Verbeena.
"That cat you chased off the balcony fell on a brand new, very natty
turban I was wearing as I passed the hotel."
"It was then that I first saw you, cutey! And when I heard you were
going to make a desert hike alone--well, here you are, little one,
_mon chit_, hale and hearty if a bit high-strung, my sweet ukelele."
"Love--love! You speak of love! 'Twas for a ransom you rifled me of my
liberty and what not, you big, hulking rotter!"
He regarded her scornfully.
"As a man who gave up eighty-six cents American cash to Musty Ale for
your possession--and this I did--shall you accuse me of kidnapping you
for ransom?"
"Then why--why--O, gosh, if only your hair and whiskers matched! But I
know Spaghetti lied."
"'Bout what?"
"He said he didn't know of your ever having any other girl but me."
"Well, naturally," the Sheik frowned dangerously, "Spaghetti knows
better than to do any gossipin' while I'm gone. Still it is true,
Verbie, that you are the first one I have ever taken caravaning. As
for the others----"
"The others! O, golly, golly me!" she sobbed. "Listen to him--the way
he says it--the others--the others! Just like that!"
"Why, of course," he said with a light insouciance that was
paramountedly the pinnacle of intense impropriety. "Let's see--there
have been Ayah and Beeyah, Ceeyah and Deeyah, Eeyah, Effa, Geeyah,
Aicha, Aihyah, Jayah, Kayah, Ella, Emma, Ennapeayah, Queahra, Essatee,
Dubla, Exa, little Whyzee and," the Sheik Amut sent a thin stream of
supercilious, insolent cigarette smoke at the trembling Verbeena, "so
forth. But you notice there was a 'V' missing from the collection."
"And so you----"
"Partly--partly. But there was another, by Allah, a deeper reason."
"What?"
He gave her a look that was awful sneery.
"That's something I'm keeping under my turban just now, Verbie. The
way you go 'round here asking questions you'd think we were really
married you know."
"And are we not to be?"
"Har-har!" laughed the Sheik Amut Ben Butler.
His manner of laughter was ingrainedly and corruscatedly ironic.
"Har-har!" he laughed anew.
Evidently without even so much of the savor of intention that might
take a favorable skid in the direction of the morganatic!
Again with flaring teeth--two touched with gold--he laughed:
"_Har-Har!_"