Never was any girl in all her life so grateful for a good, stiff
boyish training as in that moment found herself Verbeena Mayonnaise!
She thought of all the swimmin', rowin', ridin', boxin', runnin',
fightin', wrestlin' she had done in the past with exultation. She even
conjured up the long, sad face of Lord Tawdry with its sable curtains
and experienced a wave of gratitude. In the nomenclature of Fate she
felt that at this moment she had come Seven. Had not her life been one
long, mystically symmetrical training for such a situation, such an
emergency as this?
So he sat there lawffing at her, did he? He sat there making nasty
eyes at her expecting her to quiescently quiver--that soon he would
have her where he would be feeding her cigarettes from his hand.
She'd show this Shreik Amut with the molasses taffy hair and licorice
whiskers a thing or two!
[Illustration: THE BIG SCENE IN WHICH VERBEENA WITH SPURS AND HATPIN
TRIUMPHS OVER THE AWFUL SHEIK.]
Yes, and three and four and five!
Perhaps six.
Seven, eight, nine and ten!
And that counts "Out!"
"_Allah, O, Allah., HEY, Allah!_" suddenly shrieked Amut Ben Butler.
"_What in the name of the howling hoptoads of Heligoland is--is--OW!_"
You will recall I hope there was hereinbefore mentioned that Verbeena
had something up her sleeve? Well, I really wasn't in a position for
Verbeena's sake to give the real information then. As a matter of fact
she had it in one of the patch pockets of her dashing little riding
jacket. It was the _cous cous_ that had been so overloaded with red
pepper by the vengeful Spaghetti. She hadn't eaten a speck of it.
She'd saved it all for Amut.
When he would have staggered blindly up from the cushions she was on
him with a whirlwind of left and right hand hooks. Then came jabs,
swings, swats, wallops, biffs and bangs! And hammerlocks, half
Nelsons, strangle and toe-holds! This way and that!
All Tawd and the other fellows had ever taught her she was using. She
wouldn't leave enough of him to crawl through a rat-hole.
A vamp of violence and vengeance working at top form was then Verbeena
Mayonnaise!
"Spaghetti!" squealed the Sheik Amut ardently.
His faithful servant's pallid face appeared in the flapway.
Only to see his august, beloved chieftain on all fours with Verbeena
just mounting his back.
"O, momma! O, polpetteenies!" gasped Spaghetti.
"You keep out of this, Mac, or you'll get yours!" warned the fightin'
flapper with flashing eyes which shone from her face.
"Sapristi, Queena Verbeena! Escusa! I come only to maka aska what you
lika for eata? What da nica, sweeta lady she lika for deener, eh?"
"_Duck!_" said Verbeena.
Silently, swiftly the perfect servant withdrew.
The while Verbeena had not for an instant paused in massaging Sheik
Amut. She was all dressed, you remember, for riding and when she got
on the back of the once proud devil of the desert she gave him the
spurs.
And then the hat-pin.
His screams to Allah could have been heard in Mecca. His wild horses
strained at their tethers, neighing piteously at the frightful cries
arising from the canvas abbatoir that had once been the happy bachelor
apartments of the Sheik Amut Ben Butler.
The humps of the camels grew pale with fright and misery.
The swash-buckling horde of Amut's men, after getting what strings of
information they could from the gasping Spaghetti, took to the palm
trees from whence they tried to make it plain to Allah that their
beloved master had gone up against a _sheitana_, which the same is a
lady devil of the first water, and that really something should be
done to save him but that nothing--nothing short of heaven could
really avail.
Meanwhile, the proud Verbeena just roweled that lofty, haughty boy to
rags.
And ever, ever, ever, ever, always the hatpin! The more he reared to
plunge the fairer the mark.
Truly now had he become what first she had called him--a Shriek. But
as not less than a thousand shrieks sounded the plentifully punctured
passionut of the Sahara!
Besides ordinary damage his proud soul goosefleshed with horror.
His hauteur became hiatic.
And yet--and yet how wonderful she was!
_What a marvelously active Verbie!_
He felt the stirrings in his heart of a love, ponderose, grandiose,
glamorous, stupendous!
It was indeed very dominant in his veins just about the time she
slammed him back on the cushions and slapped his face for him good.
Her vibrant tones in spite of the inner cries of protest of his
desiccated manhood he found adorable as to him then she said:
"You multi-colored, flashy, hieroglyphic son of a spavined grandsire,
you stalking, frowning, sneering, swaggering imitation of something
that is which amounts to something, you that are nothing whatsoever at
all! Rotter, bounder, boob--you blurb, blip, you--don't you dare
to answer me back or I'll set fire to your whiskers, you
flea-bitten--why, what in the world's happened to 'em? Amut, where's
your whiskers?"
"Over there on the floor, back of you, my Queen," said the Sheik in
strange, shivered accents due to swollen lips.
"I don't seem to remember pulling them out."
"O, I'm quite sure you didn't. You see----"
"Good God," said Verbeena, "more treachery! Even his whiskers are
false!
"Tosh--I might have known--Lillian Russell top hair and Trotsky chin
trimmings!
"What was the idea of this face screen anyway? So's I wouldn't be able
to identify you I suppose after you'd squeezed me dry and threw me
over at Orange with all the rest of your amorous alphabet? Was that
it, hey?"
"No, by Allah, no," he sobbed, his haughty head tumbled among the
silver, black, green, blue, pink and twilight yellow cushions.
She drew forth the hatpin which is so much deadlier than the scarfpin
of the species.
"I swear! No--no, Queenie, no!"
"Then why the Hawkshaws?"
"Allah defend me--I cannot tell you--not if you kill me, my sweet wand
of affliction!"
"I don't know what I'll do later," said Verbeena. "But anyway, I'm
going to make you marry me first.
"Mac!" she called. "Hulda!"
They came humbly.
"Listen to this, both of you!"
"Yea, O Queen," they answered.
"Sheik Amut Ben Butler, you say you are king of this tail-end of the
desert?"
"With your kind permission, Verbeena, the First."
"And Parliament and everything?"
"Yes'm."
"Well, Amut, old thing, right now you are in session. Pass a common
law."
"I--I----"
"Stupid--like they have in America. A common law for marriage. If a
man and woman agree to live together as husband and wife--that settles
it. It goes, hook, line, sinker and breakfast cereals. But it is made
all the more binding when there is a written agreement between them.
"All in favor," she said with her eyes firmly on the passion-purged
orbs of Amut, the non-abductor, "will say 'Aye!'"
"Aye!" said the Sheik Amut Ben Butler in a loud, firm voice.
But biting the while a quivering underlip, he soon burst into tears.
Immediately Verbeena whipped out a paper from the breast of her
Norfolk jacket and laid it before him. (That girl had just thought of
everything! She even had a fountain pen right ready for him!)
"Sign," she said simply.
The red pepper wasn't all out his eyes by any means, but the broken,
quivering creature was able to read:
"I, Sheik Amut Ben Butler of Oasis No. 4 Sahara, and I,
Verbeena Mayonnaise of London and lots of other places, on this
day do take each other unto each other as man and wife, the
party of the first part and the party of the second agreeing
not to part unless through the intervention of an undertaker or
a divorce judge in which latter case alimony to the tune of
fifty horses, ten camels and seventeen tons of dates a month
shall be promptly and persistently paid unto the party of the
second part together with fifty-fifty on the proceeds of any
caravan holdups hereinafter possibly to occur."
"You will see that it's dated yesterday," said Verbeena, "but that's
only a technicality."
The Sheik Amut signed. She signed. Spaghetti signed. Hulda hurled her
mark on the document.
"There," said Verbeena, "that's that! I'd like to see Lady Speedway
open her ole fish-mouth when our caravan pulls into Biscuit again,
hey, Amut?"
"Har-har-har!" exclaimed the Sheik with well-timed, impromptu
heartiness.
"Spaghetti," next said Verbeena, "you can serve dinner now. And go
light on the use of the Italian national flower in your cooking or
you'll hear from me.
"Hulda, rip down that bunch of moth-eaten hangings. They're an
eyesore. I'll get some decent chintz curtains as soon as we get to
town. And pick up all those revolvers and daggers and such truck and
throw them into the store tent."
She turned again to the Sheik.
"You'll have to get up and get out early to-morrow, Mutty, dear,
because I shall simply have to start housecleaning first thing in the
morning."
"As Allah wills, my love."
"Nonsense. I'm sick of this stuff of putting everything up to Allah.
You'll just get up and do it on your own account, do you hear?"
"You betcher," said Sheik Amut Ben Butler right on the dot.
* * * * *
"May I have another cigarette, Verbie?" came the honeyed accents of
the Sheik Amut as, dinner finished, coffee was being served.
"Just one. Too much smoking will affect the steadiness of your hand in
horse-training. I must look into the condition of the herd myself
to-morrow."
"Yes, do," he assented. "I'm afraid I've been pretty slack but you
know how a bachelor is--sporting around a good deal, he is likely to
forget business."
She reached for her handbag and got out a tin of candied violet
leaves.
She fed him about ten which he chewed as delicately as he might--much
more delicately, Verbeena noticed, than the camels chewed gum.
Verbeena was pleased.
"Under the extraordinary circumstances," she finally stated, "and the
legal steps having been duly taken and perfected, there is not in so
far as I can see, any valid reason why marital relations may not with
perfect propriety eventuate."
"Allah, oh, Allah!" sobbed the Sheik softly beating his turban
profusely.