Mr. Hitchings was in such a hurry hurtling off the Sahara with a
broken climax that he left some things behind.
There were two collar buttons, a large piece of dignity and a
newspaper clipping.
The collar buttons Verbeena knew she would be able to use, she kicked
the lost dignity aside but stood interested in the newspaper clipping.
Logically too. It was about her.
"MISS MAYONNAISE MUCHLY MISSING."
Such was the headline in the Biscuit _Bismallah_.
And the article went on to say:
"The world is in stupendous alarm over the disappearance of
Miss Verbeena Mayonnaise who left the Hotel Biscuit here
without her bacon and eggs more than a month ago or giving the
clerk her forwarding address. She even forgot to pay her bill.
"Her intention was to take a jaunty junket into the far wild
places of the Sahara and it would appear that she has.
"Not a squeak has been heard from Miss Mayonnaise since.
"Miss Mayonnaise, indeed, is as thoroughly missing as sauce
Neuburg from American life.
"She was a grand girl in a gentlemanly way and things really
don't look so good as to her fate.
"It is deplorable that the sands of the desert carry no
wireless and the palm trees in this regard are also
imperturbable.
"The terribly alarmed world has spoken to the British
authorities demanding an immediate search but the discouraging
reply has been: 'What can we do? The Sahara is so much larger
than Scotland Yard!'
"Lord Tawdry, the magnificently-mustached brother of Miss
Mayonnaise, is concerned to distraction.
"He stopped playing bridge long enough to say so.
"A hotel porter of the Biscuit whom she forgot to tip, it is
understood, has instituted a search for her but found no trace
of the daring young adventurer in a seventy-mile trip out on
the desert beyond 86,000 cigarette stumps.
"And some scattered Arabs running around the Sahara asking
Allah to alleviate their condition in the matter of a she-demon
who is banging a great and well-known Sheik about haphazardly.
"They have given her the name of 'Jinny.'
"Although this clue is, of course, unpromising it was learned
by cable late last night that Sherlock Holmes has telephoned
Doctor Watson to come on over to Baker street, he's got
something interesting on.
"Confidence has been hopefully and freely expressed that if Mr.
Holmes doesn't find Miss Mayonnaise he will, at any rate, lose
Watson."
Verbeena's hopes and aims went vaunting in a very triumphant manner on
the reading of this clipping.
It was mean, however, she thought of Mr. Hitchings not to have shown
it to her.
Yet leaving it behind may have been one of his subtleties.
Anyway, hooray!
Obviously she sensed palpably that it was all highly intriguing.
Mad emotions stirred the Sheik to follow her with an admiring eye when
to show how pleased she was she went forth on the newly leased oasis
and threw herself among the tops of the palm trees indiscriminately.
In swift palpitation that made his heart beat the Sheik hugged his
bandaged ribs and watched her.
She moved gracefully among the tree tops snapping branches off
heartlessly. She radiated, also, he saw, mercilessly among the
verbiage.
In spite of a week's notice, for Verbeena meant to can Spaghetti, the
faithful fellow had drawn up to the Sheik's side and Amut turning
wonderingly toward him asked wildly:
"Are they the Willies she's got or what?"
"O, Monseigneur, merely angelically acrobatic," said Spaghetti with a
touch of reverence that was reverberating.
Suddenly Verbeena vamoosed from the palm trees, fell thirty feet with
a happy turn which landed her directly on the shampoo bandage which
was the Sheik's native headgear.
"My dear, your exuberance fascinates as well as flattens me," said the
august Amut in his fall. "May I ask the cause? Mind you, I do not
insist. You well know, I am too proud to fight."
"You will learn in time, my dear," laughed Verbeena airily, her
thoughts running ragingly in the line of movie contracts, of a day
soon when she would excel the gilded harvestings of Queen Mary
herself.
"Aw--please, O, clashing cadence of my soul's innermost adoration, let
your Sheiky know what gives you such happiness divine!"
"Nix-nix!" said Verbeena with excessive laughter, "my conquering
devil! Have you fed the camels yet? If not, spill that toga and hump
yourself!"
"Immediately, O, exquisite creature of Allah's greatest favor! And
yet, if you'll pardon me, this night I had planned taking a smack at
my old enemy, Sheik Abraham O'Mara. He's been cutting into the borders
of our sandpile considerable lately. E'er this, Queenie, he has always
been scared of me. But now he rides about the wide places, the narrow
and the circumambient without fear or dread of Amut Ben Butler.
"Once his goat was mine but now he thinks nothing of grabbing my
horses and camels any old time."
"Go right over and attend to him this evening," said Verbeena. "You
have my full permission. If he gets giddy with you just tell him I'll
be over myself. I've heard too that he is uncommonly cussed among the
women. And him a black Sheik at that--the old Ace of Spades! Tell
him----"
[Illustration: THE SHEIK ABRAHAM O'MARA, WHO BEAT IT FOR DEAR LIFE
ACROSS THE SAHARA AT SIGHT OF VERBEENA.]
"Tee-hee-hee!" chuckled the lordly Amut.
"What are you laughing at?" demanded his thoroughly acknowledged
wife--(in writing, you remember).
"Just look over on the horizon, my dear."
"At whom?"
"Those now to be seen scooting out of sight across it. The distance is
great but I recognize the leading figure clearly as the Sheik Abraham
O'Mara. See how fat! And how fast he travels! And yet it has always
been said of him there was danger ever when that fiend was abroad.
But, it seems he saw us first."
"Aha, afeard of you, my Amut?"
"Of me," he chuckled again and again.
For the first time in months the Sheik permitted himself a little bold
laughter.
"Of me!"
Once home in the tent the Sheik Amut Ben Butler dared to put his arms
out to her. He was no ordinary man to succumb to the fascinations of a
woman. You had to hit him first.
But having experienced the metallic obstinacy of Verbeena Mayonnaise,
the inflexibility of her character and seeing, as he ecstatically had,
the flight of his powerful and avowed enemy, Abraham O'Mara, he was
fraught with the realization that love had become a force in his life
which might drive him to anything where Verbeena was concerned,
predominantly and irresistibly.
He'd be trimming her curls for her next.
Amut's arms ached for her and always ached worse after he had tried to
hold her.
He permitted his mind to careen woefully regarding the secret Verbeena
was withholding. Something had made her very happy and as he felt
nothing to boast of in this regard he wondered incontinently. But in
his growing emotion concerning one who could not only chase him but
his greatest enemy at the very sight of her, the Sheik allowed himself
a sharp, sobbing intake of breath.
At the same time no other sign escaped him of the hell he was
enduring. She might not like it.
But he couldn't keep his mind off Verbeena for the distant howlings of
jackals came closer and closer.
Still, as between the two, he certainly liked her best.
And what was this secret that had sent her gamboling high among the
palm trees?
He had asked her and she wouldn't tell. His soul, his mind and heart
hammered, stirred, tintinnabulated and undulated to find out.
Little he knew then that vouchsafement as to this might have been
regarded generally as pretty closely to hand.