enjoying a highly prosperous season. Yet though there were so many
people there I made no acquaintances in the first week of my sojourn.
Nor in the second week did I come to know more than three or four, and
they but slightly. I was, in truth, treated somewhat as an object of
suspicion, the cause of which I could not at first imagine. I was
newer to this country and its customs and costumes there a year ago.
Previous to starting for the lake, I had purchased of a firm of
clothiers farther up this street, Poppenheimer and Pappenheimer, a
full outfit for all occasions and sports incident upon a vacation at a
fashionable resort. I had not then learned that one can seldom make a
more fatal mistake than to allow a clothier or tailor to choose for
you. It is true that these gentry have in stock what persons of
refinement demand, but they also have fabrics and garments bizarre in
color and cut, in which they revel and carry for apparently no other
reason than the delectation of their own perverted taste, since they
seldom or never sell them. But at times they light upon some one whose
ignorance or easy-going disposition makes him a prey, and they send
him forth an example of what they call a well-dressed man. More
execrably dressed men than Poppenheimer and Pappenheimer and most of
the other parties in the clothing business, are seldom to be found in
other walks of life. In my ignorance of American customs, I entrusted
myself to their hands with the result that my garments were
exaggerated in pattern and style and altogether unsuited to my dark
complexion and slim figure. But in the wearing of these garments I
aggravated the original sartorial offence into a sartorial crime. With
my golf trousers and white ducks I wore a derby hat. For nearly a week
I wore with a shirt waist a pair of very broad blue silk suspenders
embroidered in red. All at once I awoke to a realization that the
others did not wear their clothes as I did and set myself to imitate
them with the result that my clothes were at least worn correctly. The
mischief was largely done, however, before this reform, and nothing I
could do would alter the cut and fabric.
"My clothes were not the only drawbacks to my making acquaintances. I
was entirely debarred from a participation in the sports of the place.
I knew nothing of golf. A son of the desert, I could no more swim than
fly, and so far from being able to sail a boat, I cannot even manage a
pair of oars. I could only watch the others indulge in their
divertissements, a lonely and wistful outsider.
"Yet despite all this, I could perceive that I was not without
interest to the young ladies. Partially as an object of amusement at
first, but not entirely that, even at first, for the sympathetic eyes
of some of them betrayed a gentle compassion.
"Among the twenty or so young ladies at our hotel, were two who would
attract the attention and excite the admiration of any assemblage, two
sisters from Chicago, beautiful as houris. In face and figure I have
never seen their equal. Their cheeks were like the roses of Shiraz,
their teeth like the pearls of Ormuz, their eyes like the eyes of
gazelles of Hedjaz. Before beholding these damosels, I had never
realized what love was, but at last I knew, I fell violently in love
with them both. Never in my wildest moments had I thought to fall in
love with a daughter of the Franks. Nor had I contemplated an extended
stay in this land, and before my departure from Arabia I had begun to
negotiate for the formation of a harem to be in readiness against my
return.
"But I soon began to entertain all these thoughts and to dally with
the idea of changing my religion, abhorrent as that idea was. At first
I had been comforted by the thought that I was in love with both girls
in orthodox Moslem style. But reflecting that I could never have both,
that they would never come to me, that I must go to them, becoming
renegade to my creed, I tried to decide which I loved best. I came to
a decision without any extended thinking. I was in love with Miss
Mildred, the elder of the two sisters Decatur, daughters of one of
Chicago's wealthy men, and this question settled, there remained the
stupendous difficulty of winning her. For I did not even possess the
right to lift my hat to these young ladies. My affair certainly
appeared quite hopeless.
"In the last week of August, an Italian and his wife encamped upon the
south shore of the lake with a small menagerie, if a camel, a bear,
and two monkeys can be dignified by so large a title. He was
accustomed to make the rounds of the hotels and cottages on alternate
days, one day mounted on the dromedary and strumming an Oriental lute,
on the others playing a Basque bagpipe while his bear danced, or
proceeding with hand-organ and monkeys. He had been a soldier in the
Italian colony of Massowah on the Red Sea, where he had acquired the
dromedary--which was the most gigantic one I have ever seen--and a
smattering of Arabic. English he had none, his wife serving as his
interpreter in that tongue.
"The sight of the camel was balm to my eyes. Not only was it agreeable
to me to see one of that race of animals so characteristic of my
native land, but here at last was a form of recreation opened to me. I
hired the camel on the days when the Italian was not using him and
went flying about all over the country. Little did I suspect that I
thereby became associated with the Italian in the minds of the public
and that presently they began to believe that I, too, was an Italian
and the real owner of the menagerie, employing Baldissano to manage it
for me while I lived at my ease at the hotel. I was heard conversing
with the Italian, and of course nobody suspected that I was talking to
him in Arabic. It was a tongue unknown to them all and they chose to
consider it Italian. Moreover, one Ashton Hanks, a member of the
Chicago board of trade, at the hotel for the season, had said to the
menagerie, jerking his thumb interrogatively at me, as I was busied in
the background with the camel, 'Italiano? Italiano?' To which
Baldissano replied, 'Si, signor,' meaning 'yes,' thinking of course
that Hanks meant him. 'Boss? Padrone?' said Hanks again, and again the
answer was, 'Si, signor.'
"So here I was, made out to be an Italian and the owner of a miserable
little menagerie which I employed a minion to direct, while myself
posing as a man of substance and elegant leisure. Here I was, already
proven a person of atrocious taste in dress, clearly proclaimed of no
social standing, of unknown and suspicious antecedents, a vulgarian
pretender and interloper. But of course I didn't know this at the
time.
"I was riding past the front of the hotel on the camel one day at a
little before the noon hour, when I beheld her whom I loved overcome
by keen distress and as she was talking rather loudly, I could not but
be privy to what she said.
"'Oh, dear,' she exclaimed, clasping her hands in great worriment,
'what shall I do, what shall I do! Here I am, invited to go on a sail
and fish-fry on Mr. Gannett's yacht, and I have no white yachting
shoes to wear with my white yachting dress. I've just got to wear that
dress, for I brought only two yachting dresses and the blue one is at
the laundry. I thought I put a pair of white shoes in my trunk, but I
didn't; I haven't time to send to Ripon for a pair. I won't wear black
shoes with that dress. But how will I get white ones?'
"'Through my agency,' said I from where I sat on the back of the
camel.
"'Oh,' said she, with a little start at my unexpected intrusion, her
face lighting with a sudden hope, nevertheless. 'Were you going to
Ripon and will you be back before one-thirty? Are you perfectly
willing to do this errand for me?'
"'I am going to Ripon,' I said, 'and nothing will please me more than
to execute any commission you may entrust to me. This good steed will
carry me the six miles and back before it is time to sail. They seldom
sail on the time set, I have observed.'
"She brought me a patent-leather dancing shoe to indicate the desired
size, and away I went, secured the shoes, and turned homeward. While
skirting a large hill that arises athwart the sky to the westward of
the city of Ripon, I was startled by a weird, portentous, moaning cry
from my mount. Ah, its import was only too well known to me. Full many
a time had I heard it in the desert. It was the cry by which the
camels give warning of the coming of a storm. While yet the eye and
ear of man can detect no signs whatever of the impending outburst of
nature's forces and the earth is bathed in the smiles of the sky, the
camels, by some subtle, unerring instinct, prognosticate the storm.
"I looked over the whole firmament. Not a cloud in sight. A soft
zephyr and a mellow sun glowing genially through a slight autumnal
haze. Not a sign of a storm, but the camel had spoken. I dismounted at
once. I undid the package of shoes. From my pocket I took a small
square bit of stone of the cubical contents of a small pea. It was cut
from the side of the cave where Mohammed rested during the Hegira, or
flight of Mohammed, with which date we begin our calendar. This bit of
stone was reputed to be an efficacious amulet against dangers of
storms, and also a charm against suddenly falling in love. I placed it
in the toe of the right shoe. Unbeknownst to her, Mildred would be
protected against these dangers. I could not hope to dissuade her from
the voyage by telling her of the camel's forewarning. Ashton Hanks was
to be one of the yachting party and he had shown evidences of a tender
regard for her. Retying the package, it was not long before I had
placed it in the hands of Mildred. With a most winsome smile she
thanked me and ran in to don the new purchases.
"The boat set sail and I watched it glide westward over the sparkling
waves, toward the lower end of the lake, watching for an hour until it
had slipped behind some point and was lost to sight. Then I scanned
the heavens to see if the storm I knew must come would break before it
was time for the yachting party to return. Low on the northern horizon
clouds were mustering, their heads barely discernible above the rim of
the world. But for the camel's warning I would not have seen them. The
storm was surely coming. By six o'clock, or thereabouts, it would
burst. The party was to have its fish-fry at six, at some point on the
south shore. On the south shore would be the wreck, if wreck there was
to be.
"With no definite plan, no definite purpose, save to be near my love
in the threatening peril, I set out for the south shore. By water, it
is from a mile and a half to three miles across Green Lake. By land,
it is many times farther. From road to road of those parallel with the
major axis of the lake, it is four miles at the narrowest, and it is
three miles from the end of the lake before you reach the first north
and south road connecting the parallels. Ten miles, then, after you
leave the end of the lake on the side where the hotels are, before you
are at the end on the other side. And then thirteen miles of shore.
"So what with the distance and the time I had spent watching the
shallop that contained my love pass from my field of vision the
afternoon had far waned when I had reached the opposite shore, and
when I had descended to the beach at a point where I had thought I
might command the most extensive view and discover the yacht, if it
had begun to make its way homeward, the light of day had given place
to twilight. But not the twilight of imminent night, the twilight of
the coming tempest. For the brewing of a fearful storm had now some
time been apparent. A hush lay on the land. A candle flame would have
shot straight upward. Nature waited, silently cowering.
"To the northward advanced, in serried columns of black, the beetling
clouds that were turning the day into night, the distant booming of
aerial artillery thundering forth the preluding cannonade of the
charge. Higher and higher into the firmament shot the front of the
advancing ranks in twisting curls of inky smoke, yet all the while the
mass dropped nearer and nearer to the earth and the light of day
departed, save where low down in the west a band of pale gold lay
against the horizon, color and nothing more, as unglowing as a yellow
streak in a painted sunset. Against this weird, cold light, I saw a
naked mast, and then a sail went creaking up and I heard voices. They
had been shortening sail. By some unspent impulse of the vanished
wind, or the impact of the waves still rolling heavily and glassily
from a recent blow, the yacht was still progressing and came moving
past me fifty or sixty feet from shore.
"I heard the voices of women expressing terror, begging the men to do
something. Danger that comes in the dark is far more fearsome than
danger which comes in the light. I heard the men explaining the
impossibility of getting ashore. For two miles on this coast, a line
of low, but unscalable cliffs rose sheer from the water's edge,
overhanging it, in fact, for the waves had eaten several feet into the
base of the cliffs. To get out and stand in front of these cliffs was
to court death. The waves of the coming storm would either beat a man
to death against the rocks, or drown him, for the water was four feet
deep at the edge of the cliffs and the waves would wash over his head.
For two miles, I have said, there was a line of cliffs on this coast,
for two miles save just where I stood, the only break, a narrow rift
which, coinciding with a section line, was the end of a road coming
down to the water. They could not see this rift in the dusk, perhaps
were ignorant of its existence and so not looking for it.
"The voices I had heard were all unfamiliar and it was not until the
yacht had drifted past me that I was apprised it was indeed the craft
I sought by hearing the voice of Mildred saying, with an assumed
jocularity that could not hide the note of fear:
"'What will _I_ do? All the other girls have a man to save them. I am
the extra girl.'
"I drove my long-legged steed into the water after the boat none too
soon, for the whistling of a premonitory gust filled the air. Quickly
through the water strode the camel, and, with his lariat in my hand, I
plumped down upon the stern overhang just as the mainsail went
slatting back and forth across the boat and everybody was ducking his
head. In the confusion, nobody observed my arrival.
"'She's coming about,' cried the voice of the skipper, Gannett. 'A few
of these gusts would get us far enough across to be out of danger from
the main storm.'
"But she did not come about. I could feel the camel tugging at the
lariat as the swerving of the boat jerked him along, but presently the
strain ceased, for the boat lay wallowing as before. Again a fitful
gust, again the slatting of the sail, the skipper put his helm down
hard, the boat put her nose into the wind, hung there, and fell back.
"'She won't mind her helm!'
"'She won't come about!'
"'She acts as if she were towing something, were tied to something!'
"'What's that big rock behind there? Who the devil is this? And how
the devil did he get here?'
"In the midst of these excited and alarmed exclamations came the
solemn, portentous voice of the camel tolling out in the unnatural
night the tocsin of the approaching hurricane.
"'It's the Dago!' cried Gannett, examining me by the fleeting flash of
a match. 'It's his damned camel towing behind that won't let us come
about. Pitch him overboard!'
"'Oh, save me!' appealed Mildred.
"There she had been, sitting just in front of me and I hadn't known it
was she. It was not strange that she had faith that I who had arrived
could also depart.
"'Selim,' I called, pulling the camel to the boat. I had never had a
name for him before, but it was high time he had one, so now I named
him. 'Selim,' and there the faithful beast was and with Mildred in my
arms, I scrambled on to his back and urged him toward the rift in the
wall of cliff.
"As if I had spurned it with my foot, the boat sprang away behind us,
a sudden rushing blast filling her sails and laying her almost over,
and then she was out of our sight, into the teeth of the tempest,
yelling, screaming, howling with a hundred voices as it darted from
the sky and laid flat the waves and then hurled them up in a mass of
stinging spray.
"In fond anticipation, I had dwelt upon the homeward ride with
Mildred. A-camelback, I was, as it were, upon my native heath, master
of myself, assured, and at ease. I had planned to tell her of my love,
plead my cause with Oriental fervor and imagery, but before we reached
shore the tempest was so loud that she could not have heard me unless
I had shouted, and I had no mind to bawl my love. Worse still, when
once we were going across the wind and later into it, I could not open
my mouth at all. We reached the hotel and on its lee side I lifted her
down to the topmost of the piazza steps. I determined not be delayed
longer. If ever there was to be a propitious occasion, it was now when
I had rescued her from encompassing peril. I retained hold of her
hand. She gave me a glance in which was at least gratitude, and I
dared hope, something more, and I was about to make my declaration,
when she made a little step, her right foot almost sunk under her and
she gave an agonized cry and hobbling, limping, hopping on one foot,
passed from me across the piazza to the stairs leading to the second
story, whither she ascended upon her hands and knees.
"That wretched stone from the cavern where Mahommed slept in the
Hegira! How many times during the day had she wanted to take her shoe
off? She would ascertain the cause of her torment, she would lay it to
me. It had indeed been an amulet against sudden love. I was the man
whose love it had forefended.
"'Gannett's yacht went down and all aboard of her were drowned,' said
one of the bellboys to me. 'Everybody in the hotel is feeling
dreadful.'
"'How do you know they are drowned?'
"'Everybody in the hotel says so. I don't know how they found out.'
"'What's that at the pier?' said I.
"The lights at the end of the pier shone against a white expanse of
sail and there was a yacht slowly making a landing.
"Someone came and stood for a moment in an open window above me and
there floated out the voice of one of the sisters Decatur, but which
one, I could not tell. Their voices were much alike and I had not
heard either of them speak very often.
"'Do you think that one ought to marry a person who rescues her from
death, when he happens to be a Dago and cheap circus man into the
bargain? I certainly do not.'
"Which one was it? Which one was it? Imagine my feelings, torn with
doubt, perplexity, and sorrow. Was it Mildred, replying scornfully to
some opinion of her sister, or was it the sister taking Mildred to
task for saying she wished or ought to marry me? How was I to know?
Could I run the risk of asking the girls themselves?"
The emir paused, and it was plain to be seen from the workings of his
countenance that once more he was living over this unhappy episode.
"I can well imagine your feelings and sympathize with them," said Mr.
Middleton. "There you sat in the encircling darkness, asking yourself
with no hope of an answer, 'Was it Mildred? Was it her sister? Was it
Mildred contemptuously repudiating the idea of marriage with me, or
the sister haughtily scoffing at some sentiments just professed by
Mildred? But I should not have spent too long a time asking how I was
to know. I should put the matter to the test and had it out with
Mildred, Miss Mildred, I should say."
The emir looked steadily at Mr. Middleton. There was surprise,
annoyance, perhaps even vexation in his gaze. With incisive tones, he
said:
"How could you so mistake me? Ours is a line whose lineage goes back
twelve hundred years, a noble and unsullied line. Could I, sir, think
of making my wife, making a princess of my race, a woman who could
entertain the thought of stooping to marry a Dago cheap circus man?
Suppose I had gone to Mildred and had asked her if she had expressed
herself of such a demeaning declaration? Suppose she had said, 'Yes,'
then there I would have been, compromised, caught in an entanglement
from which as a man of honor, I could not withdraw. The only thing to
do was to keep silence. The risk was too great, I resolved to leave on
the morrow. For the first time did I learn that I was believed to be a
Dago and the proprietor of the little menagerie. This strengthened my
resolve to leave.
"I left. Your happy encounter with the young ladies in the restaurant
changed all. They learned from you that I was their social equal. They
looked me up and apologized for their apparent lack of appreciation of
my services and explained that they thought me a Dago circus man. I
learned that neither of them believed in a mesalliance, that the
question I had heard was a rhetorical question merely, one not
expecting an answer, much used by orators to express a strong negation
of the sentiments apparently contained in the question. But I have not
yet learned which girl it was who asked the question. It is entirely
immaterial and I don't think I shall try to find out, even after I am
married, for of course you have surmised I am to be married, to be
married to Mildred."
"Yes, another American heiress marries a foreign nobleman," said Mr.
Middleton, with a bitterness that did not escape the emir.
"Permit me to correct a popular fallacy," said the emir. "Nothing
could be more erroneous than the prevalent idea that American girls
marry foreign noblemen because attracted by the glitter of rank,
holding their own plain republican citizens in despite. Sir, it takes
a title to make a foreigner equal to American men in the eyes of
American women. A British knight may compete with the American mister,
but when you cross the channel, nothing less than a count will do in a
Frenchman, a baron in the line of a German, while, for a Russian to
receive any consideration, he must be a prince.
"And now," said the emir, "my little establishment here being about to
be broken up, I am going to ask you to accept certain of my effects
which for sundry reasons I cannot take with me to my new abode. My
jewels, hangings, and costumes, my wife will like, of course. But as
she is opposed to smoking, there are six narghilehs and four
chibouques which I will never use again. As I am about to unite with
the Presbyterian church this coming Sunday, it might cause my wife
some disquietude and fear of backsliding, were I to retain possession
of my eight copies of the Koran. She may be wise there," said the emir
with a sigh. "If perchance you should embrace the true faith and
thereby make compensation for the loss of a member occasioned by my
withdrawal----"
"That would not even matters up," interrupted Mr. Middleton, "for I am
not a Presbyterian, but a Methodist."
"Oh," said the emir. "Well, there are five small whips of rhinoceros
hide and two gags. My wife will not wish me to keep those, nor a
crystal casket containing twenty-seven varieties of poisons. Then
there are other things that you might have use for and I have not. I
have sent for a cab and Mesrour will stow the things in it."
At that moment the cab was heard without and Mesrour began to load it
with the gifts of the emir. At length he ceased his carrying and stood
looking expectantly. With an air of embarrassment, and clearing his
throat hesitatingly, the emir addressed Mr. Middleton.
"There is one last thing I am going to ask you to take. I cannot call
it a gift. I can look upon your acceptance of it in no other light
than a very great service. Some time ago, when marriage in this
country was something too remote to be even dreamed of, I sent home
for an odalisque."
The emir paused and looked obliquely at Mr. Middleton, as if to
observe the effect of this announcement. That excellent young man had
not the faintest idea what an odalisque might be, but he had ever made
it a point when strange and unknown terms came up, to wait for
subsequent conversation to enlighten him directly or by inference as
to their meaning. In this way he saved the trouble of asking questions
and, avoiding the reputation of being inquisitive and curious, gained
that of being well informed upon and conversant with a wide range of
subjects. So he looked understandingly at the emir and remarking
approvingly, "good eye," the emir continued, much encouraged.
"To a lonely man such as I then was, the thought of having an
odalisque about, was very comforting. Lonely as I then was, an
odalisque would have afforded a great deal of company."
"That's right," said Mr. Middleton. "Why, even cats are company. The
summer I was eighteen, everybody in our family went out to my
grandfather's in Massachusetts, and I stayed home and took care of the
house. I tell you, I'd been pretty lonely if it hadn't been for our
two cats."
"But now I am going to be married and my wife would not think of
tolerating an odalisque about the house. She simply would not have it.
The odalisque arrived last night, and I am in a great quandary. I
could not think of turning the poor creature out perhaps to starve."
"That's right," said Mr. Middleton. "Some persons desiring to dispose
of a cat, will carry it off somewhere and drop it, thinking that more
humane than drowning it. But I say, always drown a cat, if you wish to
get rid of it."
"Now I have thought that you, being without a wife to object, might
take this burden off my hands. I will hand you a sum sufficient for
maintenance during a considerable period and doubtless you can, as
time goes on, find someone else who wants an odalisque, or discover
some other way of disposal, in case you tire----"