I._For Love of a Bedouin Maid

Produced by Al Haines.

*FOR LOVE OF A

BEDOUIN MAID*

*BY LE VOLEUR,*

AUTHOR OF "BY ORDER OF THE BROTHERHOOD" AND

"A DEVIL IN ANGEL'S FORM."

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:

RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,

PUBLISHERS.

*CONTENTS*

INTRODUCTION

1ST EPOCH--GENERAL BUONAPARTE

EPOCH II--THE CONSUL BUONAPARTE

EPOCH III--THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON

EPOCH IV--CAPTIVE, BUT EMPEROR STILL

*INTRODUCTION.*

"That will do; place the cigars upon the table and then you can go."

The speaker was Lord Throgmorten, a man of about thirty-six years of

age, rather stout, with reddish hair and whiskers and cold, steel-gray

eyes. He had just returned from a yachting cruise, upon which he had

started upon his succession to the title about eighteen months before.

The scene was his lordship's chambers in the Albany, and the time the

night of the 22nd of July, 1893.

Besides the speaker and the well-trained servant, who, in obedience to

the order just given, occupied himself in fetching the silver cigar box

from its accustomed place upon the sideboard, lighting the wax taper

which stood by its side and placing them in front of his master, there

were present two other persons. The man on his host's right near the

fireplace, wearing spectacles and with the careworn look upon his

features, was Mr. Percival Phelps, who had been his lordship's guest

upon their recent cruise. He was a genial, dapper little man with

inordinate vanity, and a slight stammer, when excited; with no income to

speak of, save his stipend as a permanent clerk in the ---- Office, a

position that, his host said, "suited him down to the ground."

The man facing him, and looking towards the window, though younger than

either of the other two, was already coming into prominent notice and

making a fair income as sub-editor of that popular paper "The

Telescope."

When the servant had left the room, the young man proceeded to address

his host in measured tones.

"Since I received your letter, I have been on tenter hooks to hear the

story of this wonderful discovery. You wrote me only a bare line from

Southampton on the 12th to say that you had had a pleasant trip, during

which you had chanced on a most extraordinary find; and that you

particularly wanted me to dine with you to-night and hear about it.

Well, now the man's gone, you can fire off your intelligence. What is

it: coins, fossils, bones, or buried treasure?" And the editor,

refilling his glass with port, which he knew by experience was

particularly good, settled himself in his chair in a less constrained

attitude, and prepared to listen to his host's narration.

Lord Throgmorten's reply was to rise from the table and with Mr. Phelps'

aid, to bring from the further end of the room a box--covered with a

cloth--whose weight, judging from the efforts required to lift it, was

considerable.

"There," said his lordship, reseating himself, "that is the discovery,

and that," pointing to Mr. Phelps who, like his host, panting from his

exertions, had resumed his seat, "is the discoverer."

"The s-s-story first. Tell the story," said that gentleman, stammering

in his excitement, while Lord Throgmorten prepared to remove the cover.

The latter acceded to the suggestion, and began as follows, addressing

his remarks to the editor, while Phelps sat by, giving confirmatory nods

by way of emphasis, when occasion seemed to call for it.

"You are aware that, last February twelvemonth, Phelps and myself

started for Australia in my steam yacht the Osprey, for the purpose of

visiting my property out there. With our voyage out my story has nothing

to do; it was only when we had turned our nose homewards and on the 17th

June that our adventure began. On that night we were sailing--not

steaming, mind, because there was a fair wind and we wished to save our

coal.

"This was the position of affairs at midnight when Phelps and I retired

to our cabins. At five a.m. I was roused from my sleep by a commotion

on deck and the cry of 'Land Ahead,' followed by the order 'Hard a

port.' I dashed on deck, on my way jostling against Phelps, who, like

myself, had been awakened by the disturbance. On reaching it, we saw,

rising out of the mist on our port beam, the rocky coast of an island;

we made for the side and gazed over. To our horror, it seemed that we

were almost grazing the rocks of a reef over which the sea was breaking.

Slowly, ah! how slowly it seemed to us--all anxiously watching the line

of surf which marked the treacherous rocks beneath--we passed them. A

few minutes later we were hove to in deep water, the danger past;

though, to this moment, it is a marvel to me how we escaped the rocks. I

hailed Captain Soames, who was on the bridge, and asked him to lay down

our position as well as his dead reckoning would permit, and, so soon as

he had done so, to join me in the saloon with the chart.

"Then Phelps and I went below, where, presently, the skipper came to us.

He unrolled the chart and placed his finger on a small cross, which we

were able to distinguish by the light of the lamp. 'That, gentlemen,'

he said, 'is our exact position marked upon a chart corrected to the

most recent survey, and bought new, as your honors are doubtless aware,

for the purposes of this trip. I beg your honors to notice that, by

that chart, we ought to be in deep water hundreds of miles from any

land. I trust, therefore, that you will exonerate me from blame for

having so nearly run the ship aground.'

"Both Phelps and I assured him that we felt that our recent danger arose

from no fault in navigation, but was an accident which no one could

possibly have foreseen.

"Still the fact stared us in the face. The chart marked deep water, and

yet we had, as nearly as possible, been wrecked upon an island that,

according to the hydrographers, had no existence. When the truth dawned

upon us, at first we both sat speechless, the skipper alone standing and

looking from one to the other of us, as puzzled as ourselves. For fully

half a minute we stared at one another, the unspoken question simmering

in our brain, 'Whence comes this island?' the lamplight shining upon our

faces, and the dawning sunlight playing through the open port hole and

making ever shifting shadow patterns upon the cabin floor.

"Even now I can see myself with my eyes fixed upon the skipper's finger,

which still rested upon the chart, and observing every stain and wrinkle

upon it, though my brain was busy with the island.

"Phelps was the first to break the silence. 'Volcanic,' he exclaimed,

and shut up.

"'Impossible,' I said, his voice rousing me from my reverie. 'There has

been no eruption for ever so long of sufficient magnitude to cast up

such an island.'

"Captain Soames's contribution to the discussion was the most practical

of the three. 'Beg pardon, gentlemen, for interrupting your

conversation, but would it not be better to go on shore and see for

yourselves? Mr. Phelps here is a man of science, and they tell me he

can say a powerful deal about what rock and stones are made of, by just

looking at them.'

"I jumped to my feet exclaiming, 'The very thing. We will go on shore

the moment they have got a boat ready. Stay,' I resumed, when the

skipper, who had saluted, was about to leave, 'when you have made all

ship-shape on deck, overhaul her below to see whether we have sustained

any damage, so that, if necessary, we may make all speed to the nearest

port to refit.'

"While the boat was being made ready, we had our breakfast; and, when we

went on deck, the sun was shining brightly and a stiffish breeze was

blowing, and the mist, which had before almost enshrouded the island,

was gone, so that the latter could now be plainly seen. So far as one

could judge from the deck, the island, seen through a telescope, was

about a mile broad by three miles long, and, except for an excrescence

in the center, entirely flat. Just abreast of the yacht, was a little

inlet that seemed to offer a suitable landing place. We had taken our

places in the boat and were about to shove off when the skipper called

out to us to ask us to make our stay as short as possible, for that,

should a heavy gale get up, he feared the anchor would not hold and we

might be driven ashore. We, therefore, promised to make what haste we

could, then shoved off, and began to pull towards the inlet. Before us

was this barren rock, not a sign of life upon it, not even a bird;

behind us the yacht rolling lazily upon an unending expanse of water.

Short as was the distance between the ship and the shore, the journey

was unutterably tedious owing to the terrific heat. But, in due course,

we stepped ashore.

"Naturally the first thing we did was to make our way to the foot of the

small hillock in about the center of the island. Here was a small group

of rocks and on these we decided to rest ourselves; and very soon,

overcome by our walk and the heat of the sun, I closed my eyes and went

off to sleep. How long my sleep lasted, I cannot say, but I was roused

by the sound of Phelps's voice.

"When I opened my eyes, I saw him hammering away at a small piece of

rock as vigorously as if his whole life depended on it. I got up and

walked towards him. 'What on earth are you hammering at now?' I asked.

"'Look,' he said, 'I started to break a piece of this rock off as a

souvenir of our adventure, and this is what I found.'

"At first sight, it appeared to be a rock about two feet square and nine

inches deep, buried partially in the soil; but, on examining it more

closely, I found the cause of his excitement. The piece that he had

broken off disclosed an iron corner.

"'There is something underneath,' said Phelps; 'the rock is only a

deposit upon it.'

"An examination of the exposed portion proved the correctness of his

remark.

"'I am going to get that out, whatever it is, if I work till dark,' he

continued.

"At first I laughed at his enthusiasm, but it ended in my helping him.

Armed with a fragment of rock as heavy as a blacksmith's sledge-hammer,

I poised it above my head and, bidding Phelps stand away in case he

should be struck by any fragments, I brought it down with all my might,

upon the top of the rock. My improvised hammer split into bits with the

force of the blow, but it cracked the rocky deposit sufficiently to

enable us with a little trouble to remove it in pieces; and this is what

was underneath."

Lord Throgmorten interrupted his narration to rise from his seat and

withdraw the cover from the top of the box which stood upon the table in

front of him. It was made of some dark wood, probably oak, heavily

bound with iron at the corners and edges, the ironwork being of an

ornamental character, but now almost covered with marine incrustation.

After examining the box from the outside, the editor asked his lordship

to resume his narrative.

Lord Throgmorten went on. "Having got thus far in our exhumation of the

box, the question was what next to do. Our first thought was to break

the box to pieces and carry its contents to the boat, but here a doubt

of what the box might hold prevented us. Phelps surmised that it was

treasure.

"Our utmost efforts to move it proving useless we went back to the boat

and told them to row to the yacht and get from the ship's carpenter

tools for the purpose. In about half an hour they returned, bringing

the carpenter with them. With his assistance, the box was raised from

its rocky bed and conveyed to the yacht and placed in my cabin. On our

return, the skipper told us that, so far as could be ascertained, we had

sustained no damage; further, that his observation at noon had shown him

that he had only an error of four miles to correct in the position he

had marked upon the chart. This was satisfactory; so, there being

nothing to detain us, we told him to get under weigh at once, and went

down to luncheon. When we returned to the deck, the island appeared a

mere speck, and, shortly after, the breeze being much in our favor, that

too vanished below the horizon.

"Later in the afternoon, we opened the box, and in it we found these

papers." Suiting his action to his words, Lord Throgmorten lifted the

lid of the box and drew therefrom some manuscript, and handed it to the

editor. That gentleman took the papers; then, putting his eyeglass to

his right eye, looked inquiringly at his host and said, "Pray why do you

hand these to me?"

"During our voyage home," replied Lord Throgmorten, "Phelps and myself

amused ourselves with examining the papers. We found in them a story so

interesting that we thought it ought to be placed before the world.

This we ask you to do."

"Before I can give you a reply, I must of course, take the MS. home and

examine it."

To this both the gentlemen agreed; and, shortly afterwards, they

separated.

What followed is best told in the two accompanying letters, which passed

between Lord Throgmorten and the editor, in the early part of the

present year; by his lordship's kind permission, they are here

transcribed.

To Lord Throgmorten,

The Albany,

Piccadilly, W.

Dear Algie,

I am now able to inform you that I have completed the task of compiling

a story from the Manuscript which came into your possession in so

extraordinary a manner. The events narrated in the MS. are highly

interesting, as you remarked when you put the papers into my hands. In

forwarding you the result of my labors, I leave you to apportion the

merits and demerits between myself and the mysterious person who has

vanished into the unknown whence the Manuscript also so marvelously

came.

Yours etc.

The Editor.