Love Lost 207
ILLUSTRATIONS
(From photographs taken for the Super-Feature Film of Dr. Traprock’s
story recently released by the All-for-Art Production Co. of Derby,
Conn.)
PAGE
SUPER-STARS OF TRAPROCK’S SUPER-FEATURE FILM
“SARAH OF THE SAHARA” _Frontispiece_
LADY SARAH WIMPOLE 7
LORD HORACE WIMPOLE 27
AB-DOMEN ALLAH 47
AT THE OASIS OF ARAG-WAN 57
A DESERT DIANA 71
ALONE AT LAST 83
REGINALD WHINNEY 91
AZAD THE TERRIBLE 101
ZALOOFA 117
THE RESCUE 127
SHEIK TO SHEIK 135
TWIN BEDOUINS OF THE EAST 151
AN EGYPTIAN DEITY 175
ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF ASSOUAN 187
IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMID 213
SAD MEMORIES 221
SARAH OF THE SAHARA
CHAPTER I
_Love at First Sight_
SARAH OF THE SAHARA
CHAPTER I
“Allah! Allah! Bishmillah. El Traprock, Dhub ak Moplah!... Wullahy!
Wullahy!”
Long, long after their echoes have died away the cries of my desert men
ring on my ears. Still do I see myself as, in a cloud of dust, at the
head of my band of picked nomads, my burnous floating above me so that
I looked like a covered wagon, with the drumming thunder of a hundred
hoofs and the wild yells of my followers, I swept like a cyclone to the
rescue of one of the fairest creatures of my favorite sex.
O Sarah! my desert mate, whom I have hymned in terms of pomegranates,
peacock’s-eyes and alabaster columns, lovely lady for whom I trained
my tongue to the notes of the nightingale and my fingers to the
intricacies of the lute, elusive creature, startled doe that ever fled
before my bent bow and keen-edged arrows only to be struck down at
last by agonizing love, light of my spirit, breath of my soul, warmth
of my body, why, O all-of-these-and-much-more, did’st thou flee from El
Sheik Traprock, Dhub of the Moplah Tribe?... Wullahy!
Alas! She may not answer, my fair bride of the silences, for she has
been plucked from me, she has passed beyond my ken. Let me then speak
for her, my sweet bird, my tower of gold-and-ivory, my tall building
agleam with rubies, my ... but first let me descend from the heaven of
her memory and cease from singing of the musical Moplahs.
In other words let me get back to earth and, in regular language, try
to describe her as I first saw her.
* * * * *
It was on the pier-head at Cannes: the time, sunset. She stood,
outlined against the flaming sky, a tall, angular figure. In the fading
light I took no note of details but there was that in the woman’s
silhouette which gripped me. My heart stopped ... missed a beat ... and
hurried on.
Strange and mysterious, the influence of human personalities! Her mere
presence was a challenge at which I bristled. Through my nerve-centers
flashed deep messages of interest, attraction ... animosity. Here,
plainly, was no easy quarry.
As tense and alert as a setter on-the-point I stood watching the lean
figure. At the back of my head I felt a light tickling sensation as if
a hand had passed upward over my hair; my nostrils, I dare say, dilated.
Her back was toward me and she was gazing at the luminous waters of
the “Baie des Anges.” Caught in her close-cropped, reddish-brown hair
the last sun’s rays shone in a golden aureole so that in this respect
she might have been one of the angels for whom the bay is named. But
the angelic suggestion ended there. In all else she was warm, vital,
human, a vibrant personality with a hint of almost masculine strength
beneath the folds of her tan silk jacket and short walking skirt. One
arm was akimbo and through the triangle thus formed I could see, by odd
coincidence, the distant shape of my yawl, the Kawa, from which I had
just landed.
[Illustration: LADY SARAH WIMPOLE
“Her mere presence was a challenge at which I bristled. Here was no
easy quarry.”]
[Illustration: Lady Sarah Wimpole]
My arrival in Cannes had been meaningless, the chance debarkation of a
wanderer in search of rest after arduous voyaging in the far North, the
aimless pursuit of warmth, comfort and sunshine. I had intended,
as far as my formless plans had any intention, stopping over the night
at Cannes, then pushing on to the various Mediterranean ports, through
Suez to the great East. My vague objective was the Nicobars, off
Sumatra, where I had promised to call on a devoted old Andamanian when
the opportunity offered.
Now, in an instant all that was changed. Vanished my Andamanian friend,
my vague intentions. Here, within a few feet of me, in the person
of this unknown woman was adventure, mystery, romance, an immediate
objective, a citadel to be stormed, a problem to be solved, an
adversary to be overcome, a mate to be ... who knows what lies in wait
for him around the corner? I only know that in a twinkling life had
become purposeful, fascinating, electric.
She seemed to feel something of this riotous zip which I was projecting
toward her for she turned suddenly and with a quick, awkward gesture,
pulled on a soft straw hat and began walking in my direction. I
immediately withdrew among a maze of packing-cases, orange boxes and
other freight with which the pier was cumbered. Instinct told me it
was not the time for our meeting. I had come ashore only for a few
necessary supplies and I was very much in fatigue uniform. Also I was
bare-footed in which condition a man can never look his best.
A moment later she strode unsuspectingly past the pile of orange
boxes which screened me. I caught the impression of a distinctly
patrician type with rigidly drawn features in which an aquiline nose
predominated. I had only a glimpse but, as in the wink of a camera
shutter, a clear image of that austere profile was imprinted upon the
sensitive plate of my soul. Developing and printing were to come later.
One thing was certain; she was a personage, not a mere person.
At the end of the pier she vanished. Vaulting from my fruit crate I
made toward the string-piece where my dingy was gently bumping. I must
make ship and haul my evening clothes from stowage. Once more I was on
the trail.
* * * * *
Fate does not cheat those who trust her. Without arrangement on my part
I saw my lady again within three days. It was bound to happen.
Though changed entirely as to costume, I knew her instantly. She was at
the roulette table in the glittering salle-de-jeu at Monte Carlo. From
afar I saw the tip of a blue ostrich plume, the nodding feathers of
which seemed to brush against my consciousness. They could belong to
none other.
Again the imperious call and challenge flashed between us as I took a
seat opposite hers where I could study her features while I tossed my
chips on the table. She looked up at once and I held her with my gaze.
For the first time our glances met. I was oblivious of my surroundings.
The brilliant room, the gay crowd, the alert croupier, all sank into
nothingness as I focussed my eyes on hers, resolved that in this first
interchange I should not yield. Her eyes, amazingly blue, looked into
mine for a long instant, then dropped to the Cross of St. Botolphe
which glittered on my shirt-bosom. I wore no other jewels save the
agate-and-iron signet ring which his Britannic majesty--but that is
neither here nor there. A faint smile played at the corners of my
lady’s lips. It was enough. She had taken note of my presence.
She was plainly a great lady of the type which England alone can
produce, one of those rangy, imperial, dominating creatures in whom
seem to be compacted innumerable generations of conquering invaders,
Derby-winners, stalwart cricketers and astute statesmen. The prevailing
color of her person was red, or, to be more accurate, sandy, the
short hair being without any tinge of the pink or henna which reeks of
the coiffeurs’ art. Her complexion was of a salmon or apricot shade,
made almost golden by the overtone of pale, downy fuzz which so often
accompanies it. Crowning the crisply curled locks was a regal tiara
of large emeralds into which the blue ostrich feather was stuck at
a jaunty angle. Never before had I seen a tiara on bobbed hair and
the effect coupled with the red and green color scheme was extremely
diverting. One felt at once that here was a woman who would dare
anything.
Being black myself the aureate color of her skin struck on my heart
like a gong. Her brows and lashes were so pale as to be almost
albinesque. Above and below a generous, full-lipped mouth her dominant
nose contended for supremacy with an obstinate chin. Tanned cheeks
spoke plainly of life in the open as did her strong but well-kept hands
upon which shone several important emeralds. But what stirred me most
were her arms.
Costume makes little or no impression on me. The general effect of what
she wore was hard and steely, but gorgeous. The color was mainly white
with a great slash of sky-blue introduced somewhere. I had the feeling
of being in the presence of a lady-mayor or an important ambassadress.
In any case, her arms were exposed beyond the elbow and to my delight
they were generously freckled, not with coarse, country-style,
ginger-bread mottlings, but with fine, detached discs no bigger than
pin heads and pure gold in color. Over these pale paillettes grew the
silky fur of which I have spoken. For some reason freckles always
excite me, probably because I can never hope to have any except
vicariously.
She was playing for high stakes, using only hundred-franc chips and
winning with a consistency that attracted the inevitable cortege about
her chair, the jackals who try to follow a winner or steal a system by
peering over one’s shoulder.
I could but admire the coolness with which she turned and pushed away
the face of an ornamental Russian woman, the Princess Sonia Subikoff,
notorious adventuress and parasite, whose covetous features kept
thrusting themselves under the player’s elbow. Done by one less sure of
herself the action would have provoked a terrific scene. As it was, the
outraged Princess, _soi-disant_, struck savagely at the blonde back of
the English woman. The blow resounded as if she had hit a packing-case,
producing no more effect than a shrug and a cheerful grin as _la_
Subikoff made off, nursing a lame hand and hissing spiteful comment
on the _animal anglaise_. Coolly, superbly, the Anglo-Saxon continued
her play, placing her chips with a nonchalant sweep of her great
arms. In every movement was the same underlying hint of powerful bony
sub-structure.
“_Elle est dure_,” said a voice at my side.
“_Qui ça?_”
“_La belle laide, en face._”
I turned with an instinctive hostility toward the speaker, his voice,
manner ... everything. To discuss a woman, openly, in a public
place.... _La belle laide!_ ... and yet, was she not just that? There
is a merciless precision in the Latin tongue.
My neighbors were a type I detest,--Peruvians, I judged by the
barbarous Spanish clang of their French; sleek, oily, anointed
with perfume from their lacquered hair to their equally shining
boots, tailored, corsetted, manicured and with that fawning look so
unpleasantly suggestive of the oriental. One was playing for small
stakes while his companion looked on, but I noticed that both were
narrowly watching the English woman and exchanging whispered comments.
Something was in the wind and my submerged sense of suspicion began to
stir.
“_Flute!_” cried one of the South-Americans, which is a strong
imprecation in French, “She wins like a fiend.”
“_Zut_,” replied the other as his last chip passed under the rake.
I turned to my own play, a system which I picked up in Buenos Ayres,
a sure winner of small amounts. After two hours I was four and a half
francs ahead and the pastime was beginning to bore me. Rising, I saw
that the Peruvians had separated, one having crossed to the other
side of the table directly back of the English woman while the other
loitered near the croupier’s desk.
In a flash I divined their plan just in time to act. As the man near
the croupier engaged him in conversation I saw the other’s hand shoot
out and seize a large pile of bank-notes weighted down with a stack of
golden louis. I could not possibly reach the fellow or the louis, but I
could and did reach the door.
As our paths converged I saw that in his left hand he held an
automatic. Acting entirely on instinct I threw in his face a handful
of small change, keys, pen-knife, etc., from my trouser pocket. At
the same instant I dove. His bullet roared, harmless, over my head and
together we crashed to the marble floor. The thief had never seen a
foot-ball game and expected something entirely different.
As we struggled he attempted to turn the weapon on me but my grip was
like steel. The room was in an uproar. Hither and yon we threshed about
over the polished pavement. In one of our gyrations my foot caught
under the teak-wood base of a huge Japanese jar. Fascinated I watched
it tremble, totter ... and fall into a thousand fragments about us.
Then the confusion was punctuated by a sharp report and my adversary
lay suddenly still. He had shot himself during the struggle, whether by
accident or design I can not say.
Rising I looked about and tendered a handful of golden coins and
_billets-de-banque_ to the tall, masterful woman who stood near me.
“Top-hole,” she said, quite simply. “You must come to see me.”
She handed me her card, which I accepted, bowing. There were some
tedious formalities necessary at the local _poste de police_ and it was
after midnight when I reached my room and took the card from my pocket.
“Lady Sarah Wimpole,” I read beneath a simple crest, a swan volant
holding a snake in its beak and the device “_Nunc pro tunc._”
Our paths had crossed. Matters were coming on apace.
CHAPTER II
_Our First Interview_
CHAPTER II
“Dr. Traprock?”
She held the card which had preceded me. Saluting in the continental
manner, I bent over her extended hand, noting the strong, square nails
with their perfect crescent moons at the base.
“Lady Wimpole.”
She motioned me to a complicated wicker chair of Malaysian make which
brought back vividly my years in Mindanao.
“You were splendid the other night,” she said. Her voice surprised me.
It was harsh, like the note of a grackle or the cry of a sea-bird, full
of strange breaks, guttural depths and moving dissonances.
As we talked I took in the details of our surroundings. We were
seated in the morning-room of the Villa Bianca, an exquisitely
appointed mansion of lemon-yellow stucco embowered in a riot of roses,
bougainvilléa and flowering bugloss-vines. From beyond the walls of the
formal entrance garden the noises of the town reached us faintly. The
Monocan populace were celebrating the fête of St. Yf whose favor is
supposed to bring good luck at the gaming tables.
Glancing at my hostess I re-experienced the conviction that she was
a surprising woman. Odd indeed was the contrast she made with her
surroundings. The room was of an indescribable daintiness. Overhead
arched a pale blue plaster dome upon which painted birds flitted among
fleecy clouds or perched upon blossoming branches. The side-walls,
except for door and window openings, were covered with coral pink
studded regularly with small crystal buttons, the spacing being
accentuated by a connecting diaper-design of silver thread.
From the cornice, at the beginning of the dome, hung a deep valance
of white lace which was repeated in the long window curtains and
innumerable cushions on chairs, _chaise-longue_ and foot-stools.
The whole room, in fact, seethed with a sort of suds of lace and
_chiffonerie_ like an old-fashioned valentine in the midst of which
Lady Sarah sat enthroned in a curious chair contrived to represent a
sea-shell.
Her costume, as nearly as I could make it out, was a voluminous silk
prowler or slip-cover of silk matching the walls, and like them,
edged with lace. An intricate mob-cap covered all but a severe bang of
red-brown hair which shrieked at its dainty surroundings as loudly as
the green parrot who, raucous and unconfined, swung acrobatically about
his perch.
“Shut up, Selim,” commanded the bird’s mistress; then, having noted my
looks of appraisal, “Isn’t this place hideous? I hate a room that foams
at the mouth. My husband takes it for the season. Poor creature, his
taste is ghastly; he was born in Nottingham. This house was built by
the government for one of the old king’s mistresses. It gives Wimpole a
thrill merely to rent it.”
She sank back languidly into the recesses of her shell, suppressing a
yawn and I could see the faint lines running from the corners of her
eyes to the lobes of her ears, lines of disillusionment, of hunger
denied, of ...
During the interval since our meeting at the Casino I had learned
something of her tragic story. Born amid the highest and most
refined nobility, the daughter of Sir Rupert Alleyne and Mary, Lady
Beaverboard, she had seen her ancestral fortune lost by her father in
speculative adventures induced by the old taint of the Alleyne madness.
In his fifty-third year Sir Rupert inherited by the laws of succession
the estates and titles of the Beaverboard interests, becoming
subsequently Duke of Axminster. These honors marked the beginning of
the end.
The final crash came with Sir Rupert’s attempt to corner the Italian
antique market together with all the important trans-atlantic steamship
lines, his idea being to completely control the American demand
for ancestral portraits and _objets d’art_. The stately halls of
Alleynecourt were thronged with continental adventurers freighted down
with spurious Botticelli, Allegretti and other masters.
When the Duke, raving, was carted away to Old Drury, his daughter
sought refuge with her uncle, Egbert Alleyne, whose scientific works on
graptolites and stromatoporoids kept him impoverished and ill-at-ease
in a tiny cottage in Gloucestershire.
Here Horace Wimpole found her. He was at that time senior partner in
the firm of Wimpole & Tripp, laces, of Nottingham, with a peerage in
view and an o’er-vaulting snobbery which he saw prospects of gratifying
by an alliance with the penurious but well-connected Sarah Alleyne. On
her side it was a bitter bargain,--her youth, her rugged beauty, her
hopes of romance in exchange for wealth and comfort for herself and
her crazed sire. She accepted.
A week after the Westminster Gazette announced the bestowal of a title
upon Horace, Lord Wimpole, the ennobled merchant led his aristocratic
bride from the church portico. Blithely rang the bells of St. George’s
and lustily rose the cheers of the bluff English onlookers whose
worship of nobility and all the panoply thereof is the enduring wonder
of the world. Wimpole promptly did his duty by his father-in-law and
had the ancient zany removed from Old Drury to a private padded-cell
in a fashionable asylum. The old man’s last whimsy was that he was
Admiral Napier and he was given the run of a small garden where, in
full uniform and spy-glass in hand, he made observations and issued
authoritative commands.
Lady Wimpole was now free, except for the encumbrance of her low-bred
husband who had virtually retired, master of a colossal fortune by
means of which he proposed to live up to his new estate.
[Illustration: LORD HORACE WIMPOLE
“As a business man he was a success, for he ran true to type, but as an
aristocrat he was a hopeless false-alarm.”]
[Illustration: Lord Horace Wimpole]
It was here he made his fatal error. As a business man he was a
success, for he ran true to type, but as an aristocrat he was a
hopeless false-alarm. Contrary to previous statements, in matters of
breeding kind hearts can not compare with coronets, particularly
when the latter have been in the family for ten generations.
Finding himself a failure in the fields of sport, riding to or from
the hounds, cricket and the active exercises, intellectually unable
to compete in cultural pursuits such as the writing of memoirs or the
collecting of sea shells and butterflies, Wimpole was thrown back on
the last recourse of affluent ignorance, travel and dissipation.
In the latter field he showed a natural aptitude which, had it been
caught and cultivated in some previous generation, might have made him
a rather attractive rake. But it came too late; he was merely beastly.
Lady Wimpole was quite frank about it.
“Your husband,--is he with you?” I asked.
She raised her beautiful pinkish eye-lids toward the ceiling. “Still
asleep ... he was unusually crocked last night. You know he has taken
up the vices. He tries to be brutal.”
“Does he beat you?” I put the question frankly because I knew it was
the traditional thing and I felt that she would appreciate a direct
method.
“No,” she said simply. “He would like to but he doesn’t dare. He does
his worst however. He bites.”
She slipped back the soft sleeve of her gown and extended an arm. I
shrank back in horror. The dog! A semi-circle of teeth-marks marred the
salmon-silkiness of the loveliest fore-arm in the world.
Involuntarily I paled and yet felt curiously relieved. This proof of
dastardly conduct on her husband’s part seemed to make easier the thing
I knew I should eventually have to do, namely, take this gorgeous
creature from him.
Turning toward the parrot to hide my emotion I said “Madame,--I am
sorry to bring you bad news ... but we are both summoned to appear
before the local police magistrate the day after tomorrow. The
charge is murder. You are a material witness. The affair is entirely
technical, but there are unseen influences at work. The young man,--the
scoundrel who attempted to steal your gold, was well-connected, of an
old Peruvian family. They have cabled representations to the Monacan
government. The whole affair has the look of a nasty, political
embroglio. It may last some time. I was once called as a witness to a
trolley accident in Jerusalem and six months afterward....”
“I will hear all that later. Today is Tuesday. Call for me Thursday
morning--what is the hour? eleven? Good--be here at ten-thirty: I will
not fail you. Adios.”
Again saluting her _à la française_, I departed.
For two days I carried her image in my heart. I know not how it is with
others but when I have once decided to love a certain person I find
it a simple matter to do so. At the first glimpse of Lady Wimpole my
heart, had, so to speak, assumed a crouching posture. It only remained
for me to tell my emotions what to do, just as I might direct my great
police dog, Graustein, to stop a suspicious character. By now I was
thoroughly aroused. The memory of those atrocious teeth-marks and that
blemished fore-arm were fresh fuel.
At exactly ten-thirty on the appointed Thursday I approached the villa.
It was close shuttered and wore a vacant, deserted look at which my
heart sank. The gate was locked and the bell jangled noisily among
deserted rose bushes.
“Curses!” I ground out between clenched teeth. “She was toying with me!”
A step on the gravel interrupted my bitter reflections. It was the old
gardener.
“_Madame est partie_,” he announced, “_et Monsieur aussi ... sur le
yacht ... ce matin._”
A glance toward the bay confirmed his statement; the slim white shape
of Wimpole’s yacht, the Undine, was no longer in sight.
“But did they leave no message?” I demanded.
He turned aside smiling.
“_Un mot? Sais pas ... c’est-à-dire ... peut-être ..._”
I saw what he was driving at. Damn the baksheesh hunting tribes!
“Here,” I said, thrusting a crisp bank-note through the bars. Seizing
it he fumbled in his blouse and produced a large envelope which I
clutched eagerly, tearing it open as the bearer disappeared into
the depths of the garden. Beneath the now familiar crest, in a bold
masculine handwriting, I read the simple words, “Meet me in the desert,
S. W.”
This thwarting of my desire, this baffling of my purpose--was the
one thing needed to set my blood on fire. On the instant I turned
and ran down the hill toward the water-side, all thought of Monacan
courts-of-law completely forgotten. At the precise moment when the
stately judge-advocate in his purple and green _laetitia_ or official
robe opened the Monacan Court, the little Kawa was slipping over the
Southern horizon toward the African mountain wall beyond which lie the
limitless sands of the Sahara.
“Meet me in the desert,” she had said. No desert on earth could be big
enough to hide her. My emotions were up, and in full cry!
CHAPTER III
_Into the Great Unknown_
CHAPTER III
Africa! Far away I sighted the purple shadow of the land of mystery,
the low-lying coast-line and interior wall of mountains behind which
lay the vastness of Sahara.
We struck the coast at Djidjelli, further East than we had anticipated.
Captain Triplett, my navigator, said that compasses always acted
queerly in these waters which he ascribed to the influence of occult
desert powers, outraged divinities and the like.
“It’s them genuses,” he said, “they raise hell with yer.”
Be that as it may we had to veer sharply in order to make Algiers on
the third day after clearing from and out of Monte Carlo. The harbor
showed no trace of the Undine and according to the port-authorities she
had not touched there, nor was there any record of the Wimpole party at
the leading hotels or travel bureaus. They were gone, swallowed up in
the immense folds of the silent, brooding Southland.
“Meet me in the desert!” Lady Sarah’s parting cry rang in my ears. In
it I detected the first note of appeal suggesting her growing need
of me, a need of which she was perhaps still unconscious, but which
might grow to who knows what. Why was I so certain she referred to
Sahara, the Great Desert? I can not say, but it seemed inevitable that
she would choose the largest; it was in keeping with the majestic,
monumental nature of the woman. Whatever the reason I was positive that
somewhere in those uncharted wastes I should find her. Facing them, as
I stood on the quarter-deck with Whinney, my acting-first-officer, I
pressed Lady Wimpole’s letter in my breast pocket and whispered softly
“I come, my lady of the desert, I come.”
“How?” said Whinney.
“Nothing.” I answered shortly and went below.
Another certainty, arrived at during my trans-Mediterranean trip,
loomed large in my plans. Re-visiting the desert after an absence of
ten years I decided that I should assume my title of Sheik of the
Moplah Bedouins which had been conferred upon me in recognition of
having saved a native caravan from certain death due to the sudden
failure of the wells at the Oasis of Sus.
Since that memorable time the Sheik, as an institution, has acquired a
tremendous sentimental and romantic value which fell in admirably with
my quest of the remarkable English woman who had yanked me so forcibly
from the spiritual doldrums.
Tunis, Algiers, Fez and Agadir, all the important North African
towns--now do a thriving business in Sheik-outfitting, the bazaars
ringing with the cries of costumers, burnous-boys, veiled Circassian
beauties with their trays of turbans, dealers in arms and accoutrement,
saddle-sellers and camel merchants. But I needed none of this shoddy
material designed entirely for the tourist trade. What I wanted was the
real thing.
Two days after my arrival in Algiers I stumbled on Ab-Domen Allah, the
faithful dragoman who had dragged me through Turkey and Arabia in 1902.
It was sheer Traprock luck, for he was the very man I wanted, capable,
resourceful and devoted.
Over a glass of coffee on the terrace of the Di Baccho I explained my
needs.
“_Si, si_,” he hissed, patting his huge bulk delightedly. “I
understand. I will attend to everything. See, we had best do thus and
so.”
Dipping his fore-finger in the coffee he drew an excellent likeness of
Africa on the tablecloth.
“We will enter here at Rascora on the very western edge of the desert.
You can go round by water: I will meet you there with the camels. Thus
we will go through the desert the long way. You will miss nothing. You
are looking for something, eh?”
I hesitated, but he burst out laughing.
“A woman! Aha, my friend. You have not changed since I met you in
Skutari! You devil!”
Drawing back from the table in order to give himself room to shake he
trembled like a mountain of jelly until a glance at his wrist-watch
told him it was the evening hour for worship. He could not kneel but
turned his chair toward Mecca and performed the orthodox calisthenics
in a sketchy but satisfactory manner.
Personally I was more than willing to let him have his laugh in
exchange for having secured his services. Matters of detail could now
be dismissed. At dawn the next day I weighed anchor for Tangier and
points west, slipping rapidly down the Moroccan coast with short stops
at Mogador, Rio de Oro and, finally, Rascora.
Rapid though the trip was it took the better part of a fortnight
allowing Ab-Domen no more than time to assemble our caravan. During
the interval I took up the re-study of the desert languages, Berber,
Arabic, Bedouin and the main Sudanese dialects all of which I had
fairly well mastered before we rounded the gleaming cliffs of Cape
Blanco. I also gave considerable time to exercising myself in the
florid style of speech without which no Sheik is really a Sheik. During
these periods of study I would stand near the capstan and apostrophize
my lost lady in the most poetic terms.
“O thou! beautiful as the dawn and rounded as the bursting lotus-bud
whose voice is as the cooing of a dove calling gently to its mate, lo,
from afar I come to thee.”
These proceedings astonished the crew. In fact I overheard Captain
Triplett say to Whinney, “The old man is cuckoo,” to which the flippant
first-officer replied, “You gushed a geyser.” I had to reprimand them
both severely.
Another exercise to which I devoted considerable time was the
practising of that stern, aloof mien which is the proper Sheik-ish
attitude. This was very hard for me for my nature is genial. However
no one ever heard of anyone clapping one of these portentous Arabs
on the shoulder with a “Hello, Sheik; how’s tricks.” That sort of
thing would mean death according to modern literary standards and I
endeavored to convey this idea to my companions whenever they were
familiar which was always. I almost precipitated a row when I said
one day to Whinney, “Peace, thou ill-begotten son of a base-born
mule-driver.”... He seized a belaying pin with the light of mayhem in
his eyes and I had great difficulty in explaining the purely figurative
meaning of my words.
In private, however, I continued the practise of speeches redolent of
the great eastern orators who are pastmasters of the art of saying it
with flowers, while I also steeled my heart to a cruelty toward all
woman-kind which is an absolute prerequisite of successful Sheik-ery.
Often, in the privacy of my cabin, I would seize my rolled-up steamer
rug by the throat and cry harshly “So, I have you at last, have I?
Remember, woman, you are mine! ... all mine.”
As may be imagined these studies filled in the time admirably and made
me mad with longing for the actual desert voyage to begin.
Two days after dropping anchor Ab-Domen appeared on the outskirts
of Rascora winding his way down from the Atlean foot-hills, bells
tinkling, flutes playing and camels smelling. He had assembled a
complete outfit equipped with everything for an indefinite stay in the
desert.
I had decided on camels as our motive power for I loathe such modern
contraptions as motorboats in Venice and motor-trucks in the desert. I
couldn’t quite fancy myself as a Sheik arriving on a truck and crying
“Lo! it is I, the son of the Eagle.” Besides I would probably get my
burnous caught in the fly-wheel which would be a pity as it was really
magnificent, a true Moplah Sheik costume, pure white with a number of
tricky gold ornaments.
Ab-Domen had done a gorgeous job in selecting my camels. During his
shopping he had been accompanied by my friend Herman Swank, for many
years my super-cargo. We stood together as the herd wound its way into
the village under its own power and Swank gave me some interesting
information on their fine points.
Qualifications to be considered in buying a camel are water-and-weight
capacity, hair-crop and stupidity. The first consideration is how many
miles per gallon can the beast do. Curiously, just as with automobiles,
dealers invariably lie about this point.
Weight-capacity is tested by loading the camel until he can’t get up
and then removing small amounts until he _just_ can, thus giving the
traffic all that it can possibly bear.
The hair-crop of the camel is one of the staple harvests of the desert
area and is of tremendous value for the local manufacture of ropes,
shawls, blankets, etc., and for the export trade in camels-hair
brushes, used the world over by water-color artists. Water colors are,
of course, out of the question in the Sahara where there is very little
color and almost no water.
Stupidity, the last named attribute, is an essential in a good camel.
Fortunately most of them possess it to an amazing degree. Without it
no animal would think of entering the desert let alone carrying the
crushing burdens which are imposed upon them. Ab-Domen had combed the
country for stupid camels, among which the bactrian booby-prize went
to DeLong, my own mount. Whinney bestrode Rufus, a reddish beast while
Swank called his Clotilde in memory of a young woman he had known in
the Latin Quarter. They were all single humped Arabians which are
superior to the Asiatic variety, just why I can’t say. After having
ridden them a week it seemed impossible that they could be superior to
anything.
We left Triplett at Rascora whence he was to take the Kawa round to
Cairo. I allowed six months for our trans-African trek. Two days after
his departure we faced the East in the conventional caravan formation,
led by an ass, the emblem of good luck. Our number had been increased
by approximately sixty nomads of my own tribe, the Moplahs, a number of
minor-Sheiks and a rabble of desert folk, Walatu-s, Gogo-s and Humda-s.
To these must be added the _doolahs_ or black camel-boys who closed the
file while Ab-Domen, on a powerful camel, held a roving commission,
darting hither and yon, or to and fro as needed.
Our first objective was the Oasis of Arag-Wan. For several days we
passed through tiny desert villages, Uskeft, Shinghit, Tejigia and
others. There was no trace of the Wimpoles, but in this I was not
disappointed. It would have been humiliating to find her too quickly,
to stumble upon my lady on the first day out, to say “Oh, _there_
you are!” and to have the whole episode over. I felt sure that our
meeting would be more dramatic.
[Illustration: AB-DOMEN ALLAH
Dr. Traprock’s faithful Dragoman who, as the author says, “literally
dragged” him through the desert.]
[Illustration: Ab-Domen Allah]
On the fourth day we faced the empty desert. Never had I felt more
completely a Sheik. My friends Swank and Whinney had caught my
enthusiasm as well as my mode of dress and address.
“Hail, El-Swanko!” I would say; “Son of the well-known morn and
illustrious evening-star, may thy blessings be as the hairs on thy
camel’s head and thy bed as soft as his padded hoof.”
“Back at you, Dhubel-dhub, Sheik of the Moplah Chapter,” my friend
would cry, being a bit unpracticed in the fine points of sheik-talk.
But he came on rapidly and was soon able to converse fluently in the
ornate hyperbole of the country.
The desert and the ocean have been frequently compared but happenings
of the next few days were to bring this comparison home in no uncertain
terms. Swank and Whinney suffered acutely from their first experience
on camel-back and even I felt somewhat uneasy until I became accustomed
to DeLong’s pitch and roll. The “ship-of-the-desert” is no idle
poeticism.
Beyond Tejigia we were completely out of sight of water. No trace of
passing craft broke the horizon about us. Like an admiral at the head
of his fleet I scanned the sky anxiously. Three days passed. On the
fourth a violent head wind forced us to tack in order to keep the sand
out of our eyes.
The next morning I rose to face a titanic struggle between earth and
sky. The desert was rising. After a three-mile advance I gave the order
to heave-to. The camels were anchored fore-and-aft, to long tent-pegs.
The sand became increasingly fluid. Low ripples running over its face
rapidly rose to waves which dashed their stinging spray over us with
the rasping hiss of a devil’s hot breath. In the lulls I could hear the
wails of the _doolahs_ and the bubbling roar of the camels.
Ab-Domen fought with the resource and bravery of a great commander. We
were now all crouching low against the blast.
Suddenly I saw Ab-Domen point excitedly toward the East. A gigantic
tidal-wave of sand was bearing down upon us through the murk. Of what
followed I can only give a dim impression. I heard the parting of
several anchor ropes and the screams of the anguished beasts as they
and their riders were swept into oblivion. Then, as if to administer
the _coup-de-grace_, two enormous sand-spouts loomed up from the
south, hideous spinning wraiths, whirling dervishes of the desert,
personifying all the diabolic malevolence of this ghastly land. One
missed us, passing within a few yards of DeLong and myself; the other
moved directly across the compact mass of _doolahs_ who lay screaming
in its path. I had a glimpse of a score of black bodies sucked upward
into the swirling column, spinning helplessly in the vortex with arms
and legs out-thrust, grasping or kicking at the empty air. Then all was
dark.
* * * * *
Five hours later I dug myself out of suffocation and sand. The storm
had passed. Twelve _doolahs_ and two camels were missing. The rest
were badly disorganized. But the desert lay, calm and peaceful about
us. We had weathered the storm and, to my infinite joy, there, in the
distance, the white walls and bending palms of an oasis gleamed in the
evening sunlight--the wells of Arag-Wan. We had won through!
CHAPTER IV
_The Wandering Wimpoles_
CHAPTER IV
Still no trace of the Wimpoles. I was up early and out betimes. We had
pitched our tents and rested our caravan in the shadow of the palms of
Arag-Wan. Here our water-skins, canteens, camels and other containers
were filled to overflowing. A trace of French thrift surprised me. The
wells had been fenced off and equipped with a red Bowser-pump guarded
by a half-cast Berber in brown cloak and battered visor-cap bearing the
legend “_Colonies d’Afrique_.” There was free-air but not free-water.
“_Combien de gallons?_” asked the old chap.
“Fill ’em up,” I ordered, knowing that the next station was hundreds of
miles to the eastward.
[Illustration: AT THE OASIS OF ARAG-WAN
Herman Swank, Traprock’s intrepid follower, superintending the
important process of filling the camels.]
[Illustration: At the Oasis of Arag-Wan]
During the filling process I wandered out into the desert. The air was
cool and delicious. A soft breeze whispered through the palm trees in
the branches of which chattered a lavender _tabit_ or doctor-bird.
Beyond the edge of oasis the low-growing palmettos, oleanders and
gun-sandarachs dwindled to stunted prickly pears and leprous leaved
squill-vines among which I noted the fresh tracks of several audad and
a jerboa.
Intensely interested as I am in the secrets of nature’s book I became
completely absorbed in the perusal of this fascinating page, or perhaps
I should say foot-note. Bending over the imprinted tracks in silent
study I became aware of a soft tread on the sand back of me. I turned
my head silently but though I made the motion with the greatest caution
it was enough to stampede a flock of seven magnificent whiffle-hens,
birds of the utmost rarity, a cross between the ostrich and the bustard.
They were off at once, loping across the desert with that supremely
easy and deceptive swing of their slightly bowed legs, traveling at a
gait which breaks the heart of the swiftest horse, their snowy plumes
gleaming in the sunshine. But what brought me up all standing was
the fact that the leader of the flock sported in the center of his
tail-feathers a gorgeous ostrich plume which very evidently did not
belong there. For it was bright blue!
On the instant I recognized it as the ornament worn by Lady Wimpole at
the Casino in Monte Carlo!
A second later I was rushing pell-mell back to camp to rouse Ab-Domen
and make preparations for pursuing the rapidly vanishing whiffle-hens.
Fortunately my faithful dragoman had had the foresight to include in
the caravan a number of fleet Arabian steeds for just this sort of
sudden foray or side-excursion. I selected Whinney as my companion and
we were soon mounted in the deep, Moroccan saddles, bits and bridles
jingling with bells, burnouses flapping and long guns projecting
at dangerous angles. The animals were frantic to be off, rearing,
snorting, glaring with blood-shot eyes and blowing foam over the grooms
who clung on madly like hounds at a fox’s throat until I gave the word
“_Marasa!_”--“Cast off!”
Off we flew like arrows. It would have been more impressive had we both
gone in the same direction. As it was the effect was somewhat scattered
and it was ten minutes before Whinney and I re-convened two miles from
the encampment and were able to lay a course in the supposed direction
of the birds. Our brutes had now calmed down but were still mettlesome
and we seemed to fly over the sandy floor, eagerly scanning the
horizon. Fortune favored us. The flock had stopped to feed among some
low-growing ground-aloes and we came on them suddenly in a fold of the
plain.
Reining up I motioned Whinney to move with caution. We must rouse but
not frighten them if we hoped to keep within range. Cupping my hands I
gave a close approximation of the cry of the African whimbrell, a small
but savage bird which is the bane of the whiffle-hen whom it pesters by
sudden, unexpected attacks. The flock moved on at once looking about
and paying no attention to us as long as we remained at a distance.
Thus we proceeded for the better part of the morning. The sun’s
heat was becoming dangerous. According to all laws of desert travel
we should have been safely sheltered in our tents but I kept on
obstinately. My theory was this; whiffle-hens, owing to the value of
their plumage, are often caught, corralled and domesticated as is the
ostrich. That this was the case with the birds we were following was
evident from the presence among them of Lady Wimpole’s blue feather.
They might well have been part of her caravan, have broken bounds and
launched out for themselves. On then, ever on! Fortune favors the
obstinate!
As if to corroborate my thought, things began to happen. The
whiffle-hens suddenly stopped in their tracks and stood peering
forward. By moving to one side I noticed what their mass had concealed,
namely a few palm trees and tents at no great distance, the occupants
of which had apparently seen the birds approaching. To one side was a
temporary corral, its gate invitingly open.
Sensing the psychological moment I gave the word to Whinney and with a
loud cry we sped forward. The whiffle-hens caught by this unexpected
onslaught dashed onward, instinctively rushing into their old quarters
outside of which we drew rein, to be praised, congratulated and
wondered at by the desert patriarch who had given up his precious
creatures as lost. Bending low he ground his face in the earth, raising
his head only to blow out small clouds of sand--for he was of that odd
sect, the _Ismilli_ or sand-blowers--mixed with a volley of laudatory
expletives.
It was unmistakably the Wimpoles’ caravan. Hampers, hold-alls,
English-tents and impedimenta were everywhere in evidence.
“Where are they, the Lords of your destiny?” I questioned.
The old hen-shepherd blew out a final cloudlet of sand.
“Yonder is their dwelling: the silken tent neath the third palm. They
are but just now risen.”
Dismounting and throwing my reins to the native I strode off in the
direction indicated. As I drew near the tent I paused.
Voices were raised in altercation. Far be it from me to be
eaves-dropper to a private family-quarrel, which, alas, I feared was an
all too frequent occurrence in the lives of this mismated pair. Ready
to withdraw I hesitated when a particularly sharp interchange forced
a decision. A burst of laughter was followed by a man’s voice crying
hoarsely--“By God, I’ll cut your throat!” Then a shriek rang out. It
was high time to interfere. A fight may be private but a murder is not.
Drawing aside the curtain I leapt into the tent.
“Hold!” I cried. “Stay thy hand: infidel son of a swineherd’s sister;
or by the beard of the Prophet thou perish’st.”
The speech was entirely impromptu and I thought it sounded well, but
somehow it fell flat.
Lord Wimpole was alone. He was shaving.
“I was speakin’ to that dam’ parrot,” he said brandishing his razor
toward Selim who was twisting about and making a noise like sick
automobile-gears. “Who are you, may I ask?”
How low the fellow was! ... and how contemptible he looked, his face
half shaved, half lumpy with lather. One of life’s bitter jokes is that
practically every man must shave. As I thus philosophized the curtains
of an adjoining apartment opened and She appeared.
Heavens! how beautiful she looked. She _en dishabille_, clutching about
her golden body the folds of a dazzling silk kimono, purple shot with
green. Her hair was down: being bobbed it was, of course, always down,
and her blue eyes were filmy with sleep.
“Doctor....” she began.
I checked her with an imperious gesture in which was expressed the
boundless freedom of the fiery Arab race.
“El Sheik Abdullah-el-Dhub ak Moplah,” I announced.
Lord Wimpole was plainly impressed. Hastily finishing his left cheek he
extended his hand.
“’Oly mackerel ... a real Sheik. Put’er there. I’m a lord meself.”
Ignoring his effusion I spoke solemnly.
“Leagues have I ridden, I and my faithful follower, tracing the flight
of birds, yea, even of the swift-skimming whiffle-hens, which ever drew
nearer to their home even as my falcon-heart drew nearer to its nest,
the tent of the most beautiful.”
I glanced at Lady Sarah who never batted an eye though one lovely lid
drooped ever so slightly. Continuing I said, in part.
“And now, the journey done, I am a-weary and would fain repose myself
in the light of the gazelle’s eyes. My charger rests neath the nodding
fig-tree and my soul is parched and a-thirst.”
This was a craftily contrived bit. Wimpole gaped through most of it but
got the final word.
“Thirst” ... he cried. “Gad, I should say so. Me too. Jolly good idea.”
A moment later, her ladyship having retired, Wimpole, Whinney and
I raised tall beakers of superb Scotch to my heartfelt toast, “the
loveliest lady in the world.”
Would she hear me? I wondered. A husky voice from behind the curtain
answered my hope:
“Lads, pass one in to me.”
CHAPTER V
_Love and Lions_
CHAPTER V
The afternoon, it appeared, was to be given over to a lion hunt in
spite of the objections of Effendi-Bazam, the _Karawan-bashi_ or leader
of the Wimpole party which, by the way, was as ill-organized and
amateur an outfit as I have ever seen. We were now not far from the
southern edge of the Ahaggar Plateau which thrusts its spurs into the
desert like the stony fingers of a giant hand clutching at the sands.
The ravines between the fingers were an ideal lurking place for desert
lions, mangy, ill-favored beasts but far more sporty than their South
African brothers.
Effendi-Bazam was an undersized ottoman, hardly higher than a
foot-stool. He was thoroughly desert-broken but as timorous as a hare.
“Great danger!” he cried, pointing northward when the hunting
expedition was proposed. “Great danger.”
“Danger from what ... the lions?” I asked.
[Illustration: A DESERT DIANA
“The afternoon, it appeared, was to be given over to lion-hunting.”]
[Illustration: A Desert Diana]
He shook his head and I saw a convulsive swallow traverse the length of
his triplicate chins. Then he motioned me aside, out of ear-shot of the
others.
“Not lions,” he whispered, “but worse ... a madder, wilder beast. O,
listen, I pray, important Sheik el-Dhub, listen and heed. We are in the
land of Azad,--Azad the Terrible. In yonder defiles he lurks and who so
ventures therein is defiled.”
I should mention in passing that there was no suspicion of a pun in
Effendi’s original statement which was delivered in the Astrachan
dialect: the horrid thing is unavoidable in an honest translation.
“Azad!” he continued,--“you have heard of him? Murder, blood, rapine
... they are but beads on his rosary. O, magnificent Moplah, I fear for
our lives ... for our lady. _Ai! Ai!_”
He lay grovelling at my feet.
“Rise, Effendi,” I ordered. “Due caution will be exercised.”
Without understanding my words he departed, comforted.
Azad! small wonder that at the mention of his name my face had assumed
its sternest, cruellest expression, for it is a name which is almost
unspeakable in the mouth of any self-respecting desert denizen. In
every story of the desert which I have studied there is one Sheik who
is described as the cruellest man in the world. To put the matter
arithmetically, these men added together equal one-half of Azad. That
is how wicked he was.
He was said to be the son of a Spanish murderer who, having escaped
from the _bastilliano_ at Cadiz, lived for a time with a gypsy woman of
unknown origin. Azad was the result. From his earliest years he was an
outlaw and defy-er of authority. Swaggering, brawling, killing, making
love, he roamed from one Mediterranean port to another, gathering
about him a following of riff-raff and ne’er-do-wells. Then came his
notorious abduction of Miss Sedley from the mission station at Fez.
This outrage assumed international proportions. Our government, after a
sharp interchange of notes with France, proposed a punitive expedition.
Two months later President Felix Faure was assassinated. Then rumors
began to leak out that Miss Sedley did not wish to be rescued and the
affair was dropped.
From that time the name of Azad became a synonym for unbridled
license. Many a time I have heard the fishermen along the Moroccan
coast say, as the thunder rolled among the coast-ranges. “Aha; there is
old Azad, laughing at the law!”
If we were near Azad we were near violence, that was certain, but you
may be sure I said nothing of this to the others since there was naught
to be gained by alarming them. I had another and better plan. I must
divert them from their proposed expedition into the hills.
About four in the afternoon when the sun was beginning to lose its
violence the horses were saddled and the gun-bearers gathered under the
palm trees, Effendi meanwhile becoming more and more anxious.
“Milady,” I said, addressing Lady Sarah who had just come out of her
dressing tent, “have you ever hunted desert lions before?”
“Only yesterday,” she replied, “but we’d no luck. Not so much as a
whisker did we see.”
“We didn’t go far enough,” put in Lord Wimpole. “Effendi stuck about
the edges of the hills.”
“Curious ...” I mused, “that you saw no lions ... for there are plenty
of them there ... and yet....”
“Wot are you drivin’ at?” blustered Wimpole. “Wouldn’t we of seen ’em
if they’d been there?”
This was just what I wanted.
“Not necessarily,” then, as if the thought had just occurred to me. “By
jove; this is an ideal place for netting lions!”
Both Lord and Lady Wimpole were instantly intrigued.
“What ho?” they cried simultaneously.
“Here is the idea,” I explained. “Over there is typical lion country,
nothing there but sand and lions. But you can’t see them; nature
takes care of that, you know, protective coloration. Tawny, yellowish
beasts--they’re invisible at ten feet. But they can be caught. How many
camels have you?”
“Twenty-two” supplied Effendi.
“Good. Take all the nets that go over their loads and fasten them
together. Quick.”
“Do as the Sheik says,” said Lord Wimpole.
An hour later we were ready, the camel nets in a huge ball being rolled
easily over the desert. About three miles distant I had noted a rocky
flume which narrowed at its lower end. It was ideal for my purpose.
Spreading the nets below I ran a strong camels-hair rope through the
outer edges making a gathering string which was then carried up and
over the projecting rock. At my direction a score or more of _doolahs_
began prodding the high bank of sand that rose between the rock-walls
of the gorge. First in a slow trickle, then in a steady stream the sand
slid down into the nets. Occasionally a large mass would fall in which
I thought I detected a flurried motion but, from our distance, I could
not be sure. When the sand had piled itself to a height of about twelve
feet, the base of the symmetrical cone reaching to the edge of the nets
I gave a word of command, “Now!” and the _doolah_-boys began pulling
hastily at the gathering-rope. The edge of the nets rose neatly,
closing-in around the top of the cone. Phase one of my operation was
complete.
Next came the final and exciting step of freeing the nets of sand. This
was accomplished by yawing the gathering-rope violently from side to
side until the net was sufficiently loosened to allow its being dragged
across the desert floor. Twice, thrice the sturdy _doolahs_ hurled
their bulks on the rope.
“She starts ... she moves!” shouted Whinney.
Once in motion, the sand spun rapidly through the meshes until it was
reduced to a small mass in the center of which I could detect two
vague, but furiously revolving forms ... lions!
“Spearmen, ready!” I commanded, for it does not do to be unprepared.
Lord Wimpole, express-rifle in hand, was apoplectic with excitement.
“Do we shoot ’em?” he cried.
“No ... no!” I motioned him back. “They will kill each other.”
Sure enough, after a few moments’ fearful clawing and growling the
fierce struggle amid the strong meshes quieted down. Two precautionary
shots into the net, and the battle was over. At our feet lay the
mangled remains of two tawny lions, exactly matching the shade of the
surrounding sand.
“For milady’s boudoir.” I said quietly. “In my own country we do it
with a sieve; it is much simpler.”
“’Straordinary!” said Lady Wimpole giving me a meaning look from her
brilliant eyes, and we made our way back toward the camp voting the
affair a complete success.
We dined in state in the Wimpoles’ dining-tent. It was a lucullan
repast of European delicacies varied with African dishes superbly
cooked by a French chef; hors d’œuvres, a delicious thin soup, audad
steak and Egyptian quail succeeded each other, each course being marked
by its appropriate wine from sherry through the whites and reds to
cognac.
“Couldn’t bring any champagne”; apologized Lord Wimpole through a
mouthful of quail, “tried to but it blew up. No ice in the dam’ desert?”
Lady Sarah looked on coldly as her husband passed through the familiar
phrases of garrulity, incoherence and speechlessness. She rose
disdainfully just as his lordship slipped heavily from his camp chair.
“May I speak to your ladyship a moment ... alone.” I murmured.
She nodded.
“Effendi, remove his lordship.”
I followed her out under the cool stars, whispering to Whinney as I
passed, “Get the horses ready, we must away.”
At the edge of the oasis Lady Sarah paused and faced me. We were
alone--at last! Overhead a million eyes looked down from the twinkling
gallery of heaven; far to the west a gibbous moon shone palely; night
enveloped us--in fact it was going on midnight. Clearing my throat I
began.
“O woman, strange and mysterious, lamp of my life, it is not for me to
rend the veil of thy secrecy, but my soul is eager in its questioning
and my heart cries for an answer. Tell me, if thou so will’st, why
did’st thou fly from thy nest when thou had’st made tryst with me at
the police-station?”
To my delight she caught the elevation of my style at once and replied
unhesitatingly.
“Listen, O desert-man, Sheik Adullah-el-Dhub, and let thy heart attend,
for oft has my own voice upbraided me that I did thus walk out on thee.
Know then that it was not my will but that of the Sheik Wimpole, my
over-lord, that hurried me hither-ward.”
Though I winced at the reference to her over-lord I could but admire
her fluent mastery of the nomadic tongue.
“He it was,” she continued, “who plucked me from thy side, fearing the
long delays of the law. But thou gottest my message?”
“Yea, Princess--” I answered, at which she smiled, pleased evidently,
at the promotion,--“Yea, even so,--and thy signal plume likewise.
’Twas well contrived the matter of the whiffle-hens. Trust thy woman’s
wit.”
“’Twas simple,” she answered. “They were in the keeping of Kashgi, the
sand-blower, an ancient stupid. Under guise of petting the bell hen
I affixed my feather. Something told me they would find you, O Great
South-wind.”
Her words moved me deeply.
“Straight as the thrown lance or the sped arrow,” I cried, feeling that
the moment for tender mastery had come, “so came thy harbinger to me, O
woman of bronze and gold. Allah be praised, whose hand hath guided me
since that first fair evening when at the ocean’s edge I marvelled at
thy sky-line!”
She looked down at me, for she was slightly taller than I--tenderly,
her rugged contours softened and beautified in the silver light. It was
like moonlight on a cliff. My heart pounded furiously--her presence,
the silence of the desert ... the cognac.... I was fired by emotion.
Drawing myself up to her full height I stretched out my arms.
“O, Woman----”
On the instant I paused, thunderstruck. Far away on the northern
horizon a light gleamed for a moment and was gone. Was it fact or fancy
that made me think I saw a vague shape in the shadows before me.
Instantly the thought of Azad flashed through my mind and brought me to
my senses.
[Illustration: ALONE AT LAST
“I was fired by emotion. Drawing myself up to her full height I
stretched out my arms.
‘O, woman....’”]
[Illustration: Alone at Last]
“Lady Sarah,” I said hurriedly--“I must defer what I was going to
say until another time. I was forgetting what made me ask for this
interview--the night--your beauty--but the point is this. You, we, all
of us are in imminent danger. On the hills yonder lies the camp of Azad
the Terrible!”
I could see her pale in the moonlight.
“Even now his spies are probably prowling about, watching your camp,
counting your men, your camels, your--women.”
“What would you suggest?” she asked tremulously.
“Flight--” I replied boldly.
Her glance expressed both surprise and disappointment.
“Yes,” I repeated harshly, “flight! I have never been afraid to be
cautious. Listen, Lady Sarah. Your caravan is ill-equipped. Effendi
is strong on commissary but weak on munitions. There is but one thing
to be done. We must consolidate. Azad will not attack tonight; he
knows I am here. At dawn strike camp and remove to the Southward.
In the meantime I will speed to my own men and summon them to your
assistance. There is not a moment to be lost.”
Hastily retracing our steps we reached the camp where, at the portal of
the luxurious tent, I bent over Lady Sarah’s hand, lightly brushing her
firm knuckles with my lips.
“Farewell,” I breathed. “Remember, strike camp at dawn. Be of good
heart--and do not forget--the Sheik Abdullah-el-Dhub.”
“How could I?” she whispered, smiling strangely.
As she lifted the tent curtain I had a glimpse of the elaborate
interior, hung with silken draperies and furnished with many-hued
cushions and a broad low divan over the edge of which, upside down,
hung the brutish face of Sir Horace Wimpole.
“Her over-lord!”----
Ugh! A shudder of revulsion shook me.
A moment later Whinney and I were rushing through the night like great
white birds while in my heart echoed the words of an old Persian love
song--
“Farewell, farewell, my sweet gazelle,
With ruby eyes----”
CHAPTER VI
_A Desperate Predicament_
CHAPTER VI
Whinney and I were facing a difficult task, a hard ride at night just
when we should have been going to bed. This meant little to me for I
have frequently gone two and three nights without sleep but it was
torture to my companion who is that most pathetic of human beings, a
creature of regular habits. Twice, as we plodded along, he lunged from
his saddle and as I lifted him he kept murmuring “Must have my eight
hours ... must have my eight hours.” All efforts to keep him awake were
in vain and I began to despair of ever reaching our destination until
I hit on the idea of fastening my burnous between our horses forming a
cradle into which my friend fell with a pleased smile and the drowsy
comment “Make up lower seven!”
On, on we sped at a smooth, steady pace. Now and again the horses would
separate to avoid a thorny squill-bush and Whinney would be tossed
lightly in his blanket; but he slept soundly through it all.
[Illustration: REGINALD WHINNEY
“That most pathetic of human beings, a creature of regular habits.”]
[Illustration: Reginald Whinney]
I was glad to be alone, alone with my fears, my anxieties and my great
love, for that Lady Sarah felt the force of my flaming passion I could
not doubt. Had she not called me to her side? Had she not looked into
my eyes that very evening with an expression which might have led me
to the gates of Paradise, had I not been interrupted by Azad’s signal
flash?
Azad! The thought of him was a knife in my heart. “On, Thunderer, on.”
I urged my willing horse, patting his wet neck and shoulder. Then moved
by a sentimental desire for a confidant I leaned forward. The brute
seemed to understand for he bent back an attentive ear. “It is for
her!” I whispered. Thunderer whirled instantly and Whinney was thrown
far into the night.
“Not _to_ her ... _for_ her, you idiot!” I ground out, savagely tugging
at the reins and forcing my brace of beasts back toward our passenger.
But though we were soon under way again the horses were now restive and
difficult to manage.
I had been steering a course by the stars, aiming at a particularly
large, red one which looked familiar and which, Whinney agreed, had
been directly over our camp. But there must have been something wrong
with my calculations. Most Sheiks steer entirely by the heavenly bodies
but I had hardly had time to get the hang of them.
The sky was fading to a delicate beryl-green when I decided to let the
horses have their own way. As I loosed my rein they turned gracefully
at a right angle and broke into an encouraging gallop. Soon the heavens
were flooded with the invading light, the stars paled and the sun’s
rays shot across the desert. With the sun just peering over the horizon
every stunted shrub cast a long blue shadow, every shallow depression
became a pool of liquid purple into which Thunderer and his fellow
rushed, loose-reined.
We must have ridden a dozen miles out of our way following the red
star line and I was beginning to wonder if the intelligence of the
Arab horses was all that it was said to be, when I detected a distant
something on the horizon. It was still too far off for identification
but I scanned it eagerly. A quarter hour passed and I could clearly
make out an oasis and beneath it tents--our tents!
“Time to get up,” I yelled, bringing the two horses close together,
thus squeezing Whinney’s head gently between their bellies, causing
him to open his eyes in astonishment.
“There we are,” I shouted. “Get up, man; climb into your saddle.”
He clumsily obeyed my injunction and having freed my burnous, I gave
Thunderer his head and dashed forward, glad to be temporarily rid of my
sleepy companion. As I flashed by I had a glimpse of Whinney checking
his horse and stopping to wipe the sleep from his eyes. Little did I
realize it at the time but my leaving him at that moment was to be
one of the determining events of my life, an event without which that
life would inevitably have been lost and this story, horrible to think
of!--never written.
Thunderer and I covered the last quarter mile in record time, jumped a
series of tent-ropes and recumbent camels and bounded into the center
of a somnolent compound.
“To arms! To arms!” I shouted, brandishing my own. “Your queen is in
danger.” Unconsciously I quoted the beautiful lines from the Black
Crook, probably the most exquisite lyric drama in the English language.
At my words startled Arabs popped from the encircling tents or raised
themselves from the masses of baggage upon which they had been
sleeping. In a moment I was closely hemmed in by a circle of swart,
savage faces. “Heavens,” I thought, “how could Ab-Domen have recruited
such tough travelling companions?”
Then, raising my hands, I addressed them, speaking boldly, fiercely,
talking down to them as it were in order to let them know their place.
“Hearken, O, Scum of the Sahara, and hear the words of your master,
Abdullah-el-Dhub....”
A roar of laughter and a mighty cry of “Yaa ... a ... ah” greeted
my ears and with a sickening sense of defeat I realized that I was
surrounded by enemies. I might have known! The men were of a different
type from any of my camp-followers. My Arabs were swart but these were
swarter. I instinctively looked over their heads to warn Whinney of my
predicament.
“Back,” I shouted. “Back,--I am captured.”
But I might have saved my breath. The plucky fellow was already a
speck on the horizon having fled the instant he saw and heard what was
transpiring. There was only one desperate chance left; to jump the
encircling crowd. Spurring Thunderer with both heels, I gave him a
loose rein. Gathering himself together he made a glorious leap from a
standing position high over the head of the tallest Arab. For a second
I thought I had broken through when, straight and sure, rose a native
spear hurled by a gigantic Bassikunu. It struck my courageous beast
directly below me and with a scream of anguish he fell on the stout
shaft, the point being forced upward through bone, sinew, entrails,
saddle-blanket and saddle. Only the greatest nimbleness on my part
saved me from a fatal puncture.
Like a soaring bird I leaped from the saddle, my burnous floating in
billows about me as I planed earthward there to be seized by a hundred
hands, disarmed, my hands trussed behind me, my feet bound in morocco
leather and my head covered with a filthy gunny-sack.
About me I heard coarse laughter and an occasional remark in the crude
Bassikunu dialect.
“Hah!” said one, kicking me contemptuously, “this will be a pleasant
surprise for Azad.”
So? I was in _his_ hands. O, the bitterness of my reflection that Azad,
the cruellest of men, held me thus in his power, and that far from
having captured me I, Traprock, had deliberately ridden into his arms.
The humiliation, the ignominy of it. By a desperate movement I managed
to struggle to my feet.
Bound as I was, with my head covered I must have presented the
appearance of a contestant in some grotesque gymkhana event. After a
few convulsive leaps I fell heavily, landing in the live embers of the
cook’s fire over which hung a kettle of some nauseous brew which I
promptly upset in my spasmodic efforts to escape the burning brands;
all this to the accompaniment of uproarious laughter.
Rolling over in one final wriggle I felt something hard under my
hands back of me. My grasp tightened on it by instinct as I lost
consciousness from faintness and suffocation. I knew vaguely that I was
being lifted by two men after which I was thrown down heavily; then
blackness closed about me. Matters were not looking their best.
* * * * *
My first impressions of Azad were gained from his voice. He had
returned to his camp during my fainting spell and stood not far from
the spot where I had been thrown.
“Well, did you get the women?” asked one of his followers.
“No,” he said. “By her side was a mighty Sheik--a Moplah--so my spy
tells me, a man of great strength and cunning. I resolved to bide my
time. Tonight she will be alone with her half-witted husband and her
idiot of a Karawan-bashi and--”
“You say a Moplah chief was with her?” questioned an unfortunate
follower who had not learned the penalty of speaking out of turn in a
conversation with Azad; “why this very day....”
He got no further. Azad gave an almost inaudible command at which the
interrupting voice suddenly thinned to a wheeze as if the wind-pipe had
been closed by violent pressure. A convulsive gurgling sob was followed
by a low moan and I felt the impact of a body falling heavily on the
sand near me.
Though I could see nothing I must confess that Azad’s voice was the
most unpleasant I have ever heard. Far from being harsh and dominating
it was low, cool, almost tired. It faded away at the end of sentences
as if the possessor had withdrawn himself from human contact. I sensed
the presence of one to whom human life, even his own--was nothing. If a
snake had a voice I feel sure it would be the voice of Azad.
“What was the fellow saying?” asked those icy tones.
[Illustration: AZAD THE TERRIBLE
“If a snake had a voice I feel sure it would be the voice of Azad.”]
[Illustration: Azad the Terrible]
“That we have this day captured a Moplah chief, O Sire,” was the
humble reply, “even now he lies nearby in the shelter of thy tent where
he awaits thy pleasure.”
“Produce,” said Azad.
I was lifted and borne into a brighter light. An instant later the sack
was pulled from my head. It was a critical moment; now, if ever, was
the time for dissimulation. I must pretend that my fainting fit still
endured; upon that depended my life. Even a man as unspeakably cruel as
Azad finds no satisfaction in torturing an unconscious enemy. There is
no pleasure in it.
I was not mistaken. After a brief inspecting during which I scarcely
breathed I was again flung into the shadows.
“Let him wait,” said the voice of Azad,--“when he comes to we will....”
I can not repeat his proposed line of action but the mere mention of it
nearly produced a real swoon.
For an hour I lay motionless, thinking, thinking, the thought drumming
in my brain,--“How should I get out of this mess?” About me the sounds
of the camp gradually quieted. The heat grew intense and I knew that
it was the middle of the day, the time of the siesta. And then again I
became conscious of the object which I had clutched when I was first
thrown on the ground. Turning it over in my bound hands I realized
that it was a knife, evidently one of the cook’s utensils which I had
knocked over. To cut the bonds back of me was difficult but I finally
managed it by lying on the edge of the knife. One by one I felt the
thongs part though I injured myself severely in the process for as each
strand of leather gave way the blade sank in my flesh and the sand was
reddened about me.
Faint but desperate I realized that I must act quickly in the brief
interval offered to me. Freeing my feet I cautiously lifted my burlap
veil and peered about. I lay near the entrance of Azad’s tent in the
recesses of which I could see his body sunk in deep slumber, guarded by
a drowsy slave. Just beyond the outer curtain lay the form of a humble
Bassikunu, the unfortunate creature who had interrupted his lord and
master. The hem of his dirty brown mantle almost touched that of my
burnous.
An open attempt to escape now meant certain death. For one mad moment I
thought of springing to my feet, cleaver in hand, and dispatching the
filthy Azad with one clean blow. But what was to be gained. The odds
were too great. Slowly a plan formed in my mind.
With the silence of a snake I edged slightly nearer the slain Bassikunu
until our garments overlapped. It was the work of an hour which seemed
like twelve for me to move his corpse out of his coarse garment and
into the voluminous folds of my cloak. Moving a fraction of an inch at
a time, the sweat of excitement pouring from my body, I burrowed and
pushed and pulled and hauled until we had at last changed places, the
humble camel-driver lying inside in my Moplah cloak while I sprawled
beyond the tent wall in his blood stained and ignoble raiment. A few
feet from me on the sand lay his tongue, plucked out by the roots, a
pretty sample of Azad’s work.
Scarcely had I effected this perilous change of costume when the camp
was suddenly in an uproar. Into the midst of the compound bounded an
excited Arab on a foam flecked horse. Azad leaped to alertness with
amazing speed.
“Speak, Mulai Hadji,” he commanded.
“Their caravan approaches!” said the rider excitedly. For a second I
cherished the thought that my own men were on the way to my rescue
but this hope died as the speaker continued, “even now they are
moving southward,--their camels rich with plunder, their men few and
ill-armed.”
“What of the Moplah caravan?” asked Azad who was evidently a man
of caution rather than bravery. I hung on the answer in a fever of
excitement for I knew it referred to my own expedition. The information
was delivered with a scornful laugh.
“The fools! They continue Eastward in search of their lost master.
A day’s journey away they must be nearing the Wells of Tabala. The
fruit is ripe, O Mighty Azad; the golden pomegranate is ready for your
plucking.”
The golden pomegranate! That could be none other than Sarah, my lovely
bird, flying southward at my behest, straight into the clutches of this
vulture, this ... it was too much. Leaping to my feet I ran toward the
camel-compound. Happily, in my humble costume, I was unnoticed; I was
simply a Bassikunu, one more or less. Seizing and mounting the first
available camel I joined the mob which was surging northward. My one
hope was to detach myself from this filthy band, overtake my own men
and bring them back to the rescue. Cruel as it seemed to desert Lady
Sarah at this juncture therein lay the only practical plan. But on a
slow moving camel my task was hopeless. Ahead of me rode one of the
sub-sheiks on a magnificent sorrel mare. What must be done must be done
quickly. For an instant he checked his horse to avoid a tent-rope and
in that instant I acted, urging my clumsy brute forward and riding off
the Arab, pushing him with all my force against the obstruction until
horse and rider fell sprawling. Dropping from my camel I was at his
side in a second, pretending to assist him, in doing which I twisted
his head completely around so that though his breast lay upward his
face was buried in the sand. He fainted without a sound and a moment
later, wrapped in his great cloak, I sprang into the empty saddle and,
cautiously at first and finally at full speed, rushed off toward the
east.
The whole operation took no more than three seconds and could never
have been accomplished other than by taking advantage of the peculiar
conditions of confusion, etc., and by acting upon what has always been
my greatest safeguard--instinct.
CHAPTER VII
_The Escape_
CHAPTER VII
Free! Free once more. With a glorious feeling of elation I bounded
off across the desert. Glancing over my shoulder I saw that I had
accomplished my get-away without attracting attention. Azad’s men
were streaming steadily northward, a low cloud of dust marking their
progress. I watched intently for any sign of pursuit but none came.
From the unfortunate tribesman who had ridden my mount I feared no
further trouble. The strength of my hands is a constant surprise to me
and when I twisted the fellow’s head I had heard something crack with
the ominous, final snap of a too-tightly wound toy. Unless I was very
much mistaken the creature was permanently out of order.
My hours of unconsciousness and captivity must have been longer than
I realized for I noted that the day was far spent. This was a source
of comfort to me for hope sprang in my breast that the sun would
disappear before the treacherous scoundrel I had evaded could come up
with the Wimpole caravan. Unconsciously I encouraged the orb of day in
his descent, urging him with prayers and curses to sink as rapidly as
possible. Sheltered by night the cortege of my lady might yet pass a
few hours in safety, hours fraught with fiendish anxiety for me.
My plans for the future hung on a gossamer thread of chance, that of
locating the Wells of Tabala to which, according to Azad’s informant,
my faithful Moplahs had repaired. My only indication was the vague one
of direction. The wells lay to the eastward and eastward the star of
Traprock took its way, blindly, desperately. Pray Heaven my men would
go slowly and cautiously as they might well do considering my absence.
After an hour’s hard riding when all traces of the enemy had faded
into nothingness I paused and from an inner pocket drew out my map of
the Sahara. As I feared it was too small in scale to be of definite
advantage. Imaginary lines such as the Tropic of Cancer, the 20th
Parallel and numerous meridians were shown with perfect distinctness.
These would have served admirably had I been going to an imaginary
place but the Wells of Tabala were of poignantly definite import and
of them there was no trace. With a sigh of resignation I thrust the
document back in its case and took up the reins.