By Dr. Walter E. Traprock, F.R.S.S.E.U.

The Cruise of the Kawa

My Northern Exposure

Sarah of the Sahara

SARAH OF THE SAHARA

Super-Stars of Traprock’s Super-Feature Film “Sarah of the Sahara”

SARAH OF THE SAHARA

A ROMANCE OF NOMADS LAND

BY
WALTER E. TRAPROCK
AUTHOR OF “THE CRUISE OF THE KAWA,”
“MY NORTHERN EXPOSURE”

WITH SEVENTEEN FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS

G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1923

Copyright, 1923
by
G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Made in the United States of America

To
S. W.

CONTENTS

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.)

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.

LADY SARAH WIMPOLE
“Her mere presence was a challenge at which I bristled. Here was no easy quarry.”

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.

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.”

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.

AB-DOMEN ALLAH
Dr. Traprock’s faithful Dragoman who, as the author says,
“literally dragged” him through the desert.

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.

AT THE OASIS OF ARAG-WAN
Herman Swank, Traprock’s intrepid follower, superintending the
important process of filling the camels.

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.

A DESERT DIANA
“The afternoon, it appeared, was to be given over to lion-hunting.”

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.

ALONE AT LAST

“I was fired by emotion. Drawing myself up to her full height I stretched out my arms.
‘O, woman....’”

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.