Chapter V
The afternoon, it appeared, was to be given over to a lion hunt in spite of the objections of Effendi-Bazam, theKarawan-bashior 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, cruellestexpression, 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 thebastillianoat 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 asynonym 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 outeredges making a gathering string which was then carried up and over the projecting rock. At my direction a score or more ofdoolahsbegan 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 thedoolah-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 sturdydoolahshurled 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 moonshone 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. ’Twaswell 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....’”
“I was fired by emotion. Drawing myself up to her full height I stretched out my arms.‘O, woman....’”
“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.
“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 andsummon 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——”