Chapter XIV
Early in the dawn I began my return. The wind had fallen and progress was not difficult. Once out of the curious hill country which had again taken the lost Valley of Bulls into its embrace it was a simple matter to locate my camp which was the only visible object in the open desert. My companions were overjoyed at my return for, though an overnight absence on my part was not unusual, they were always anxious until I put in an appearance.
But their welcome was submerged in their wonder at my orders for an immediate return to Assouan.
“What’s the idea?” questioned Swank, “we’ve just got here, we’ve accomplished nothing; it’s....”
I cut him short with a severe glance vouchsafing only the remark “Foul play is afoot. Make haste.”
He saw that something serious had happenedand obeyed unquestioningly. The rank and file of my safari were delighted at the prospect of getting back to the comforts of the more civilized river-life. More than once it was on my lips to tell my American companions the story of my entombment with all its possibilities of future riches and fame, but the thought of Lady Sarah lay too heavily on my heart. This burden of apprehension I must carry alone. Weighed down with my individual anguish I plodded silently across the sand, my mind too busy with pictures of what might have happened to even note the signs of our progress, the merging of the desert into the fertile fields with their long lines of irrigation ditches, the flourishing plantations of capsicum and marrows alive with chattering apteryxes and flocks of four-horned sheep.
With a start I realized that we were on the outskirts of Assouan.
“Come with me,” I said, detaching my fellow countrymen from the natives. We ran on ahead and soon came in sight of the El-Sali moored by the river bank. She was ominously quiet. Bursting into the salon I gazed upon a picture which was the exact counterpart of my most lurid imagining. The room was a wreck, curtains torndown, vases broken, rugs twisted, chairs and tables overturned. Ab-Domen lay unconscious under the ruins of the victrola. A low moaning from the apartment beyond led us to Lady Sarah’s maid, likewise in the stupor of exhaustion.
When at last the faithful dragoman was partially revived he breathed a harrowing story of assault and abduction.
“Lord Wimpole came ...” he gasped ... “he had twenty men ... Lady El-Sali fought like a tigress ... you see?...” he motioned weakly at the surrounding chaos.... “I, too, did my best....”
“Where did they go?”
He shook his head. “Down river ... where to I do not know.”
There is an excellent highway along the Nile bank from Assouan to the Delta. In half an hour we were on our way, mounted on the best of our horses.
“Sarah!” I screamed in my agony, “it can not be that we have lost each other so soon!”
IN THE SHADOW OF THE PYRAMIDZaloofa, the slave girl, wearing the costume of the native Awabodas.
In the Shadow of the Pyramid
My only hope was that Wimpole, solacing himself with the thought that he had effectually put mehors de combat, would loiter on his way. But this ray was soon extinguished for inquiry at thevillages on our route informed us that the Englishman’s party had gone through by motor! At the word my heart sank; all thought of overtaking him was out of the question. Yet, desperately, we kept on.
It was late at night when the lights of Cairo twinkled in the distance. Leaving our horses and chartering a powerful car we were soon speeding towards Alexandria. The first sun’s rays lighted the listless sails and gleaming hulls of the ships at anchor, battered tramps and giant liners from overseas, trim yachts, an occasional sombre battleship and thousands of sturdy fishing craft. Two vessels were my immediate object, the Wimpole’s Undine and my own Kawa. A long scrutiny from the rising ground back of the Port failed to disclose them. Parking our car we lost ourselves in the forest of masts along the harbor’s edge. It was impossible that Triplett had failed me but locating him was like finding one’s automobile after a foot-ball game. Standing on various pier heads I cupped my hands and bellowed “Kawa-a-hoy” until I was twice threatened with arrest by the local constabulary. Meanwhile Swank and Whinney were paging my captain in other directions, the former cruising about in a rented rowboat while thelatter conducted a personal canvass of the water-side drinking-parlors. In one of these Triplett was eventually discovered. He was amazed at my early arrival.
“I didn’t look fur ye fur a week,” he protested.
“Is the Undine in the harbor?” I asked.
“Wuz, last night ... takin’ on supplies all day; moved out by the lighthouse at sundown.”
“Quick, man; let’s get aboard. We must board her.”
The Kawa lay surrounded by a huddle of small boats the crews of which objected violently to being shoved aside but we forced our way through and eventually cleared the end of the pier and stood out toward the mole, our kicker-motor chugging valiantly. I had fetched my glasses from below and soon located the Undine. She was nearly two miles distant and to my consternation showed every indication of being about to get under weigh.
“We must make better time,” I urged. “Can’t we crowd on more sail or do something nautical?”
“Crowd on nothin’,” said Triplett. “Wind’s dead agin us.” He spat sourly as was his wont and I knew from the glint of his one useful eye that what man could do he would do. Foot by foot wecrept up on the slender Undine out of whose buff funnel smoke poured with increasing volume. We could now see the glint of her brass work and read the name under her stern. The squeak of the davit-blocks reached us as the tiny launch was hauled up and swung in-board; then came the clink, clink of the capstan. It was up-anchor now and no mistake.
At that moment Swank made one of the greatest blunders of his life and that is saying a lot. Overcome by excitement he seized a large megaphone and before I could stop him raised it and howled “Undine a-hoy!”
“Fool!” I shouted striking the instrument from his grasp.
It was the very thing which he should not have done. In quiet we might have slipped alongside. Now all was activity aboard the yacht. Sailors ran to and fro, bells rang sharply, the anchor swung dripping over the bow and a lather of white foam bubbled up from the obedient screws.
We were not over a hundred yards away. In desperation I seized the megaphone. “Stop, in the name of the law,” I shouted; it was all I could think of at the time.
A harsh laugh was my answer followed by a shriek, the well-known shriek of my beloved, whichtore my heart strings. In the salon I caught a glimpse of two struggling figures; then, just as other bulky forms intervened, a bright object flew through the open porthole. At that moment the Undine’s stern swung toward us and gathering headway she shrank rapidly to a tiny speck on the distant horizon.
We hove-to. “Lower the dingy,” I ordered. Alone I rowed toward the bright object which I had seen fly from the cabin window. If it were what I hoped ... yes ... a bottle. Within was the briefest sort of message, merely the word ... “Ritz.”
Back in my cabin I pondered in bitter perplexity. “Ritz?” It was a call to follow her ... it was a meeting place ... but which Ritz? There are so many.
I am not one to give up easily. Gradually a scheme formed in my mind. I would establish an inter-Ritz communication system with agents in all branches. Triplett’s appearance in the doorway interrupted my ruminations.
“Where to, sir?” he asked.
“London,” I replied and, a moment later, felt the Kawa veer toward the great English city.
Fate in her inscrutable way was to end my search almost before it had begun. Eight weeks later I sat in the tea room of the Ritz-Carlton in London. Opening my paper I scanned the headlines dealing with cable despatches, racing news and financial exchange until an item, brutal in its brevity, assaulted my attention as with a hammer stroke.
“Lady Sarah Wimpole Dead.”
The room swam about me. After a tremendous effort at self mastery I was able to read what followed.
“The death of Lady Sarah Wimpole, nee Alleyne, of Alleyne House and Wimpole Manor, Nottinghamshire, will come as a shock to her many friends. Her medical advisors, Dr. Keech and Dr. McGilvray, confess themselves as much mystified by the nature of the malady which has proved fatal. In all respects the symptoms were those of hydrophobia, which is not an admissible diagnosis since Lady Wimpole had but just recently landed from her yacht, the Undine, upon which she and Lord Wimpole have been cruising in Eastern waters. It is suspected that the disease may have been conveyed by a parrot of which the defunct Peeress was very fond and the bird—very wisely in our opinion—has been destroyed.”
SAD MEMORIES“The smooth flowing Nile retains her reflection.”
Sad Memories
How clearly the tragedy stood before my eyes. Wimpole, mad cur that he was, had had his way! My first impulse was to shoot him down as he deserved. Second thought said no. Let him live out his wretched life until un-reason claimed him as she was bound to do. Within a year he was incarcerated, a hopeless maniac, fighting and biting at his keepers.
Time has softened the pain of this, my most tragic adventure. Out of the wreckage of my hopes and dreams the lovely moments rise like mountains from mist. Sitting alone in my study, brooding over the romances of my life, none has quite the charm of this, the most disastrous and incomplete.
It was my plan—after Lady Sarah’s divorce and our marriage—to return to the desert where we had great plans for commercial development, the building of sand-paper mills and hour-glass factories,—but there! These were but bubbles blown away by the touch of reality. With our few brief moments of complete joy I must be content.
That I should return to follow out our plans alone is inconceivable. All speaks too clearly of her influence who called me back to reign once more as El-Dhub ak Moplah. The sandydesert is her likeness. The smooth flowing Nile retains her reflection. The rocky features of the Sphinx are those of my Sarah of the Sahara. Wullahy!
THE END