The Indianapolis journal., 1902-04-27

tndt 1ee1ng was, not OF terror, Dut OF pure
curiosity. Come what might, he should not
kill me till 1 had solved the mystery of
this English slave girl sent as a present
! from the Shereef of Mecca TO his brother
\ in Islam, the Governor of Keronsn.
For flash OF the eye We faced one
another and glared at each others faces in
silence. 1 knew it was war war TO the
knife. And the knife alone must now settle
1 il. At a single word, at the sound of a pis-
! tol. at one cry from the Sheikh or the wom-
en- in the tent the whole encampment
would be alive with angry, fanatical Arabs.
/ My throat would be cut as remOrselessly
/ a butcher cuts Sleeps, and my mys-
/ terious companion might share the same
/ fate. if she was not even reserved for a
worse and more cruel one at keronan. a
single infidel's life would be as dust in the
! balance to that fierce and savage band of
armed zealots. 1t was now or never. No
time to reflect, TO plan. TO decide. My
whirling brain never stopped to deliberate.
L must act at once or die unsatisfied.
Without one seconds hesitation L drew
my short Kabyle knife from my sheath in
my girdle and sprang noiselessly like
beast of prey upon that glowering old
/ Arab
If he gave but one shrek it was all up
with me. | knew ii instinctively, and leaped
upon him in silence with all my weight L
/ leaped al his neck. One hand clutched hard
/ the old wretch's throat with the other L
dug my knife deep and remorselessiy into
his left bosom. 1t was our one chance-my
own and the slave girls. The Sheikh was
a strong and wiry old man. He had lots
of life in him. He struggled hard against
| my unexpected onslaught; but, happily,
youth and agility were on my side. By
some miracle of luck L managed to throttle
him tight and hard with my maddened
| grasp before he had time fully to draw his
long, curved knife from its Persian scab-
bard. My own was straight; on that in
! finitesimal difference in the two weapons
my life and the English woman's depended
that moment l drove it home to the hilt in
mis- heart. He fell heavily with a loud cry
gurgling unheard in his rafting throat. L
felt it was loud, for / saw it convuse him,
| but my hand never for one indivisible in
stant of time relaxed its wild pressure on
his gasping windpipe. No sound came forth.
l choked that desperate shrek unborn in
his lungs. Murder as it was the whole
thing passed off as noiselessly and quietly
as the lifting of the woman's curtain had
| oone ten minutes earlier.
What an eternity ii seemed, those next
ten minutes, while 1 sat and watched and
formed my plans hastily, with the warm
corpse still bleeding in red pools on the
floor and no sound but the regular breath
OF the Arab women in the next compart-
ment to break the monotonous silence of
that awful death chamber.
At last L collected my scattered thoughts
and determined to make one wild dash still
possible for freedom. To speak to the slave
| girl (as 1 still called her TO MYSELF was
clearly out of the question. l must have
awoke the Arab women, and the whole
| camp would then have hacked me to pieces.
| j dipped my finger cautiously into the pool
| of blood and wrote in big print letters on
the white robe-for had now neither PEN
| ell nor paper at hand-'I have killed the
Sheikh. Come outside the tent. We two
will run for it."
! I lifted the curtain and showed that mes
sage of blood to the white and trembling
girl. Her face never blanched with fear for
moment. She merely bowed her head ST.
lently once more, and creeping away with
| out further sign met me outside the tent
on the bare sand next minute.
! I took her hand in mine and led her
along. She held it tight, as a child might
have held it. Even at that supreme mo-
| ment of doubt and anxiety the pressure
thrilled me through to the very heart. We
gided stealthily in the dark, hand in
hand, together, noiseless as ghosts in our
white robes all stained with blood, and
passed away towards where the camels
were tethered 1t was a second of terrible
| and breat If a camel stirred
if an Arab awoke, If a dog barked, our
| fate was sealed; we would die unknown and
our friends in England would never even
hear of it. And l should never have solved
that strange mystery. L could feel my COM
panion's heart beat fast by the mere touch
of her hand. 1 could hear her breath come
and go painfully. drew my knife a second
time, still wet with blood, and cut the hall
ter of the swiftest and strongest camel.
We seated ourselves in silence the sad
die. The beast rose at once, and with the
instinct of his race began to move slowly
away, obedent to my touch, from the slum-
bering camp. How 1 thanked heaven that
night for his soft football the soft football
of those padded soles the loose and lew
el sands of the desert. A horses hoof ring
ing on the plain would at once have
|
| ell with his long, quick, shambling gait and
fieshy sole, seemed TO glide stealthily as
we ourselves had done in the sleeping camp
away towards the open over the darkling
sand waste.
| For many minutes we spoke no word.
hardly allowed myself even to breathe.
took no care to guide our beast in any par
ticular set direction; 1 only wished to put
as great a space as possible forthwith be-
tween our two selves and that caravan full
of bloodthirsty Moslems. But at last, as We
began to breathe freely once more and TO
realize that the first pressing danger was
fairly behind us, L looked up towards the
stars for guidance toward Tunis. Once safe
in the capital the English consul would Sc
cure our escape. The great point was TO
reach the shore before the death of the
Sheikh was noised abroad. L knew the town
lay roughly to nor nor west With gleam
of JOY L discovered the Great Bear in that
cloudless sky, and turning my camels head
towards the and England We went on
once more in solemn silence.
We had gone, L suppose, an hour or more
in the dark across that sea of sand, guided
only by our heavenly compass, before L
ventured even to address my trembling