Arizona republican., 1912-03-21
A SPLE N D I'D PA w N
 By ELEANOR STUART.
Copyright, 1910, by the Pearson
 Publishing co.)
By ELEANOR STUART.

! sudden glare or red aZ2lea leapt Oul Of the fallen night. IL breathed OF | Sybil as she passed. reflected for a mo
 ment in Baltuk's moonlit and perspir | ing face. Date palms clustered abom them now. as they sped north and west while calla lilies grew closely bloom to 1 bloom. like decorations on an Easter | card The whole world seemed a work. 1 shop of Christmas and Easter special ties, and had they seen an angel prac- | Using his Miltonian wings of purple | and azure in the ineffable ultramarine | of the star-punctured vault above them. | il would have seemed bur natural. Baltuk took their pending arrival ex- | citedly. He was anxious 10 acuuit him | self well and 10 have Calvin say he | owed comfort 10 him. He pointed with 1 q Conjurors gesture to a we'll placed | on the side of a sudden acclivity: a 1 wide eXpanse of hoOf-tTodden dust be- l fore il. and two TOugh-hewn. commem- 1 Orative pillars before it's wide. walled | pool. On crOsbeam. resting on these ! square columns. were these words in the Mullah's hybrid Arabic: What | father closes his door-even al night | 10 his sons? or which fathers heart | even in sleep-but pities them?" This
 was recruiting station of Islam. where men are won 10 war by words of fervent tenderness
 Baltuk tapped the knees of his camel
 on the dusty space before the pool and the beasts knelt, athirst and docile Sybil and Calvin dismounted, stiff and
 reeling, and Baltuk bade them heed Over the hill 10 the right" he said
 lis the N'gambo of Bandi. My place
 is with these camels, who must drink" :"
 They moved ever stiffiy. numbed hand
 in numbed hand, up the hill rosettcd
 with low scrub. drinking from their
 fiasks as they gained $ painfully-won
 resting place on the summit of sud
 den illogical hillock, about whose min
 or base q city of huts rested, like
 dirty crescent of kennels. under the
 bright full moon. Beyond this make
 shift city tom-toms beat and dancers
 whirled amid the premeditated plenty
 of a feast The great round moon i'm
 personally and dispassionately lighted
 each spare, active figure. until it stood
 out from the blackness of its back
 ground
 Tt cant be a religious feast" Gal
 win muttered ] know their damned
 
 for 'pigeOn-wing' in all this empty
 month. What is it for which they
 dance?" He strode on down-hill. They
 came suddenly on a precinct where
 Camels were tied to pegs driven deep
 in the earth. Their legs were fastened
 together with cruel thongs ana there
 were hOrdes of them thus pickered on
 that hillside; they raised their uglv
 l,aa |.
 seeming like snakes abOut 10 bite poi
 sOnously. IL was hard to tread ones
 way among them. but Calvin pushed his road through long a.sles Of muZzies unsymmetrically chewing. corning out al the far end Of the crescent formed by a strangely struggling tOIn, anu sitting down CT a some. s'iil radia.;us heat-for all it was misunderstanding Sybil's hand and his breath a the one moment. while he considered his next step. A roofess s,one house yawned skyward just a. their feet. and not ten yards below them-tel yards which stretched in sheer clay eXuding damp from the overflow Of a well close at hand which rippled audibiy down the steep to the town troughs.
 'Sybil," Calvin commanded, stay here. More people than Bandi con tains ordinarily are feasting and dane ing. Before l take you within the town. l want to know why"
 Don't be long, she answered rather faintly as he started down the sheer bank. He kissed her as he left her and with his lingering handclasp came the sense of parting; the night seemed to close over her and choke her with its blackness. She saw him plunge downward into the towns neither dark ness and she knew that riot was abroad there. or some evil, patent to his deciviliZed faculties and undiscern- ible to hers. It was awful to be alone there where a moment before it had been good to be with him.
 When she dared to look below her the moon showed him 10 her as he scaled the wall of the roofiess house furiously.. Once within it he lighted many matches. bending over what seemed to be dead animal. But pres ently it stirred, she saw its black bulk shift while chains clanked distinctly and Calvin prodded it. when it stirred again with the same cheerless noise of bondage.
 After those second sounds he kicked l at a wooden door in the least lighted 1 corner of the roofiess building, and its | boards fell away from their faSteningS 1 and opened a way out; she called to l him and he called to her, "Hush!"- the hardest command a man may give ! his anxious helpmeet. He left the | house then and stole along the shad | owed side of a dusty track until he | was lost in the darkness, except for | one glimpse she had of him emerging | from the door of hut. At last he re- 1 entered the roofless house, and by the | apparently increased bulk of the inert l thing within it she knew that he was 1 beside it and wondered what he did l that he could leave her alone in lions and lslam's domain.
 In sudden anger she slipped to the edge of the cliff of clay, digging her heels into it as she had seen him do to -etard her passage down its precipitous slope Breathless, she stole to the broken door and entered its jagged opening his strength had achieved at one kick, coming toward him timidly. alarmed at grating sound she had not heard before.
 Darling" he said, and she knew from his voice that he exulted, "see if you can work out his gag
 He put her hand on the protruding part of the dark bundle and Sybil started back from bearded, sweating