Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-11-20
The Laughter of Allah

Monsieur Jonquelle, the Project
of Police OF Paris, told me this
story. We were on the deck of his
yacht in the Mediterranean: the
coast of Africa was in the distance.
We had been talking of that
strange, famous Englishman whose
tragic death in the North Sea had
stirred the world.
Why had he never married-the
greatest Englishman of his time?
We did not name him. Monsieur
J~onquelle called him "Sir Henry" in
the story.
The Project of Police of Paris
presented the story as though 1t
were a. detached tale of an oriental
story teller in a bazaar of Cairo. And
I listened with my eyes closed, on
the COO deck, moved slowly by the
long swells listened to the
tragic love story of this strange, re-
served, famous Englishman who
had lived in mystery and died in
mystery:
The man who rode north from
the citadel, along the Boulevard
Mohammed Ali, was no longer
young.
He sat firmly in the saddle. and
% Lie QlSldnL CyS, aO was AoAN ohA
lean ike a hunter In condition, but
his face discolored by wind and sun,
in repose, was tired. 1t was an
unusual face, scanned and crossed
with lines, the mouth firm, almost
harsh, with the muscles developed
along the jaw. But it was not these
features that impressed one.
1t was the mans extraordinary
eyes. They were large and set far
apart. The color o Immediately
saw--a dark metallic blue--the blue
OF certain remote spaces in the
tropic sky. The lids dropped. giving
the man an expression at once OF
serenity and menace
He rode a gray Arab, and his
clothes were evidently the best
product of a Bond street tailor. He
rode like a soidier-like one accus-
toned to live days and nights in
the saddle.
The man felt old and tired.
The vast. eternal unchanging as
poet of Egypt oppressed him. Here
all human effort seemed equally
futile. Here, as in India, one grew
only old and accomplished nothing.
And, on this evening, he felt acute
ly the menace ofgEgypt.
England had only extended fingers
on this great desert running south
into impenetrable mystery. She had
only the peace of the bayonet; and
behind the Incidence, the l~istless
resignation of these desert peoples,
there seemed to lie a vast. inherent
hatred of the invader that never
lessened, and that waited always
with an unfailing patience. In
India. this thing skulked in the dis
lance. but here it seemed to APP
proach-to be at hand.
Perhaps what the man knew
staged this impression. The whole
world of Islam vas uneasy. She
had been despoiled in Turkey and
shamed. She felt that weak rulers,
for gain or the love of life, had held
her in leash when She ought to have
been loosened with a great shout to
q holy war. The heads of Islam
were quiet, but the tribes were rest
less.
England, feeling always with her
delicate antennae, knew this and,
always wise, moved first. She had
this man from India and
sent him here to set the butt of the
Lee-EndfieId a little firmer in the
south toward Khartum.
He had a fortnight in Cairo be-
fore he took up this tremendous
and he used it to be free, to
be alone, to ride when he liked
without an orderly always at his
1t was great honor that England
did him. He might, in the end be-
come Viceroy of India or Sirdar of
But on this evening he was
impressed with the value of what
paid-his youth had been re-
quired of him. When he should
come up out of this desert he would
be old. And what had he got-what
he get out of these great
honors?
The mar rode slowly, holding the
Arab in. The strange, in
current Of the city passed
him, but he was thinking of some
thing else, and he gave it no at
There was another thing. He
unused vaguely. He had seen or
this very DAY. in the shade of a
magnificent towering vine, a young
soldier and an English girl. They
were sitting on a bench; neither
moved, and only their hands
touched. They did not speak, and
yet their faces were like the faces