The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-03-25
CHAPTER IA.
THE BACKGROUND


 man who sat beside her husband
 Raisul.
 First introduced to her at Oxford as MT Russell" Introduced tc her that day at Jacks luncheon party in Jacks rooms at St. Just; that day when Otho was so silly and stand-offish and unlike him. self-as though for the first time in his life he wished her to re- member that he was Sir Otho Mandeville-Belleme and not hei childhood's darling and hero 'The of Big Arctic. ."
 When she had greeted him as dear old Tho" he had called her Miss Maykings instead of Muggie or some other pet name of the days when he approved her as a congenial playmate and comrade a good chap.
 Yes, that was the day on which MT. Russell" had first met her It was also the day before that on which he had declared his un- dying passion for her. ... The amazing creature. He had never taken his eyes from her face throughout that lunch; had inquir- ed at which hotel she and her fa- ther were staying, had immediate ly transferred himself from his own hotel to theirs; stared at her unWaveringly at tea-time, at din- ner-time, at the boxing match which followed; at breakfast-time next morning, and then, catching her alone in the lounge, had laid his heart and fortune at her feet and demanded her hand in return. How she and Dad had laughed, and how Jack and Jules and Mo- ther had laughed, about it. I
 MT Russell" otherwise the Kaid Raisul Abdallah Karin, son and heir to F the great Kaid Haynin Abdallah Karin, the most power ful man in Morocco, greater far than the Sultan himself and able to defy more than two or three European powers when he could not play them one against the other.
 MT. Russell,p late distinguished alumnus of the Paris Sorbonne, full-blooded Moor who spoke Eng fish, French and Spanish as per- fectly as he did his native Ara bic.
 Strange that the true pure bred Moor, 8 princely descendant of a hundred princes, warriors, corsairs, leaders and rulers or armies and of fleets, should be the one who sat there in a chair of European origin and dressed precisely as he would have been at a bachelor din- ner-party in Mayfair-strange that lit should be he rather than Jules Maligni of Eton and Oxford.
 Did he, with his subtle clever ness, wear that dinner jacket. black tie, those black silk socks and patent shoes because he guessed or intuitively knew that she must hate to see her husband with his bare feet stuck into Arab slippers, squatting there in native dress? Strange that the Etonian Oxonian Englishman should dress and squat Hike native while the real Moor should dress, look and behave like an English gentleman.
 Yes, almost certainly it was cal- culated, for Raisul did nothing without a reason and a motive. For how long would he behave like an English gentleman" here in Morocco? Had she been fan cying things or was he going to make himself a nuisance, and if so would be be very difficult to manage? M Suddenly Raisul, who had been industriously picking a flower to pieces, looked up, opened wide his great dark eyes, gazed into hers and, as though reading her own thoughts, smiled with a flash of brillian teeth. Not a friendly brilliant tee t h. Not a friendly smile sardo ic, sarcastic, enig- matic.
 Ignoring him, Margaret's glance travelled on and rested for a mo- ment upon the fat, jolly, evil and cruelsface of his father, the Kaid Haroun Abd'allah Karin. Watch ing him as he sat chuckling and whispering with zainub, his wife. whose lively sallies evidently pleas ed him much, Margaret found it almost impossible to believe the tales of his appalling cruelty, the tales that her husbands mother the Kaid's own half-sister, had told her-as interesting anecdotes and family gossip.
 Amazing to think that that mid dle-aged gentleman sitting there enjoying his Turkish cigarette and coffee, was a human monster A brute who had always delTehted not merely in saWage war. but in its aftermath of slaughter and ac- tual torture
 And yet why wonder at this if,