"Lord Tawdry, the magnificently-mustached brother of Miss Mayonnaise, is concerned to distraction.

"He stopped playing bridge long enough to say so.

"A hotel porter of the Biscuit whom she forgot to tip, it is understood, has inst.i.tuted a search for her but found no trace of the daring young adventurer in a seventy-mile trip out on the desert beyond 86,000 cigarette stumps.

"And some scattered Arabs running around the Sahara asking Allah to alleviate their condition in the matter of a she-demon who is banging a great and well-known Sheik about haphazardly.

"They have given her the name of 'Jinny.'

"Although this clue is, of course, unpromising it was learned by cable late last night that Sherlock Holmes has telephoned Doctor Watson to come on over to Baker street, he's got something interesting on.

"Confidence has been hopefully and freely expressed that if Mr.

Holmes doesn't find Miss Mayonnaise he will, at any rate, lose Watson."

Verbeena's hopes and aims went vaunting in a very triumphant manner on the reading of this clipping.

It was mean, however, she thought of Mr. Hitchings not to have shown it to her.

Yet leaving it behind may have been one of his subtleties.

Anyway, hooray!

Obviously she sensed palpably that it was all highly intriguing.

Mad emotions stirred the Sheik to follow her with an admiring eye when to show how pleased she was she went forth on the newly leased oasis and threw herself among the tops of the palm trees indiscriminately.

In swift palpitation that made his heart beat the Sheik hugged his bandaged ribs and watched her.

She moved gracefully among the tree tops snapping branches off heartlessly. She radiated, also, he saw, mercilessly among the verbiage.

In spite of a week's notice, for Verbeena meant to can Spaghetti, the faithful fellow had drawn up to the Sheik's side and Amut turning wonderingly toward him asked wildly:

"Are they the w.i.l.l.i.e.s she's got or what?"

"O, Monseigneur, merely angelically acrobatic," said Spaghetti with a touch of reverence that was reverberating.

Suddenly Verbeena vamoosed from the palm trees, fell thirty feet with a happy turn which landed her directly on the shampoo bandage which was the Sheik's native headgear.

"My dear, your exuberance fascinates as well as flattens me," said the august Amut in his fall. "May I ask the cause? Mind you, I do not insist. You well know, I am too proud to fight."

"You will learn in time, my dear," laughed Verbeena airily, her thoughts running ragingly in the line of movie contracts, of a day soon when she would excel the gilded harvestings of Queen Mary herself.

"Aw--please, O, clashing cadence of my soul's innermost adoration, let your Sheiky know what gives you such happiness divine!"

"Nix-nix!" said Verbeena with excessive laughter, "my conquering devil! Have you fed the camels yet? If not, spill that toga and hump yourself!"

"Immediately, O, exquisite creature of Allah's greatest favor! And yet, if you'll pardon me, this night I had planned taking a smack at my old enemy, Sheik Abraham O'Mara. He's been cutting into the borders of our sandpile considerable lately. E'er this, Queenie, he has always been scared of me. But now he rides about the wide places, the narrow and the circ.u.mambient without fear or dread of Amut Ben Butler.

"Once his goat was mine but now he thinks nothing of grabbing my horses and camels any old time."

"Go right over and attend to him this evening," said Verbeena. "You have my full permission. If he gets giddy with you just tell him I'll be over myself. I've heard too that he is uncommonly cussed among the women. And him a black Sheik at that--the old Ace of Spades! Tell him----"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SHEIK ABRAHAM O'MARA, WHO BEAT IT FOR DEAR LIFE ACROSS THE SAHARA AT SIGHT OF VERBEENA.]

"Tee-hee-hee!" chuckled the lordly Amut.

"What are you laughing at?" demanded his thoroughly acknowledged wife--(in writing, you remember).

"Just look over on the horizon, my dear."

"At whom?"

"Those now to be seen scooting out of sight across it. The distance is great but I recognize the leading figure clearly as the Sheik Abraham O'Mara. See how fat! And how fast he travels! And yet it has always been said of him there was danger ever when that fiend was abroad.

But, it seems he saw us first."

"Aha, afeard of you, my Amut?"

"Of me," he chuckled again and again.

For the first time in months the Sheik permitted himself a little bold laughter.

"Of me!"

Once home in the tent the Sheik Amut Ben Butler dared to put his arms out to her. He was no ordinary man to succ.u.mb to the fascinations of a woman. You had to hit him first.

But having experienced the metallic obstinacy of Verbeena Mayonnaise, the inflexibility of her character and seeing, as he ecstatically had, the flight of his powerful and avowed enemy, Abraham O'Mara, he was fraught with the realization that love had become a force in his life which might drive him to anything where Verbeena was concerned, predominantly and irresistibly.

He'd be tr.i.m.m.i.n.g her curls for her next.

Amut's arms ached for her and always ached worse after he had tried to hold her.

He permitted his mind to careen woefully regarding the secret Verbeena was withholding. Something had made her very happy and as he felt nothing to boast of in this regard he wondered incontinently. But in his growing emotion concerning one who could not only chase him but his greatest enemy at the very sight of her, the Sheik allowed himself a sharp, sobbing intake of breath.

At the same time no other sign escaped him of the h.e.l.l he was enduring. She might not like it.

But he couldn't keep his mind off Verbeena for the distant howlings of jackals came closer and closer.

Still, as between the two, he certainly liked her best.

And what was this secret that had sent her gamboling high among the palm trees?

He had asked her and she wouldn't tell. His soul, his mind and heart hammered, stirred, tintinnabulated and undulated to find out.

Little he knew then that vouchsafement as to this might have been regarded generally as pretty closely to hand.

CHAPTER XII