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Roy Glashan's Library
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The Popular Magazine, 7 Nov 1923, with "The Underground River of the Oasis"
James Francis Dwyer
JAMES FRANCIS DWYER (1874-1952) was an Australian writer. Born in Camden Park, New South Wales, Dwyer worked as a postal assistant until he was convicted in a scheme to make fraudulent postal orders and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1899. In prison, Dwyer began writing, and with the help of another inmate and a prison guard, had his work published in The Bulletin. After completing his sentence, he relocated to London and then New York, where he established a successful career as a writer of short stories and novels. Dwyer later moved to France, where he wrote his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings, in 1949. Dwyer wrote over 1,000 short stories during his career, and was the first Australian-born person to become a millionaire from writing. —Wikipedia
Mr. Robert Henry Blane of Houston, Texas, ventures further into Africa, seeking treasure and solitude, and meets a number of interesting people, not the least of whom are Mary Grant of Vicksburg, Ivan the Strong of Minsk, and the redoubtable No. 37, who seems to be of everywhere.
TO Robert Henry Blane, alias The Texan Wasp, had come a new sensation. A perfectly novel and ridiculous sensation. The handsome and adventurous Texan to whom fear was an unknown emotion experienced for the first time in his life an overpowering feeling of depression that hinted at an impending calamity.
The strange sensation had seized The Wasp at Tangier where he had said good-by to the American cowboy who was working his way home on the oil tanker. It persisted for days, growing greater with each hour that passed till at last it grew to such proportions that he had to turn and face it. Then, like a wise adventurer, he named the thing. Mr. Blane told himself that he was in the clutch of fear. A great fear that possessed the terrifying powers of a pursuing dragon. A fear that shook the iron nerve that had enabled him to outwit the king of man hunters, No. 37.
The fear had grown from a mysterious and persistent pursuit that began at Tangier. There was a night flight over the flat whitewashed roofs of the quarter Bab-ed-Dakhl with a score of the local police close on the Texan's heels. It was a marvelous flight. The athletic Blane was forced to show the speed that had brought to him the applause of thousands in his college days. He had swept across the sea of roofs, jumped the narrow streets that intersected the rabbit warrens of the native quarter, flushed unveiled women who, thinking themselves secure on their own housetops, had put their face wraps aside, and upset devout Mohammedans making their evening devotions beneath the stars. A thrilling race. The squeals of the startled women, the yells of the police, the cries of the natives, the quick pounding of heavy feet over the mud-plastered roofs—then silence. The Texan Wasp had dropped suddenly down a precipitous wall on the Paseo de Cenarro and the action choked the cries of his pursuers. Awe-struck at his daring they stood and watched him as he dropped from one out-jutting stone to another. His jeering laugh came up to them as he fled into the shadows.
No boat out of Tangier for three days. And behind Tangier ran the trails stretching southward to the dry lips of the Sahara. The Wasp felt the strength of the hand that had reached out to gather him in. At dawn the next morning a tall and distinguished-looking person in full Arab costume—gandurah, flowing burnoose and haik—went southward with a caravan bound for Fez, the City of the Sultans.
And the fear grew on the route. At Ouezzane the pursuing hand made another clutch at The Texan Wasp. A captain of Spahis had been ordered to make an arrest but he had signified his intentions before he had a grip on the shoulder of the person he thought of taking in charge. It was unlucky for the captain. Three hours later he sent a courier northward with his apologies and regrets. The devil that he was told to arrest could get more out of a horse that any man he, the captain, had ever seen. He had fled with a troop at his heels, fled out across the hot sands where the sunbeams ran one through like heated rapiers, and the soldiers had lost him in the wastes. The fellow rode like a centaur. The troopers were unable to explain his escape. He rode like the devil himself!
A great compliment for Texas.
Through wastes that were dead and yet strangely alive; through sands tinted red and yellow and brown—tints that were palpitant, impudent, strident even—through throbbing heat in which sand devils danced rigadoons, The Texan Wasp came to Fez. Fez the Mysterious! Fez the Jealous City that has clung through the centuries to the traditions and customs of its colorful founders. And in the City of the Sultans Robert Henry Blane told himself that he was a little afraid, just a little afraid of a persistent pursuer. And that pursuer was, without a doubt, the great sleuth, No. 37.
Robert Henry Blane, one time of Houston, sat on a bench
on the Place du Commerce of Fez and considered the matter of
routes. Evidently the great detective had made up his mind
that The Texan Wasp was to be gathered in at all costs, and,
curiously, Mr. Blane could not rid himself of the belief
that No. 37 would be successful. The feeling of an impending
calamity could not be shaken off.
Across the hot square flowed the life of the City of Mystery. Mohammedans in white burnooses and yellow slippers; Moroccan Israelites in black caftans and small black caps; negroes from the Sudan, with that dead black that lacks the cheerful shine of the American colored man; Spanish dealers, and dandified French officers. The Texan Wasp watched the human tide flow-by and he wondered as he watched. All the folk that went by had little activities to fill their days. The merchants had small shops on the Rue du Mellah to which they were hurrying; the negroes were porters; the Spanish dealers were trafficking in olive oil, caraway seeds, honey, ivory, and silk; the French officers held administrative positions. On the busy square The Wasp seemed to be the one person out of a job.
Across the square from the big gate leading to the gardens came a tall soldier walking with a queer, swaggering manner and chanting softly as he walked. In the center of the Place he passed an officer without saluting, then he halted as his superior called out an order.
Robert Henry Blane watched the little happening. The officer sharply questioned the soldier; the soldier replied with a carelessness that annoyed the officer. Words passed, then the officer's fist shot out and the tall soldier dropped. The superior went on across the square, leaving the insubordinate private on the ground.
Because The Texan Wasp was the one person without a job he took upon himself the task of succoring the soldier. He pulled the fellow into the shade and bought for him a sou's worth of water from the water seller with his goatskin bag. The human tide, momentarily arrested by the happening, flowed on again and Robert Henry Blane was left with the soldier.
A strong, tough man was the private. He recovered quickly from the effects of the blow, mumbled his thanks to The Wasp, then he continued the little chant that had been interrupted by the officer. Robert Henry Blane listened. The soldier crooned it softly, rocking backward and forward as he sang, occasionally clapping his hands as some particular line appealed to him.
He sang in French but the listening Wasp knew that it was not his native tongue. The words had the throatiness of the north, and this fact together with the song itself made the Texan feel certain that the fellow was a Russian. The Foreign Legion has many Russians in its ranks.
The song that he chanted was curious. It was a little Iliad of life and love. It was primitive, unpolished, a trifle raw. It told of the love of a Russian peasant of Minsk who worshiped a girl that loved him in return. But the young lady's parents frowned on the match. They turned the peasant from the door and gave the girl in marriage to a rich landowner.
The Texan Wasp listened as the soldier chanted the detail with all the Russian's love for small and intimate particulars. The hot sunlight gave life to the words so that Blane pictured the crude drama. He saw the wretched home of the girl, the money-loving parents, the lover, the fat landowner, the disconsolate maid being dragged off. But of all the verses of the poem the queer refrain stirred The Wasp. The soldier hissed it, his blue eyes alight with hate. The refrain ran:
"Katchinka mine! Katchinka mine!
Oh, I'll come back with blade ashine
And spill his blood, Katchinka mine!"
The song ended at last. The singer turned and regarded Robert Henry Blane. "A good song?" he said quietly.
"A very good song," admitted The Wasp.
"It is mine," said the soldier. "I made it. We Russians are all poets." Then, after a little pause, he added: "It was my affair. My Katchinka."
"I'm sorry," said The Wasp. "Very sorry."
The private acknowledged the sympathy with an inclination of the head. "To-morrow I leave the Legion and start on my way back," he exclaimed. "Then I will do what I have written in my song."
"It is a long way home," commented the American, and as he spoke he wondered how the Russian would accomplish the journey. The pay of a private of the Foreign Legion is twenty-five centimes a day.
The Russian seemed to guess what was in the mind of the man beside him. "I know where there is money," he said softly. "A lot of money! Tons of money! I know where it is hidden. It is twelve days' journey from here, but to-morrow I start. And then when I get the money I will go home."
He became silent. Robert Henry Blane stared across the hot square. He pondered lazily over the things that make men rovers. Here was a fellow who should have stayed in his native village and farmed the land. Instead, because of a love affair, he had wandered down into Africa, joined the Legion and spent his days chanting a song of hate about the man who had robbed him of his sweetheart. To the Texan it seemed all wrong.
The soldier broke the silence. "This treasure I speak of," he began. "Now you would not believe my story if I told it to you. Why? Because you are an American and you do not know this part of the world. But the treasure is in American money. What do you think of that?"
The Wasp did not answer, and after a pause the soldier went on. He could not resist the desire to startle the very blase and worldly person at his side.
"A grand banker of your country robbed his bank," he went on. "It was five years ago. He came to Casablanca with the money and from there he came to Meknes and on to Fez. He had all the money with him. Leather bags of it. I know! It will be all mine soon! It is enough to buy a countryside in Russia.
"We Russians have a proverb. It runs: 'There is always a thief that is bigger.' A good proverb. This banker from your country met the bigger thief on the road to Fez. That is all."
"And the thief has kept the money till you were ready to leave the Legion?" sneered the Texan.
"I killed the thief," said the Russian quietly. "Killed him in fair fight in the hills. He was a rebel. When he was dying he bought a drink of water from me with his story. I mean the story of where the treasure is hidden. He was afraid to use the money. He hid it, hid it in a place that none can find, and it is there to-day."
"And you believe his story?" questioned The Wasp.
The soldier got to his feet and looked down at Robert Henry Blane. "I believe it because it made me write my song," he said. "Till then I had no song because I had no way of getting home. Then, after listening to his story, I knew that I would get home and I began to sing. We Russians know of many things before they happen. His story wove all the verses that you have heard. It was the loom. It plaited in all the threads of hate that made my brain ache through the years. Now I am content. To-morrow I leave the Legion and then I will hunt for the treasure."
He stood a moment regarding Robert Henry Blane, then he lifted his hand and saluted. "Thank you for getting me water," he said. "Good-by."
"Good-by and good luck," cried The Wasp. "I hope you get every dollar of the swag."
The soldier moved off across the hot square, and as the Texan watched him there came back the vicious refrain of the song:
"Katchinka mine! Katchinka mine!
Oh, I'll come back with blade ashine
And spill his blood, Katchinka mine!"
Robert Henry Blane remained on the bench. By him flowed the colorful tide. Shrouded women, the dark, mysterious eyes alone showing between the head shawl and the veil; kiddies, their heads shaved so that there was left the little tuft by means of which Mohammed would lift them into paradise; charm sellers with verses of the Koran printed on colored slips of papers; hags whose wizened skin showed through a thousand rents in their torn garments.
One of the hags, who looked as if she might have known Fez in the days of Sidi Mohammed, regarded The Texan Wasp keenly for a moment, then dropped on her haunches before his bench. Deftly she shuffled a pack of greasy cards and spread them on the hard ground. She muttered in Arabic, jabbing at the tattered cards with fingers that had become claws. The handsome stranger would know his future! No, no, he must be told. A mad future! Regard the cards!
She flung upon the ground a nine of hearts, a six of spades, a ten of clubs, a seven of the same suit, and the five of diamonds. She turned her beady eyes on The Texan Wasp and made a motion with her claw suggesting that he should total the pips.
The Wasp did so. The result startled him. The total was 37, and the number 37 was not one that he loved.
With an insane hurry the old woman gathered up the cards, shuffled the pack and held it out to the American. She suggested that he should throw five cards face downward on the ground.
Robert Henry Blane did so. The hag mumbled over them, then turned them hurriedly. There were three tens, a five, and a two. Again The Wasp totaled the pips.
He stared at the hag with a little amazement showing on his handsome face. Twice running the total of five cards thrown from the pack had made a number that he hated—the numeral alias of the greatest man hunter in all the world!
The Wasp opened his mouth to question the hag but at the same instant bedlam broke out upon the Place du Commerce. A two-horse carriage, driven by a Sudanese, had crashed into another. The vehicle driven by the negro suffered greatly in the collision and the driver turned upon his fare and demanded money sufficient to recover the damages. It was the protests of the fare that made Robert Henry Blane forget the hag and thrust his way through the curiosity-welded circle that bound the disputants. The French of the passenger, audible at moments when the negro paused to get his breath, had the accent of home. It was American-French and it dragged the Texan toward it like a magnet. Perfect French, but beneath it the soft Creole croon that brought up visions of bayous, of shrimp boats running up from Grand Isle, of the old Mississippi rolling lazily by New Orleans toward the Gulf. Robert Henry Blane knew that the girl's voice held the music of the South that he loved, the South that was home.
The Texan broke through the circle and stood at her side. She did not see him till he roared an order to the negro, then, as she glanced up, he saw her face. It was a sweet, pathetic face. It wasn't beautiful but it possessed those clearly defined marks that tell of purity and truth, and in the glance that the girl turned upon The Wasp was an appeal that was irresistible. The big Sudanese had scared her greatly with his bellowing.
Mr. Blane answered the appeal in the Blane manner. He snatched the whip from the ebony coachman and deftly laid it across the fellow's back. The crowd roared and the Sudanese saw red. He lowered his woolly head and charged the Texan.
Robert Henry Blane gave the crowd an exhibition of lassoing that was entirely new to them. He caught the end of the long whip, stepped swiftly out of the way of the charging negro, then, as the Sudanese went by, he slipped the loop around the fellow's leg.
The negro came to the ground with a crash, raising a cloud of dust that completely hid him for the moment. A crazed, wild Sudanese was the coachman. He got to his feet, measured the distance between himself and The Wasp and charged again.
Robert Henry Blane dropped the whip and thrust the girl out of the way of the maddened negro. The packed circle made ii difficult for him to find space for her and as he turned he found the Sudanese upon him. A blind, madman thirsty for blood.
It was then that Robert Henry Blane gave the crowd a further exhibition. The negro, bent forward, gave the Texan a "back" that was irresistible. The Wasp, without an apparent effort, vaulted clear over him, and the Sudanese, unable to pull up, drove his head full force into the stomach of a huge Mussulman whose curiosity had thrust him into the middle of the circle.
The Mussulman went down with a roar of rage. Two of his friends rushed to tear him from the grip of the Sudanese who, firmly convinced that he had clutched the American, was busily pounding the fat man. Three friends of the negro took the part of the coachman and as the battle royal grew warmer The Texan Wasp, calm and unruffled, took the arm of the girl and guided her across the Place to the crowded Mellah.
"Where do you wish to go?" asked Robert Henry Blane.
"I am staying at the Hotel Bellevue," answered the girl.
"I will get you a carriage," said The Wasp. "It is—"
"No, no!" cried the girl. "Not a carriage! That brute of a coachman frightened me! Please show me the way and I will walk there."
Robert Henry Blane guided the girl through the maze of narrow streets, piloting her skillfully out of the way of the donkey men whose shouted "Balek"—take care—worries the unfortunate pedestrian. He chatted to her in an effort to make her forget the incident on the Place du Commerce, and unmindful of her protests he walked on with her when he had brought her outside the mud walls of the old town and had set her upon the rather pleasant path leading to the hotel.
She thanked him in a sweet whisper for his help on the Place. She painted a gloomy picture of her plight if he had not been there, and, when The Wasp protested that a French policeman would have settled the difficulty, she refused to accept his belief.
"Anyhow it was nice to find some one from' home there," she murmured, no note of coquetry on her voice. "I couldn't believe my ears when you spoke to me. I didn't think that there was one American in Fez."
"Fortunately for hotel keepers Americans are everywhere," said The Wasp. "What would happen to them if we didn't roam? The Russian, German, Austrian, and Pole are compelled to stay at home because their money is worthless. The English are not as wealthy as they were, so the goose that lays the golden egg to-day is the American."
There was a little silence after the remark. A black soldier of the Sultan's guard passed by in his rather ridiculous costume of red jacket, red trousers, white spats and rolled turban. An Arab guiding two camels heavily laden with grass looked at the two Americans with black, beady eyes; a tattered wretch mumbling prayers begged for charity.
The strange surroundings must have suggested to the girl the need for an explanation of her being there. She began to speak in a soft whisper, her face turned away from the man who walked at her side.
"I am from Vicksburg," she said, her voice hardly audible. "My name is Grant—Mary Grant. My brother went to the war and he did not come back. I mean he did not come back to America. He thought Vicksburg too small. You see he was an adventurous fellow and he wished to see the world. He wrote to us from Marseilles saying that Warren County was no good to him, and that was the last letter that we had."
Again came a little silence. They approached the hotel. A blind Arab squatting in the dust of the road chanted scraps from the Koran.
The Texan Wasp paused before the door of the hotel and the girl roused herself. She began to talk hurriedly, jerking out little scraps of information in a manner that suggested nerves strained to the breaking point.
"I had to come!" she gasped. "Mother longed for him! She is old. You—you understand? She wished to see him before—before she died. I traced him to Oran and then to Fez. No, no, you cannot help me. You have been kind. Thank you! Thank you! Good-by! Good-by! I feel that—that I will find—"
Her voice broke. The soft brown eyes filled with tears and with a strange little cry the girl turned and rushed into the hotel, leaving Robert Henry Blane standing in the hot sunlight.
The Wasp waited for a few moments undecided as to what he should do. Here was an American girl in Fez the Mysterious—Fez the strange City of the Sultans. He told himself that he should help her; then as this decision was made, there leaped into his mind a picture of the hag on the Place du Commerce. Twice the hag had thrown the cards and made the pips count 37. How had she managed it? He told himself that it would be wiser to withhold his offer of help. Who was he to offer help? He thought of the night flight across the flat roofs of Tangier, of the near arrest at Ouezzane when the troop of Spahis chased him out across the burning sands.
The Wasp turned and walked back to the crowded Mellah. The fear that he could not shake off pricked him fiercely as he tramped along.
He returned to the Place du Commerce and searched for the hag who had thrown the cards on the ground. The search was difficult. There were many lean hags with faces lined like war maps on the Place. Before the Compagnie Algérienne he found one that he felt sure was the fortune teller, but when he addressed her she shook her head.
"The cards!" cried The Wasp, speaking in Arabic. "You told my fortune here on the Place less than an hour ago!"
The hag shook her head and looked out along the hot road that separated the European town from the Arab quarter. The Wasp spoke again; the hag sprang angrily to her feet and waddled off. A tattered beggar who had listened to the assertion and the denial giggled in the foolish manner of a person who wishes to suggest that he could tell something if the proper solvent was applied to his tongue.
Robert Henry Blane had curious dreams on the night that
followed his meeting with Mary Grant of Vicksburg. He had
dreams of the French penal settlement at Cayenne. Very
unpleasant dreams. He dreamed that he had been taken to
Cayenne by the singing Russian who proved on his arrival to
be No. 37. The horror of the place awakened him, then when he
fell asleep again the dream continued. There came to him in
the awful hell of Cayenne a rescuer whom he first thought to
be the girl from Vicksburg but who turned out to be none other
than Betty Allerton of Boston, the girl he had loved in the
long ago.
The hot morning sun roused him. He dressed and looked out of the window at the crowded street. The little shops were open, their owners sitting cross-legged among their wares. Robert Henry Blane watched them. They sat in their cubbyholes with a certain air of dignity. They were small merchants of Fez. They had a place in the community. They could look with contempt on a wanderer who had no home, no goods, no clients. Just for a moment The Texan Wasp envied them.
A tall, muscular figure caught the eye of Robert Henry Blane. It was the Russian that came striding up the narrow street. Not in uniform any longer. The dress of the Legion had been put aside and in its place the man from Minsk had substituted a worn costume of blue denim. Upon his head was a red fez that was just a few sizes too small for the task that had been thrust upon it.
The Russian was still chanting. His words were drowned by the babble of other voices, but The Wasp could see the ex-soldier's lips moving as he walked along. The fellow was chanting the Iliad that he had built around his own affairs.
The Wasp thrust a morsel of plaster from the crumbling window sill into space. It fell upon the red fez and the soldier glanced up. A look of truculence that had been brought by the tiny missile was replaced by a grin of delight.
"You are the person above all others that I wished to see!" he shouted. "Can I speak to you?"
"Come up," said The Wasp. "Room No. 8 at the top of the stairs. Mind you don't break your neck as you come. The stairs were built by the person who invented the corkscrew."
The Russian came up with a speed that proved he had spoken the truth when he stated that Blane was the one person above all others that he longed to see. He flung open the door in response to the Americans "Come in" and he began to talk before he was inside.
"Listen!" he cried. "I spoke to you yesterday of the treasure and a miracle happened."
"What was it?" questioned The Wasp.
"You did not ask me for a share!"
Robert Henry Blane laughed. "What have I to do with your old treasure?" he asked.
"Nothing," cried the Russian. "Nothing at all. But I have spoken to scores of people about this money and each one of them thought that I could not get it without his help. Do you understand? They talked immediately of forming a partnership with me. Every man to whom I mentioned it said: 'Let's go and get it. We can find it.' Always we! You are the first one that has ever said 'I hope you get every dollar of the swag.' That is what you said yesterday. You hoped that I would get it! You did not say 'we' or 'us.'"
Robert Henry Blane watched his visitor. His excitement had increased. The blue eyes of the Russian were filled with a strange light. He was free to search for the treasure that would take him back to Minsk, back to the girl that he loved, back to the fat landowner whose blood he craved.
He began to talk and his words stumbled over each other as he explained to the American the little matters that made him certain the treasure really existed. With a dramatic power that was extraordinary he told of the death of the man who had stolen the money from the American banker—a lieutenant of that very unamiable ruffian, Raisuli.
It was a very unusual tale. The Russian told it in detail. He imitated the gestures of the dying scoundrel who had begged for a drink of water before he was whisked into eternity and he told without any attempt to excuse himself how he had tortured the fellow by leaving the bottle just outside the reach of the clawing fingers that waited to carry it to the parched lips.
"I knew that he would tell!" he cried. "I knew! I pulled him into the sun so that his thirst would become greater and I made noises with my throat as I drank. What good was his secret when he was dying and his thirst was great? I asked him that every time I took a pull at the bottle.
"Then he told! Ah, God! he told it to me, and every bit of me became an ear! I w-rapped myself around his mouth so that not a whisper would escape. Not a whisper! The story was for me because I had tortured him into telling it. Had not I pulled him into the sun and made noises with my throat? It was my story! I lay close to him and listened like a mother listening to the first lispings of her baby.
"He died after he had drunk and while the rattles were in his throat I began to sing. Till then I was dumb. Ah, yes! Dumb as the white stones that mark the versts on the road to Minsk. I had never sung! Never! But his story of the treasure unloosed a voice within my brain. Listen! I sang all through the day and In the hot nights I made rhymes. I strung verses together in my dreams. Verses and verses till my head ached with the number that I made. And all of her! All of Katchinka! My Katchinka! Of her and of him and of what I would do when I reached home."
He paused for a moment to get his breath, then with his head thrust forward toward The Texan Wasp he continued his story.
"We Russians think that all men who sing see things that are hidden from the ordinary person. We think that the poets know of what is to be to-morrow and the day after. It is our belief and it is a splendid belief. So am I wrong in thinking that I do know the future, I who was dumb till he told me that story? It made me a singer so I know that the tale he told me is a true tale. I know!"
The tremendous obsession that clutched the Russian reached out and plucked at The Texan Wasp. The fellow's story had brought a strange feeling into the room. The ex-soldier's desire for revenge had filled him with the power to make converts. He was Belief itself!
Robert Henry Blane sought a reason for his unusual credulity and he found it instantly. He, Blane, wished to go farther into the desert, the desert that seemed more friendly than the little house clusters where the Rod and the Law held sway. The Russian had found a convert who wished to be converted.
"What is your proposition?" asked The Wasp.
"You pay the expenses of the trip and you will have thirty per cent of the treasure," answered the Russian. "It is a twelve-day journey. We must go to Oudjda and then by camels southward into the desert. You must buy or hire the camels. We must go alone. The money you must find; I have the route'within my brain. Never have I put anything on paper. It is my treasure but I will give you a portion. There will still be enough left for Katchinka and me. It is a great sum."
"I agree," said The Wasp.
The Russian put out a strong sun-tanned hand and gripped the hand that Robert Henry Blane extended. "My name is Ivan Polokoff," he said. "In the little village where I lived near Minsk they called me Ivan the Strong."
"My name is Robert Henry Blane," said The Wasp. "I am an American and I do nothing unless it appeals to me. If it appeals I will do anything."
"I guessed you as a person of that kind," growled Ivan the Strong. "I am proud to have you as a partner. All night long I lay awake and wondered if I would find you. You became part of the rhymes."
A great strong thing is the Desert of Sahara. It squats
and grins at the little men who try to rule it. It is a
white, wind-whipped, indecent thing that sprawls over leagues
and leagues of territory, sucking with parched lips at the
fertile stretches on the north, throttling the little hut
clusters that cling to its hot bosom, and stirring with its
thousand-league limbs the sand storms that wipe out desert
trails and smother wanderers. A terrible thing with ten
million breasts of hungry sand!
Over these breasts of wind-tormented sand rode Robert Henry Blane and Ivan the Strong. Dropping ever southward as the gurgling camels covered the leagues of sun-bitten sand. By Tioudadine where the heat devils live! By Hassi El Aricha! By Badda and Mengoub where the ghosts of the lost ride on the sand storms! On and on, biting deeper into the wastes.
Twice the guide deserted them. The first guide thought the Russian mad because he sang all day of Katchinka, so he fled in the night, taking with him a spare camel. The second became suddenly fearful of the wastes, turned and rode back over the track they had come.
All day long the Russian sang. In the mind of Robert Henry Blane the Song of Katchinka became a lariat that dragged himself and the Russian into the desert. They were tied to the thing. It was belief and it was stronger than steel hawsers. It defied the blinding sunlight, the waterless wastes, the nights of terrific loneliness. It became a living thing. At times, mostly during the heavy, hot hours of the afternoon, Blane felt that he could take verses of the song in his hands and squeeze blood from them. It was a great song, a song of fattened hate. Sometimes the big Texan found himself joining in the refrain:
"Katchinka mine! Katchinka mine!
Oh, I'll come back with blade ashine
And spill his blood, Katchinka mine!"
Onward, ever onward went the two. By nomad camps where "pancake" tents of torn and tattered Afghans were protected by hedges of dead camel's thorn. Wretched places. Their half-nude inhabitants came out and gibbered at The Texan Wasp and Ivan the Strong. They ran beside the two wanderers, making queer, doglike noises, their skinny paws extended for the food they craved. The pot-bellied infants stumbled in front of the sobbing camels; the women whined from behind the tattered shawls that covered their faces.
The Texan Wasp was sympathetic but the Russian rode by without seeing the gaunt things that begged for food. The Russian saw nothing but the treasure. He plaited new verses into his Iliad with every hour that passed. They were verses that told of his arrival at Minsk, of the ride to the village, of the meeting with the fat landowner who had taken Katchinka from him. They were terrible verses. He howled them wildly in the night and the jackals applauded him.
The camel of Ivan the Strong, not buoyed up by hate, lay down in that careless manner of camels and gave up the ghost. The Russian took turns at riding the mount of Robert Henry Blane. Riding or walking he sang. Now the earlier verses that told of the boy-and-girl love of himself and Katchinka were omitted entirely. It was solely a song of hate, a song reeking with revenge. The Wasp watched the fellow with slitted eyes. The Wasp felt that Ivan the Strong was going insane, yet on one point his mind did not fail him. He had learned the route by heart. The trail into the sands as described to him by the man he had given water to as he lay dying, was scratched deeply on the memory tablets of the man from Minsk.
They came to Tannexara. They passed it on a moonlit night, the scared inhabitants of the mud huts peeping from their doors as the two swung through. The voice of the Russian appalled the folk of the little village. It swept over the huts like a clarion call. They heard it for a full half hour after the two had passed—"Katchinka minel Katchinka mine!"
The second camel followed the example set by his companion. At the end of a day when the sun prodded them with molten spears the camel dropped on his knees, turned his face like a true Mussulman toward the east and slipped softly into the paradise of good camels. The Russian kicked him and cursed him. Ivan the Strong was a madman now. Yet he knew the route.
"We must walk on," said The Wasp. "There is a moon and the night is cool."
They shouldered the two bags of meal and the goatskin bag of water and went on. The desert was fighting for a knock-out blow but The Wasp and Ivan the Strong were smothering cleverly and dodging the uppercut that the White Witch of the Sahara wished to administer.
They staggered on till sunrise. Here and there in the waste were little piles of stones that marked the trail, but these piles were often hidden by the wind devils. At dawn the two staggered into a nomad camp, flung themselves without asking permission in the shade of one of the tattered tents and slept through the day. The desert dwellers were afraid of them. They were two huge men, sunburned and bearded, and one sang a song that frightened them. Robert Henry Blane wondered at the effect of the Russian's song upon the folk who knew not a word of the language he chanted. Curiously they seemed to understand. It hypnotized them. It made them whine with fear.
When the night came down they went on again. The Wasp blessed the fiat-faced foolish moon that stayed with them. The Russian spoke to it. He asked it not to shine on the night that he would come back to his native village. He told it that he desired the darkness, the soft, sweet darkness that would allow him to leap upon the fat landowner who had stolen the girl he loved.
Before the dawn a dog barked in the white stretch ahead of them. Another dog joined in, a third took up the alarm. The Russian laughed insanely.
"I think it is the place!" he cried. "Presently we shall see the palms. He spoke of the palms before he died. He said I would see them. My Katchinka! I am coming, Katchinka!
"Yes, he said I would see the palms, and when I saw the palms I would know that I was there. And the treasure is there. Little brother from America, we are close to the treasure! Close to it, little brother. A strong man are you, little brother, for you have walked with Ivan the Strong and you have shown no weakness."
In silence they staggered on. The east reddened, then with a startling suddenness the sun sprang up over the rim of the desert and they saw. They saw what the Russian had spoken of. Coming toward them as their tired feet ate up the distance were the green palms of the oasis, the splendid palms that the Almighty had set in the wilderness and fed with mysterious waters.
A scared crowd came out in the morning sunlight to meet the two. The Russian howled at them. He called for food and they backed away from him. They told him they had but dates and a little quantity of meal.
Ivan the Strong wanted more. He heard a young goat bleating in the rear of the mud hovels and he rushed toward the sound. The skinny-legged owner of the bleating kid was knocked over as he tried to protect his treasure.
The Wasp lit a huge fire and broiled sections of the animal upon the coals. He and the Russian feasted royally, and the starved inhabitants joined in the great repast. The starved ones laughed and screamed as they ate. They wasted nothing. With great care they cracked each bone and extracted the marrow.
The mad Russian watched them and addressed Robert Henry Blane. "They wanted to kill that goat for weeks but they lacked the nerve," he said. "They are delighted that a strong man like myself came along and put the animal on the coals. We will go now and find the treasure."
"We will sleep and hunt for the treasure later," said The Wasp quietly.
Ivan the Strong looked at the cool gray eyes of the Texan and considered the remark. "There are few men that I take orders from," he said. "You are one of them. We will sleep."
The people of the desert have a theory regarding the
little, fertile oases that crop up in the midst of the arid
sands. They, the desert folk, assert that once upon a time
there were many rivers in the Sahara but, when the sun got too
hot, Allah in his wisdom allowed the rivers to burrow like
the vipers into the sands. Now, according to the belief of
the Arabs, the rivers run in great underground caverns that
they have cut out for themselves, but here and there in the
hot wastes a river, thinking of the little people that it once
knew, sends up a stream of water to feed the date palms.
When The Wasp and Ivan the Strong had slept and had again refreshed themselves on the remnants of the young goat the Texan sent for the headman of the village to guide them to the "source," the spot where the water bubbles up mysteriously from the sands. Robert Henry Blane had taken the deck now. The information concerning the route, which the Russian possessed, had given him a certain right during the journey across the desert; now the chanting madman had to be directed by a sane mind. The treasure was in the underground passage leading from the "source," but of the distance and details the ex-soldier knew nothing.
Ivan the Strong felt the assumption of authority and immediately disputed it. He paused in his wild chanting and eyed the Texan.
"I am a strong man little brother," he growled. "It is not good to drive me."
"It is for your good," said The Wasp. "The heat has made you a little ill."
"The heat?" howled the Russian. "The heat? It is the thought of revenge that has made me ill. It is the thought of how I will kill him! Come, I will show you how I will spring upon him!"
He unloosed a roar as he spoke and rushed upon Robert Henry Blane. Around them were the scared dwellers of the mud huts; the hot sun beat down upon the open space that the Russian had chosen as a battleground.
Blane sidestepped the rush. Ivan the Strong, his great arms clutching at space, blundered by and cannoned into the wall of one of the hovels. He howled with rage, and the hut folk fled into the palm groves.
Again the Russian rushed and again he missed. The Wasp handled himself like a matador dealing with a crazed bull. He waited till the man from Minsk was nearly on top of him, then he stepped out of the way with a quickness that fooled the other.
Ivan the Strong paused and eyed his opponent. "If I could get my hands on you I would crush you like an eggshell," he growled. "Let me take a grip on you, little brother! Let me take a grip!"
Robert Henry Blane smiled. Into his mind there flashed a picture of the Red Apache who had tried to strangle The Wasp in a back street of Lucerne. He visualized the astonishment on the face of the thug when the Texan had broken his grip by applying the counterhold invented by the Japanese wrestler Isuchi in the days of the Emperor Hideyoshi.
"Take a grip, Ivan," he said sweetly. "Come on!"
The crazed Russian needed no second bidding. He sprang upon The Texan Wasp, folding him in his huge arms. He gurgled with delight as he exerted his strength to crush his opponent. He was Ivan the Strong and he had great arms of steel.
Then, suddenly, the gurgle of the Russian was changed into a wild roar of pain. It was a roar that went out over the date palms into the desert. His grip loosened; The Wasp wriggled free, tripped him neatly and tossed him backward onto the sand.
Ivan the Strong lay for a few moments where he had fallen, then he lifted himself and looked stupidly at the American. "There was a holy man at Chernigov that my father told me of," he said simply. "No one could hurt him because he could break away from the grips they put upon him. Perhaps you have the power. I do not know. Lead, little brother, and I will follow you. It is the treasure that I want. The treasure that will take me home to Katchinka."
"We will find the 'source,'" said the unruffled Texan. "Then we will make our plans."
They plunged into the center of the palm grove, the villagers running before them, uttering cries of fear. The hut dwellers had witnessed the battle between the strange visitors and as they rushed from one tree trunk to another they wondered what piece of contemplated deviltry had made the two men friends again.
As The Wasp searched for the spot where the water welled up he reflected on the strange story that had brought him across the hot sands from Fez. He was convinced that the Russian's story was true. The song that the fellow sang was distilled belief. It had killed the jeers that Robert Henry Blane had turned upon it.
Ivan the Strong seemed to read the thoughts of his companion. "Now that you are here you do not doubt?" he said quietly. "You feel, don't you, that the treasure is here?"
"Yes," answered The Wasp. "It is curious, but I do feel that it is here."
"Then that is good," said the Russian. "You Americans say that you have a hunch, but we Russians when we feel sure without knowing why we feel sure believe that our soul is speaking to us. My father's soul often spoke to him. He knew of the war many days before it happened. Many, many days."
In the very center of the date grove they found the "source." It was a great basin of limestone with a sandy bottom. In the basin was clear water—wonderfully clear—and through this water The Wasp and Ivan the Strong could see the miracle of the desert. The astounding and extraordinary miracle. Up through the sandy bottom bubbled the offering of the underground river, the splendid offering that fed the date palms on which the poverty-stricken people lived. For a few moments the two men forgot the treasure and stared at the mysterious happening.
Only for a few moments. The madness of the Russian was becoming more and more evident. The sight of the "source" made him slip the last little anchor of sanity and he raved of what the dying man had told him. It was all as the man had said. There was the limestone basin the sides of which had been polished to a glassy smoothness by the feet of the innumerable thousands who had climbed down daily through the countless years to gaze in wonder at the water that bubbled up from the sands. There was the strange red rock that thrust itself out over the pool and upon which the women stood when dipping up the precious fluid. There was the old palm that had, in loving adoration of the "source," drooped over the basin as if to protect it from the hot rays of the sun.
"The passage!" screamed the Russian. "The passage runs from the side of the basin! Come, we are fools to stand here!"
The two scrambled down the slippery side of the limestone basin, and from the grove came whimperings of fear. The hut dwellers were fearful that the two strong men contemplated some harm to the pool that Allah filled in his mysterious way. The Texan Wasp, leading, paused near the bottom of the descent and pointed to a round hole in the limestone rock. A queer hole, evidently nibbled out by a torrent in the long, long ago.
Ivan the Strong regarded it for an instant then spoke in a voice that carried a note of awe. "I feel the throat of the pig that stole my Katchinka in my hands!" he said. "I do! I feel it now. That is strange, is it not? Come, little brother from America, the treasure is in the passage. Come!"
It was Robert Henry Blane who led the way into the strange
hole in the wall of the limestone basin. And behind Blane
crawled the mad Russian. A thoroughly crazed Russian now. He
had lost all control of himself. He did not understand what
was said to him, and he chanted without a pause, roaring out
his verses in a manner that roused a million echoes in the
dark passage.
"Stop, confound you!" yelled The Wasp. "Stop your singing! You will bring the roof down on us!"
But Ivan the Strong could not stop. In the throbbing darkness of the place he saw the village of his youth, Katchinka, and the fat landowner. He saw himself creeping through the night after his arrival at Minsk; he pictured himself springing upon the fat husband of Katchinka and strangling him with his strong fingers.
The Texan Wasp struck a match but its little pin point of flame could give him no idea of the place. He gathered up a handful of dried roots, twisted them into a rough torch and applied a match. Holding the torch in one hand he crawled forward on hands and knees, the Russian following. The roof of the passage was so low that it was impossible for them to stand upright.
Robert Henry Blane questioned the Russian as to whether he had formed any definite idea of the exact hiding place of the treasure, but Ivan the Strong could tell nothing. He simply knew that the treasure was in the underground passage that led away from the source, and more than that he did not know-.
The Wasp examined the smooth walls of the passage as he crawled along. He searched for a niche into which the treasure might have been thrust. Slowly and carefully he searched; the Russian chanting madly.
They covered about ten yards of the passage when a sudden gust of cold air, blowing upward, put out the improvised torch. The direction of the wind startled The Wasp. He thrust out his hand and held the crawling madman.
"Take care!" he cried. "Wait! There is a hole!"
Clutching Ivan the Strong with one hand, Blane relighted the torch. Lying flat on his stomach he thrust it forward and downward. The floor of the passage along which they were crawling had ended abruptly and the Texan found that he was on the very lip of an abyss whose depth he could not ascertain by the faint light from the torch. Up from the place came a cold wind that throttled the little flame.
The discovery steadied the Russian. He paused in his singing while The Wasp made experiments. From somewhere far down in the depths came the sound of running water, a strange, unearthly sound.
Robert Henry Blane took a stone and dropped it over the ledge. His listening ears gathered up the information conveyed by the sounds that came back to him. The stone evidently struck a shelf of rock immediately below the lip of the hole. The keen ears of the Texan heard it roll along this shelf in a slow, hesitating manner, then the silence told him that it had come to a halt or dropped into space. For a few moments he thought that the stone had been arrested on the ledge, then up from the black depths came a faint plop that startled him. The missile had dropped into the underground river of the oasis!
The Russian had heard the plop. The time that had elapsed between the sound and the moment that the rock had leaped from the hidden shelf made an effectual muzzle for his song. He crouched on the rim of the pit and made curious gurgling noises.
The Texan Wasp had a mad inclination to laugh. He asked himself why he had listened to the tale of the ex-soldier of the Legion. Why had he come over the leagues of desert to test the truth of a story told by a man whom the desire for revenge had driven insane? And to the questions that sprang up he made his own answers. "Because No. 37 had you rattled." he answered. "The fear of arrest was upon you! 'Go southward, young man,' was the only advice that you would listen to."
Ivan the Strong began to speak in a disconnected manner. Ivan's hope was of a strangely tenacious kind that one had to hang, draw and quarter before it lost its vitality.
"There is no place to hide treasure in the passage," he murmured. "Little breather from America, you have searched and there is no spot where the thief could have put it."
"None," answered The Wasp.
"Then what did he do?" questioned the Russian. "What did the thief do? Why he found the shelf of rock that is immediately beneath the ledge on which we are sitting. He found it and he placed the treasure there. My eyes seem to see in the dark, little brother!' I see it there! I see it! We Russians can see things that arc not known to others. It is there beneath us! Katchinka mine! Search, little brother! Search!"
The Texan Wasp dropped another stone over the lip of the abyss. It gave back the same report as the one that had preceded it. There was the immediate collision with the shelf beneath, the slow rolling sound that told of a slightly sloping surface that was apparently four or five feet across, then the silence and the plop that came up from the immeasurable depths in which the river flowed.
The Wasp calculated the distance of the shelf from the edge on which he sat. Lying on his stomach he thrust the torch down into the darkness. He thought he could detect a shining surface that might be the wet ledge, but he could not make sure. He dropped another stone. The sharp sound of a collision with rock came to him an instant after the stone had left his hand and plunged downward.
Robert Henry Blane spoke to the Russian. "Take a clutch on my shoulders and I will drop over," he said. "Lie on your stomach! Now hang on!"
Slowly and carefully the Texan slipped over the edge of the abyss. His legs dangled in space. His strong hands gripped the lip of the pit. Inch by inch he let himself down, his feet searching for the foothold that the missiles had told of. Lower and lower. His waist was on a line with the edge of the abyss, then his shoulders. At last when he had told himself that he had made a mistake about the distance that separated the hidden shelf from the top of the pit, his feet touched it. He loosened his grip on the edge above him and stood on firm rock.
With the Russian still gripping the collar of his coat Robert Henry Blane relighted the torch and examined the shelf. It was just as he had pictured it. It was about five feet wide and it sloped slightly. Also it was wet and slippery from the damp mist that came up from the depths.
The Texan unloosed the hands of the Russian and stooped. If the treasure was anywhere the ledge was the place that a careful thief would have chosen as a hiding place. Again the voice of the Russian broke the silence.
The light of the torch flashed upon a while object. The Wasp picked it up and examined it. It was the end of a tallow candle.
The Texan's jaws tightened as he dropped upon his hands and knees. The desire to break into mad laughter again came to him. A remark made by Betty Allerton in the long ago flashed across his mind. The girl had told him of the benefit the world would derive from his intelligence. His intelligence! He could not restrain the laugh. His intelligence? He laughed loudly. He had no intelligence! He was a fool who had followed a madman on a will-o'-the-wisp hunt through the hot sands.
The laugh of The Wasp stirred the Russian on the edge of the abyss. Ivan the Strong had slipped again into the high stages of lunacy. He called out to the Texan.
"The treasure is there!" he screamed. "Ah, I know that it is there! There is enough for us both, little brother! Oh, the fat pig! I feel his throat in my hands! Tell me, little brother! Tell me the treasure is there!"
Robert Henry Blane was on his knees beside a little depression in the ledge. A dry basin at one time, but now filled with water that had dripped into it from the wet wall of rock. And Robert Henry Blane was dragging from the basin bits of pulpy matter that had once been valuable. Very valuable. Very, very valuable. He made soft, squashy piles of this pulp. Little pyramids that were similar to other little pyramids that had been made by another searcher who had visited the spot before The Texan Wasp and Ivan the Strong.
And Robert Henry Blanc knew what it was that he was fishing from the basin of rock. Knew it well. It was the pulp of bank notes! The soft white pulp of bills that he reasonably supposed were of big denominations. Good American money had been made into a fine stew by the water that had dripped from the wall into the depression in which the bills had been placed! The water, dripping from the limestone rock, had possessed itself of cleansing properties. It had eaten from the pulp every vestige of print and left it white as snow!
The cries of the Russian interrupted The Wasp in his dredging operations. Ivan the Strong, peering over the ledge, could not see clearly what the American was doing, and fear lest he would be defrauded of his share swept into the Muscovite mind.
"You were to gel thirty per cent!" he screamed. "You must not take more! Give me the treasure! Give it to me here!"
Robert Henry Blane scooped up two handfuls of the soft pulp, rose carefully, lifted his arms high and dumped the wet mass on the edge of the abyss. "There," he cried, "take as much as you like! I'm a generous fellow and I'm willing to give you my share as well as your own. Give my regards to Katchinka when you get to Minsk."
"What—what is it?" gasped the Russian.
"American bank notes," answered The Wasp. "Your friend hid them in a hole in the rock but the water got in and turned them into pulp. I suppose that lump represented many thousands of dollars."
Ivan the Strong clawed at the wet mass. He prayed and cursed in turn. He cried and flung himself on his face. His agony was so evident that Robert Henry Blane tried to comfort him.
"We would not have got it if the water had not spoiled it," he said. "Some one else has been here before. Possibly a dozen other searchers. Treasure, my friend, has a thousand tongues. It screams to the world. It sends out little wireless messages that are picked up by scores and scores of people. I should have known that when you told me your story. As a matter of fact I did know it, but just at the moment when you came along with your little tale I had a desire to go somewhere that wasn't quite a resort, so the trip into the desert appealed to me."
The governing heads of the province of Algeria are
imaginative folk. They dream of one day connecting Oran and
Algiers on the north with Timbuktu on the south. To keep the
dream alive they have thrust a line of rail deep into the bad
lands to the southward and day by day they nibble into the
sands.
The line runs as far as Colomb Béchars, the mud village whose narrow streets are covered with palm fronds to keep out the Saharan sunlight. One train a day goes southward from Oran to Colomb Béchars; one train a day goes northward from the desert to the civilized belt along the Mediterranean. The desert laughs at the line. It is the little tickling finger of man thrust into the ribs of the White Witch of the Wastes.
Some day, say the Algerians, there will be big expresses pounding down to Timbuktu, expresses with fine cars filled with delighted and well-cared-for tourists. And the White Witch with the ten million breasts of wind-smoothed sand rolls over and kicks her toes as she listens to the words. "Some day!" The Witch wriggles her thousand-league limbs and a dozen caravans making northward from the point toward which the iron rail is slowly crawling are smothered in the storm produced!
It was toward this feeble tentacle of civilization that Robert Henry Blane and Ivan the Strong moved after the discovery of the bank-note pulp in the cavern of the oasis. A long and terrible journey. The Iliad of Ivan the Strong had grown weaker with each day that passed. The White Witch did not love his song. She loves the silence. The Russian grew dumb under her thrusts. He rode with head thrust forward —rode in turns with Robert Henry Blane on the one sorry camel that The Wasp had been able to secure in a village on the way. Meal and dates, dried goat flesh, and cheese whose odor called to high heaven were the delicacies of the journey.
Ever before them was the rail. They dreamed of it. In wild mirages of noontime they saw its flashing length; their ears joining in the conspiracy with their eyes brought to them the sound of noisy puffing. They pictured the little fortified stations that protected the adventurous steel as it bored into the desert.
A crazy man guided them on part of the journey to Figuig. A crazy man who ran before them, barefooted and bareheaded, and made numerous prostrations with his face turned toward the east. He showed a liking for Robert Henry Blane, but he feared the Russian. The Wasp examined the fellow's feet. The soles were so hard that he ran over camel's thorn without suffering in the slightest degree.
And, strangely, as The Texan Wasp came closer and closer to the iron rail that had been driven into the bare ribs of the desert the fear which had sent him out from Fez on the mad expedition returned. It was more appalling than ever. In the journey southward he had found a little relief from the depression that had clutched him after the wild night flight over the flat roofs of Tangier, but now as he came closer to the tentacle of civilization the great dread returned in a manner that puzzled him. Again came the dreams of the French penal settlements—the Isles du Salut in French Guiana where mold forms on the clothes of the convicts; the nickel mines of New Caledonia from which maddened men attempt to escape by floating on crazy rafts across the shark-infested seas between the island and the coast of Queensland!
"Why worry?" he asked the inner self that spent so much time in picturing a black and dismal future. "I'll never rot in the swamps of Cayenne or work in the nickel mines of Noumea."
"Lots of things happen," counseled the inner self. "Go slow! Keep out of the trouble zones. The desert is tranquil."
The Wasp considered the possibility of remaining a little while at some small village along the railroad. At Beni-Ounif, toward which he was heading, there was a small hotel, and he told himself that he might slay there till the unexplainable hunch regarding danger had left him.
They hurried on. The man with the feet that defied the camel thorn deserted. A voice called him from the wastes—a voice that The Wasp and Ivan the Strong could not hear. The guide appeared to be conversing with some person close to him, then, as the two white men watched, he turned and trotted off across the sands. The White Witch of the Wastes had called him from his self-appointed task.
A great fighter was Robert Henry Blane. Steadily, unflinchingly, uncomplainingly he went on. The Russian wished to lie down in the hot sand and die but the Texan dragged him to his feet and drove him forward. Ivan the Strong protested. He cried and cursed. He said he did not wish to go back to Minsk. He spoke harsh words about Katchinka, but The Wasp was adamant. The fighting look was enthroned in the cool gray eyes of Robert Henry Blane, the strange white scar on the right jaw showed continuously. He was scrapping for dear life against the desert.
They crawled into Beni-Ounif on an afternoon when the westering sun grilled the little village and there they found rest. There was a train northward in the morning and on this train The Wasp intended to put the Russian. For the moment he would remain at the little hotel.
Before the door of the Hotel du Sahara stood the sorry camel, waiting a purchaser. Arabs walked around the beast, jabbering excitedly. They told each other that a mad foreigner wished to sell the camel for anything that offered. The mad one had no price; he just asked the buyer to make an offer.
Robert Henry Blane, standing at the door of the hotel, watched the milling Arabs, and as he watched a tall, sun-tanned young man broke from the crowd and approached the Texan.
"What will you take for the prohibitionist?" he asked with a smile.
The Wasp laughed. "If you tell me what you want him for I'll give him to you," he said.
The young man seemed a little startled. "I cannot tell you that," he said slowly. "You see, it's a private matter and I've promised some one not to tell. It's very private. But I want a camel and I'm willing to pay a fair price for your beast."
There was a little silence; The Texan Wasp regarded the young man carefully.
"You are an American?" said Blane.
The young man nodded.
"Might I ask your name?"
"Smith,"' replied the stranger. "George Smith."
Again there was a short lapse in the conversation, then The Wasp, with an amused grin, spoke. "Well, Mr. Smith," he said, "I'll modify that offer of mine. I'll make a guess as to what you want the camel for, and if I guess right you get the animal for nothing. If I guess right, mind you! I'll take one guess and if it's the correct one you just lead old Jim Camel away."
"Oh, that's nonsense!" protested George Smith. "I want to pay and—"
"That's all right," interrupted The Wasp.
"You'll pay if I don't hit your mission with one guess. I'm not asking you to tell me. You needn't say yes or no. If I'm right take the camel away; if I'm wrong pull out your pocketbook."
"But I might lead you to believe that you were right no matter what you said," stammered the young man.
Robert Henry Blane regarded the suntanned youngster. "You and I are probably the only two Americans within fifty miles of this place," he said. "I guess we're not going to lie to each other."
The younger man flushed. "Go ahead and guess," he said.
The Texan Wasp looked out across the darkening wastes. From the native village—the ksar—came mad cries and yells as the wretched folk fought for the entrails of a sheep that had been killed. A spur of barren hills bit into the blue of the sky.
Robert Henry Blane spoke: "You are going treasure hunting," he said softly.
The young man started, looked hard at The Texan Wasp, made a few steps in the direction of the camel, stopped and grinned. "You—you hit it," he stammered.
"Come inside for a moment," said The Wasp. "The camel can wait. I've done a little treasure hunting in my time and I know quite a bit about the business. And I've got a Russian inside who fooled me with a strange tale. A rather wonderful tale. This fellow met me at Fez and he told me a yarn that brought me down here. He was a soldier of the Legion and he said that not a single person outside of himself knew the tale, but do you know"—Robert Henry Blane paused and looked keenly at the young man before him—"I've got a belief that every soldier of the Legion knows the tale and is firmly convinced that no other soldier knows it! Come in and talk. This Russian's story might amuse you."
Hours later a water carrier of Beni-Ounif bought the camel
for a song. Ivan the Russian had told the story of his visit
to the underground river of the oasis, and Mr. Smith, who had
listened intently to the tale, 'had gone out into the night
and consulted with some one who was hiding down a back alley
for the very good reason that he had no discharge papers and
did not wish to come face to face with hawk-eyed officers of
the Legion who would have recognized him.
He, Smith, shook the hand of Robert Henry Blane and stammered out his thanks. "I've got to thank you for a lot," he said. "I—I think I'll go northward by the morning train."
"I might see you to-morrow," said The Wasp. "I thought of staying here for a while to rest my nerves, but now—well, I might go northward in the morning."
The Texan Wasp eat for a long time after the young man had departed. He pondered over the extraordinary feeling of depression that clutched him. He thought of young Mr. Smith. The young man had said he would take the morning train but Robert Henry Blane was doubtful if he would. The youngster required a shepherd, a strong, hard-jawed shepherd who would keep him out of harm's way.
"Some one like myself," commented The Wasp. Then after a pause he added aloud: "This feeling of danger is all nonsense. I'm going back to the white lights and the gay places. I'll take a chance. The mines of Noumea cannot be much worse than this place."
He strolled across to the railway station and asked the telegraph operator if it were possible to send a very urgent message over the wire to Fez. The clerk demurred but Robert Henry Blane had a way with him. He told a beautiful little story that nearly brought tears to the eyes of the operator, and the wire went forward. It read:
MISS MARY GRANT, HOTEL BELLEVUE, FEZ, MOROCCO.
IF POSSIBLE MEET ME AT THE ARZEW STATION, ORAN, TUESDAY MORNING. TRAIN FROM BENI-OUNIF. NOT CERTAIN, HUT I THINK I HAVE NEWS.
ROBERT HENRY BLANE, OF HOUSTON, TEXAS.
The Texan Wasp called for young Mr. Smith on the following morning. He incidentally administered a sharp clip to the ear of a red-eyed deserter who was annoyed because a believer in his story was being taken from his clutches. He walked with the young man to the train and kept a sharp eye upon him during the long ride.
When the little desert train pulled into the station at Oran, Robert Henry Blane was the first to swing from the paint-blistered coaches. He glanced around and caught the eye of a sweet-faced girl who stood waiting expectantly. The Wasp bowed and made a gesture toward young Mr. Smith who, oblivious of everything, was daydreaming on the rear platform of the one first-class carriage.
Young Mr. Smith received a surprise. As he turned to descend the girl sprang upon him and folded him in her arms. Robert Henry Blane laughed softly. He knew that he had made no mistake about the soft Southern accent of the man who had stammered out the words "George Smith" when asked his name. Americans are scarce in the Sahara.
Ivan the Strong stood for a moment watching the brother and sister. The affectionate greetings brought to the mind of the Russian thoughts of Minsk and the far-away Katchinka. He forgot The Wasp and went off, chanting softly the Iliad that he had constructed about his own troubles and travels.
Robert Henry Blane passed the exit.
And then, in the bright sunshine of Oran, disaster swooped down upon Robert Henry Blane. Something hard and hostile was thrust against his ribs from the rear, and a voice that was as pitiless as the whine of a flying shell gave an order. "Don't move, my good friend from Texas," came the command. "Don't move or I Ml send you on a free ticket into eternity!"
The Texan Wasp halted as ordered. He turned his head slightly and looked into the cold, merciless eyes that were like frozen hailstones. He glanced carelessly at the short, big-nostriled nose, at the chin that had thrown peace to the winds. He laughed softly.
"You read my telegram," he said sneeringly. "Bright little chap!"
"You led me a dance," growled No. 37, "but I swore I would rope you in on account of the trick you played upon me at Algiers. You're a clever chap, Blane. You might have done big things if you hadn't turned wicked. Might have sat in high places."
"Some one said that to me once," said The Wasp quietly. Then, after a pause, he added: "Some one whose claim to beauty was as great as your claim to ugliness."
The man hunter growled. "Step for the coach," he said. "And no tricks. My gun is as careless as anything ever carried by a Texan sheriff."
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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