What Spaghetti was wishing for Verbeena was wondering concerning. Whereabouts now was this bold devil, Amut? And when would he be home? To be sure, Spaghetti had said, she sort of remembered, that the Sheik would be home for dinner and that he ate at eight. But he might come in any old time and surprise her. For, cogently considered, wouldn’t that be just like him? That he was a nasty feller, how could she doubt it? Of the Machiavellian character of the black-whiskered, tow-headed mazib hadn’t she right then sufficient evidence to swing any jury?

“Boo-hoo, Boo-hoo!” sobbed Verbeena entirely in the feminine gender.

But six or seven cigarettes, the knowledge of the hatpin stick beneath the left breast of her Norfolk jacket with the right hand fully informed about it and something else that she had up her sleeve (I can’t tell you yet—no, really, honest, I can’t, for it wouldn’t be fair to Verbeena—might give her away in a critical moment) something else that she had up her sleeve reassured her mightily.

And if I could only tell you what she was thinking about doing just then! “Durn it!” your heart would surely go out to the cute bantam! Gaw, bless her!

Remembering as well that Britains never shall be slaves!

And that, moreover, if you are not that kind of a girl and are truly indignant why then, my dear, your ship of Fate gathers no moral barnacles.

Although, of course, in the matter of just what kind of a girl Verbeena was, if any, a palpable ambiguousness veers to the verge of anguish.

But while this juncture is pending in which passion is scheduled to bridle and burst into tongues of flame high as a gas tank in eruption, gave Verbeena a chance.

That is to look around Sheik Amut Ben Butler’s wicked desert diggin’s.

Huh—not that they were so much!

Some Oriental hangings showed up as if they were embroiderd by blacksmiths and colored by accident and chewed by rats.

There were two silver inlaid Moorish stools that would hold you if you were careful. There was a fine-looking, hand-carved chest, big and impressive, that Verbeena peeked into thinking it would reveal perhaps, wondrous stores of Bagdad lace curtains or—heaven alone could tell!—perhaps the corpse of his former victim!

She opened it and then shut it in a hurry. A person may fairly be curious. But not about somebody else’s old shoes.

However, a splendid collection of ivory and silver and ivory and gold and ivory and brass and ivory and tin and ivory and goodness-knew-what cigarette cases, hit Verbeena right in the eye. She selected about sixteen she thought she might like and put them aside in one of her trunks to be called for later.

Should Amut miss ’em.

Although according to her designs, even if he did—even if he did——

Excuse me, for holding off a bit longer. No fault of the author truly.

He’s coming is Amut. But you see he is doing a Sheridan on a flashing steed and is as yet several miles away. Two at least.

Just let him gallop a few minutes because Verbeena has started examining his book case and that if anything should tell her what kind of a bibliophile, Francophile or Swissoup this strong-armed philanderer was.

It was a surprise to Verbeena to find there this case of books for she had always thought that all to be expected of the Sahara was volumes of dates.

However, she stood corrected so she scanned the titles. At the very first she drew back with a shudder having read: “Poems of Passion” by Ring Lardner.

Then “The Children’s Hour” by Ghee de Maupassant.

Pshaw, she’d read that!

Kraft-Ebing also was old stuff.

And she passed over without interest a corpulent tome entitled “Der Vaw; Vhy Ve Dit Id Bad” by Ludendorff.

Then she came upon “Manly Beauty, Its Dangers and Temptations,” by Irvin Cobb and Paul Swan.

Two other titles, however, fascinated her. One was “Florinda of the Furnished Rooms” by Robert W. Chalmers, and the other “Maurice of the Monkey Glands” by Elinor Flynn in collaboration with the author of “Arzan of the Apes.”

“Eeny, meeny, minee, mo—” began Verbeena when another title clattered against her vision. “The Passion Worm of the Sahara, an Account of its Discovery,” by Robert S. Hitchings.

At first she derived about ten degrees of comfort from the discovery that Amut wasn’t exactly a raw native, that he was probably half-baked at least. She felt that it would be logically safe to presuppose that she was mixed up with a king of the desert, who might be found to be superficially coated with a veneer of civilization that was tenuous.

And yet dared she find comfort in that? Might it not make him the more horrible, sinister, intolerable, cheekier and fresher than ever, this desert devil in whom passion dictated the methods of a chiropractitioner?

“O, hum!” screamed the distrait and fearful Verbeena doing a backfall among the cushions.

There was one good thing she could say for him anyway—his cigarettes were smokable. They were, she had seen by the boxes, of the famous brand of Bull Camel.

Of one thing she was convinced. There would be no sandbagging this evening.

She had reduced Spaghetti to where she had only to show him the hat pin and he would run right out and sit in the sand. She had made him produce the sand-bag too, had ripped it open and poured the contents back into the desert.

Also she had asked Spaghetti numerous questions about the Sheik Amut and as far as she could make out his chief business was that of a breeder, trainer and trapper of horses of a high-class character.

Nothing in the trucking way but mostly for society and circus uses. The business of femme-snatching, her informant had assured her, was totally new to him.

Did he have a harem?

No, Spaghetti thought not. It was very hard to keep one these days. Especially when your business had you out on the desert running an ambling horse farm. You were so likely to return to Biscuit or Orange or Ammonia and find the harem had run out on you, bobbed its hair and got jobs as manicure girls in Constantinople.

“That will be all,” then had remarked Verbeena and had further taken a tuck in Amut’s devoted servant by saying:

“It is absurd; don’t you think, for you to call yourself Spaghetti? You’re much too fat. Macaroni would be infinitely more suitable.”

“Aw, Queena Verbeena!” protested Spaghetti.

“That will do. You may go, Mac.”

He had backed out as becomes one departing from royalty and a hat pin.

Hulda she had entirely won over during the afternoon. She had given the little six-foot thing one of her old evening gowns, yet a modest garment withal, hanging well below Hulda’s shoulder blades.

Dependably Verbeena was to be suspected of having something other than sawdust under those clubbed curls of hers!

She was just wondering if she could go so far as to appoint Hulda policewoman of the tent and entrust her with a sand-club when there came loud yells without of “Hip hoy, hip hoy, hip, hip, hip! Allah, Allah, Allah! AMUT!”

Three more “Allahs” were being heartily given still yet without when the Sheik Amut Ben Butler strode haughtily into the tent, threw off his creamy cloak and with a careless motion tossed his bejeweled classy turban among the old gold and silver cushions, thus displaying his shock of Sahara colored hair above his stick licorice black chin muff.

Verbeena savagely and swiftly lighted nine cigarettes and faced him peagreen with pyromania.

He touched off a cigarette himself.

“I hope Spaghetti didn’t lay down on his job,” said the Sheik. “Do you know what we’re going to have for dinner?”

He pushed Verbeena out of the way and stretched himself on the divan.

His cold manner was like a dash of water of the same temperature against her face. Verbeena broke into a watery perspiration, her eyes got watery with rage and her mouth watered to bite him the more so that she could see, despite the nonchalant manner in which he was looking at her, he was yet significantly appraising this outburst as a valuable asset on any desert.

His presence was an offense and she would concede no amelioration of it due to the nature of his occupation among horses. She wished with passionate fierceness that she could dye his hair to match his whiskers or his whiskers to match his hair. And the dreadful, cool way he was lying there staring at her, the princely thing! My—such airs!

“You seem to think everything’s nicely settled,” said Verbeena icily. “But when King and Lloyd George hear of this, they’ll put such a flea in the ear of the French Government, they’ll be after you with a hoop-la and a full set of gendarmerie armed with guillotines!”

“A pea for the French Government! And holler-woller for the Georges, King and Lloyd.”

“You seem very confident of immunity.”

SHEIK AMUT BEN BUTLER, THE TERROR OF THE SANDS.