WORSE THAN DEATH

(Also published as “Man Hunt”)

Originally appeared in Spicy-Adventure Stories, September 1935.

Even though business was rotten in Damascus, Ibrahim the dragoman found it more and more difficult to keep his mind on his work. Sitti Ayesha, reclining among a heap of cushions, looked like a cigarette ad come to life; her olive-tinted curves smiled tantalizingly through the shimmering silk that caressed her nicely rounded hips.

And whenever Ibrahim managed to deflect his gaze from somewhere south of the broad jeweled girdle that encircled her slender waist, he was dazzled by the warmly tinted flesh that led up toward breasts concealed by hammered silver brassieres; but he finally abandoned his ponderings on force vs. persuasion, and regarded his lovely client’s dark eyes and petulant, crimson lips.

“But they really are sheikhs,” he declared. “Aristocratic Arabs from the desert.”

“They remind me of goats,” declared Sitti Ayesha, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “And I’m not just referring to their looks.”

The conversation was in English. If you took time to look at Sitti Ayesha’s passport—one of her concealed assets—you would learn that she was Amelia Burns, of White Horse, Oklahoma. Her olive skin and potful of money were both inherited from an Indian grandfather who had pitched his teepee next door to an oil well.

She had everything but romance—hence her masquerading in Damascus, and her disappointment at finding that the sheikh of song and story is an odoriferous old gentleman badly in need of bug powder.

As for Ibrahim: a dragoman is a tourist’s guide. The term comes from a Turkish word that originally meant interpreter, and now means gyp artist. Ibrahim, moreover, had lost nothing by spending a dozen years in Manhattan learning American language and customs.

“But you said you wanted to meet a sheikh—”

He made a despairing gesture, and for a moment forgot his worries long enough to wonder whether Sitti Ayesha might shift enough to give him a view of points thus far concealed by the baffling draperies trailing from the broad, jeweled girdle. “Though they’d not care a lot for you. You’re entirely too thin.”

Sitti Ayesha’s dark eyes blazed indignantly at the dirty jab. She jerked herself upright. The concealing wisps of silk hitched up and apart.

“El hamdu lilahi!” gasped Ibrahim. “Praise God!”

His strategy had worked.

The view, though momentary, was enchanting. And before Sitti Ayesha knew what was happening, the dragoman had her in his muscular arms, trying to convince her there was no use importing romance from the desert. She was caught off guard, and for a moment the divan looked like the fourth down and one yard to go! Her silver brassieres clattered to the tile floor; but Sitti Ayesha’s henna-tinted nails raked the dragoman until he looked like a tom cat returning from a tough week-end.

Yet Arab valor persisted, and though Sitti Ayesha did manage to keep her opponent at elbow’s length, Ibrahim was getting the better of the engagement. The girl from Oklahoma was weakening…”

“Ibrahim,” reproved a caustic, feminine voice from the doorway, “is that any way to treat a client?”

The flurry of silk and amber tinted legs subsided. A plump, rather nice-looking Syrian woman in her middle thirties reproachfully eyed the badly clawed dragoman: Ibrahim’s aunt, who was acting as Sitti Ayesha’s maid. Her presence was decidedly discouraging.

“If Miss Burns doesn’t like sheikhs from the desert,” continued Aunt Fatimah, “maybe we can have her meet that Afghan prince, Muhammad Nadir Khan. He’s awfully handsome and wealthy.”

“Oh, that’d just be splendid,” enthused Sitti Ayesha. Then, reproachfully regarding the dragoman, “Why on earth didn’t you tell me about him?”

“Well, you said a sheikh,” protested Ibrahim. “A prince is something else!”

“Fix it up right away.”

Ibrahim flashed his aunt a deadly glance, and said to Sitti Ayesha, “But that will cost $500 extra. An Afghan prince is sort of special.”

“I don’t care if it costs a thousand,” declared Sitti Ayesha. Oil heiresses are that way.

She fumbled among the cushions and found a handbag. “Here’s a down payment. But if he’s as crummy as those sheikhs, the deal is off. I came to Damascus for romance.”

Ibrahim made a nose dive for the money, bowed profoundly, and left the house.

“Ya Allah!” he groaned, eyeing the fistful of cash. “May God curse all aunts!”

His face lengthened until it looked like a coffin. He might have found a suitable sheikh, but an Afghan prince—! The nearest one he knew of was in Kabul, two thousand miles away. But something had to be done.

Arab wit went into a one man huddle. After three cups of coffee, and a pipe at Marouf’s loquanda, Ibrahim began to brighten up. But it was not until he approached the American consulate that he really saw daylight. The broad-shouldered, lean, hawked-nosed American in expensive tweeds who was stepping to the street was his inspiration. Money, and lots of it. A rakish, adventurous seeming fellow. Sun-tanned, and athletic. Just the type but be wasn’t wearing the right clothes.

As the American pocketed his passport, the dragoman stepped directly in front of him and bowed half way down to his knees.

“Welcome, your Highness! God bless you! Back in Damascus again, praise Allah!”

As he spoke, he seized and kissed the American’s hand.

“What the hell’s all this about?” the American demanded, jerking away his hand.

“Doesn’t your Highness remember old Ibrahim?” The dragoman was pained and grieved.

“Where do you get this ‘your highness’ crap, anyhow? I’m Harrison Kane, from New York.”

Ibrahim eyed him sharply, stroked his moustache, and shifted his skull cap back towards his left ear.

“Mr. Kane, if you’re not Muhammad Nadir Khan, you ought to be. You’re a dead ringer!”

Harrison Kane, hearing an Arab speaking Americanese became interested and sympathetic. Ibrahim explained.

“It’s this way, Mr. Kane. I’m working for a Circassian girl with a coal scuttle of jack, and she’s stacked up like the front row of the Follies.”

“Interesting, if true,” was Kane’s skeptical comment.

“By God, it’s more than that,” assured Ibrahim, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper. His next few words were for Kane’s ear only: and they dealt with the charms of Circassian girls… Kane stroked his chin and listened…

“Anyway,” resumed Ibrahim, “she’s got a crush on Prince Muhammad Nadir Khan. Half a dozen years ago she saw him riding through the streets of Kabul and took a heavy tumble. And now that her father is dead, and she’s inherited all his dough, and she heard the Prince had moved to Damascus, she packed up and here we are. Only—” And Ibrahim’s voice became husky, and great tears gleamed in his eyes. “Only, the Prince got killed in Egypt, and jeez, I just ain’t got the guts to go back and tell the poor kid. I didn’t hear about it till I just now passed the Prince’s house.”

The dragoman sighed like a locomotive blowing off steam, and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his dejellab. An old Arabian custom.

“By God, that is tough,” Kane agreed. Beauty in distress always is.

“But when I saw you,” continued Ibrahim, “I thought someone was kidding me about the Prince having croaked. Honest, I did. So how about you meeting her. You could take his place. If you like her, okay. If not, just beat her up a couple times, and she’ll get her fill of Afghan princes—but it won’t be like learning her childhood romance is pushing up daisies in an Egyptian graveyard.”

It was sorrowful, but Kane said, “Nuts! Even if I do look like Prince Whoozis, she’d tumble in a minute. I can’t talk this native lingo. I was just looking for an interpreter—one of these birds they call a dragoman.”

“Praise God, you met me!” declared Ibrahim. “The dragomans of Damascus are a bunch of crooks. Me, I’m an American citizen—lived for years in New York, just came back to the old country, and got this job with Sitti Ayesha—that’s the gorgeous girl from Circassia.”

“An honest to God Circassian girl?” Kane was becoming interested.

“Sure. You know the kind—you read the Arabian Nights, ain’t you?”

Kane nodded and smiled reminiscently. Twenty years ago, he had snitched the key to the locked cases in his father’s library and had read most of volume one of an unexpurgated edition before mother had caught him.

“This’ll be better’n you read about,” assured Ibrahim.

“But this matter of language,” reiterated Kane.

“Simple. She talks only Circassian, and about a dozen words of Arabic. And the Prince speaks nothing but Afghan, and hardly any Arabic. Get it? Just make yourself pleasant, and if she says no, you won’t be able to understand, so just go ahead and make her happy.”

It sounded screwy, but Kane remembered his Arabian Nights.

“It’s a deal,” he declared. Then, reaching for his wallet: “How much do you get?”

“My dear sir,” protested the horrified Ibrahim. “I’m just trying to save a lovely girl from a broken heart—”

He sighed, and wiped his eyes.

“Lead on,” said Kane.

“I’ll meet you at your hotel, as soon as I can pick up some Afghan clothes for you,” proposed the dragoman. “Then I’ll teach you a dozen words in Arabic.”

“Right,” agreed Kane.

Ibrahim lost no time finding the necessary masquerade then he hailed a taxi and dashed out to the Salahiyeh suburb to break the good news to Aunt Fatimah so she could prepare Sitti Ayesha for royalty.

That evening Ibrahim arrayed Kane in a voluminous turban, an embroidered kaftan, a silver hiked tulwar, and riding breeches with English-made boots.

“You look more a prince than he did himself,” declared Ibrahim. “This’ll be a cinch. Now let’s see how much Arabic you can remember.”

“Ana ul amir—that means I’m the prince,” recited Kane. “Ruh—get the hell out! Shufi andak tashrab—what have you got to drink—”

“Damn good Arabic,” approved Ibrahim. “Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” Kane frowned. “How would you ask her—”

“Don’t ask her! It’s the same in any language.”

Half an hour later a hired Rolls Royce drew up in front of Sitti Ayesha’s house in the Salahiyeh suburb. Harrison Kane, hitching his belt so that the scabbard of his tulwar did not tangle up with his spurs, emerged from the glittering car, and approached the massive door of the white stone house. Ibrahim headed for the servants’ entrance.

Kane pounded the heavy brazen knocker. A Negro doorkeeper admitted him and led the way across a courtyard, and then down a long vaulted hallway. The servant gestured for him to wait, then faded down a cross passage. Kane, peeping through the grating that pierced the door before him, promptly forgot his lines.

Sitti Ayesha was a glamorous, gleaming length of warm, olive-tinted flesh stretched out on a Kashan rug. Her toenails were stained with henna, and heavy golden bands accentuated the slimness of her ankles and the fine long curve of her legs. The transparent, caressing fabric that clung to her thighs tantalized Kane’s questing glance, and the inward sweep of her waist was an invitation to squeeze her until she gasped.

The peacock plume fan that Aunt Fatimah was slowly waving made the gauzy veil about her breasts ripple and then snuggle, closer.

“That nigger must have fallen into a hole,” muttered Kane, impatient at the delay. “I’ll announce myself.”

He pounded the door. It slammed open.

“Ana ul amir,” he proclaimed.

Sitti Ayesha, startled by his abrupt entrance, reached for a scarf to drape about the points of interest, but in her confusion missed both places and succeeded in masking only the broad jeweled girdle about her waist. The enchanting flurry of olive-tinted limbs raised the amir’s blood pressure fifty points.

“Salaam aleikum, ya amir,” greeted Aunt Fatimah as she reached for a cloak and draped it about her mistress’ exposed fascinations.

Kane had forgotten the answer; but he did remember something. He gestured toward the further doorway and said, “Ruh!”

Orders are orders, coming from a prince. Aunt Fatimah dusted for the exit, which left Kane with a clear field, and wondering what to say next. There was only one remark he could remember.

“Shufi andak tashrab?”—but his mind wasn’t on drinking by any means.

The girl from Oklahoma was in a tough spot. The Afghan’s simmering glance had left her quivering and shaky inside. So instead of making an answer that might betray her imposture, she leaned back among the cushions, smiled dazzlingly and flung aside the cloak that masked her fascinations. She had counted on the distraction giving her a moment to collect her wits.

But it didn’t work out that way. Her pert breasts were more than any honest Afghan could see without doing something about it.

Kane’s flying tackle was a classic. Instead of a sonnet to her eyebrows, and a plaintive Kashmiri love song to the tune of a sitar, the Afghan prince was not even pausing to discard his tulwar or boots. He had her in his arms before she could use a single one of the tricks that enable a nice girl in Oklahoma to stay nice and still have lots of fun.

His kisses scorched her lips, and sent thrills and shudders racing down her spine. The medals on his kaftan were gouging into her breasts, but she couldn’t think of enough Arabic to tell him that it would be nicer if he took off his coat. Sitti Ayesha dared not protest lest she betray her imposture, and since she couldn’t say a word, she couldn’t effectively resist.

And as the Afghan’s exploring hand probed the silk that still separated them, she shivered, snuggled closer, and decided that it was too late to protest.

Her breath sighed in his ear. She relaxed and clung to him like a shadow.

But before Prince Muhummad Nadir Khan could make it a home run, the door burst open. The fun was over. Six Arabs came plunging into the room. As Kane bounded to his feet, they closed in.

He drew his tulwar, and lashed out; but the treacherous haft turned in his grasp. The blade struck flat-wise, sending one of his assailants to the floor, knocked silly instead of beheaded. A club sizzled through the confusion, crashing down on Kane’s shoulder.

He leaped back, slashed again with his tulwar, but just missed splitting one of his opponents lengthwise. The blade was knocked from his hand. Kane ploughed in, fists hammering. He gave a good account of himself. The room was a milling confusion of grunting Arabs, flailing limbs, and spattering teeth knocked loose by the American’s pile driver fists. Sitti Ayesha’s screams drowned Aunt Fatimah’s riot call from the hallway.

Smack. Another Arab knocked end for end. And then a club crashed down across Kane’s turban. And as he sank to the tiles, groggy and goggle-eyed, three Arabs muffled Sitti Ayesha in a cloak. He struggled to his knees, but another club probed the confusion, catching him squarely across the head. Lights out for the amir!

When Kane’s scattered wits re-assembled, his head seemed the size of a bass drum, and he felt as though he had passed through a rock crusher. Ibrahim was anxiously regarding him.

“What the hell! How come?”

“Harami,” replied the dragoman. “Bandits from the desert. They sapped me and then—”

Ibrahim glanced about the disordered room. He stepped to the door to which a scrap of paper was pinned with a dagger.

“It’s a demand for ransom.” Then he translated: “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate! Ibn Marouf, to all whom it concerns, greetings and peace. Bring two thousand pounds Egyptian to the oasis at Wadi Firaun and we will surrender Sitti Ayesha unharmed. If you delay or notify the authorities., we will collect our tribute from Sitti Ayesha. And when we have taken our pleasure, we will send her to Mecca to be sold in the slave market.”

“Two thousands pounds Egyptian,” muttered Kane. “Over ten thousand bucks.”

“Ten thousand dollars,” echoed Ibrahim. “After all only a trifle, to save her from a fate worse than death. Just think, that lovely girl in the hands of forty bandits.”

Remembering his own sensations when he naught his first glimpse of Sitti Ayesha, Kane shuddered at the thought of the forty greasy Arabs.

“By God, they can’t get away with it!”

Ibrahim shook his head. “Unfortunately they can. The French Governor would be afraid to send troops that far into the desert. The bandit’s spies must have been fooled by your resemblance to the Afghan prince. They know that ten thousand dollars is nothing at all to him.”

The longer Kane thought of what he had missed, the more certain he was that it would be worth double the ransom to get another chance at Sitti Ayesha.

“You know the way out to the oasis?”

“No, but I can get a guide,” answered Ibrahim.

“Let’s go.” Kane headed for the door. “Maybe I can rout out the American consul. He’ll help me raise the money in a hurry.”

They set out for the city.

* * * *

Ibrahim waited at the door of the consulate. Presently Kane emerged and announced that he had to present his letter of credit to the Governor General of Syria, who would have the cash available at once. In the meanwhile, Ibrahim was to get transportation.

“On my head and eyes,” assured the dragoman. He missed the grim light in Kane’s eye and the determined set of his jaw. It was not until the American emerged from the French General’s residence an hour later, that Ibrahim began to wonder. Six grim-looking ruffians accompanied the synthetic Afghan prince. They were armed, and each one carried a heavily laden haversack.

“Just a little bodyguard,” explained Kane. “So this bandit won’t try to hijack the ransom.”

“Then you’ve got the money?”

Kane nodded, jerked a thumb at one of the haversacks, and said, “I’ve got something there that’ll open their eyes!” He edged Ibrahim toward a battered but serviceable Cadillac parked in an alley near the General’s residence.

“You sit up there with the driver,” ordered Kane. “All right, Ali. Step on it.”

The Arab chauffeur headed out for the Salahiyeh suburb, then swung left to the Palmyra road. After half an hour’s drive, he left the highway and cut eastward toward the Syrian desert, pounding at a terrific clip across the moonlit wastes. Forty minutes later the Cadillac was laboring down a wadi that finally opened out into a flat, desolate expanse. Far ahead Kane noted a dark clump on the horizon.

“That is the oasis,” said Ibrahim. “Better let me go on ahead and tell the bandits that you have the ransom. So we won’t all be killed before we can explain our purpose.”

The chauffeur braked to a halt and snapped off the headlights; but as Ibrahim stepped to the running board, Kane caught him by the shoulder.

“Wait a minute!” he commanded. “If you think I’m giving any greasy Arab bandits ten thousand bucks, you’re all wet. We’re getting out to fight on foot. And I’ll split ten thousand bucks among this crowd after we’ve ganged up on that bunch of petty larceny snatchers.”

“Ya Allah!” groaned Ibrahim. “We’ll all be killed. I’m going back.”

Kane jammed a revolver against his ribs.

“You’re leading the advance. Or do you want to go back to Damascus labeled ‘opened by mistake’?”

Before Sitti Ayesha could fairly realize that a handful of invaders had broken into her house in time to keep an Afghan prince from giving her high, low, jack, and the game, a camel-scented burnoose enveloped her head. A dozen strong hands hustled her out through a side door, and jammed her into a waiting car. Judging from the goaty aroma, it was loaded with Arab sheikhs. Gears clashed, and the machine headed out a road that seemed to be paved with monstrous waffle irons.

Presently the verminous burnoose was removed from her head. They were tearing across the open desert. Her captors made no effort to hold her. They were busy hanging to the coat rail to keep from being pitched out of the open car as it bounded like an Ibex from crag to crag, as the old saying goes.

Aunt Fatimah was wedged next to Sitti Ayesha.

“Oh my God!” moaned the girl from Oklahoma. “What happened—what do they want—did they kill the prince—?”

“They’re bandits,” answered Aunt Fatimah. “Probably holding you for ransom. Though maybe they’re thinking of pleasure. Even a bandit needs a bit of home life once in a while.”

“Oh—” Ayesha’s tender flesh crawled as she shot long side glances at those bronze, villainous faces. “I’d rather die first.”

“Well, maybe the prince will ransom you,” suggested Fatimah. “That is, if he isn’t dead.”

Sitti Ayesha heartily regretted that Muhammad Nadir Khan had not arrived earlier.

“They probably won’t touch you,” consoled Fatimah. “Unless the prince refuses to send a ransom.”

Another half hour of pounding across the desert, spectral in the moonlight. They were approaching a constantly expanding blotch of darkness straight ahead. Ayesha caught a flickering gleam. An oasis, and the black tents of the Arabs. Four men, gathered about the fire, advanced to meet the car as it crunched to a halt. They escorted their prisoners to the middle tent. The chief approached and addressed them in Arabic.

“He’ll give you two days to raise a ransom,” Aunt Fatimah translated. “Ten thousand dollars.”

“Thank God!”

Ayesha sighed and sank to a rug stretched on the sand. It was bitterly cold, and her scanty silks were no protection against the penetrating night air. One of the Arabs brought her a woolen burnoose. It left her debating whether it would be better to freeze or to be eaten alive…

Night in the desert…the black tents of the Arabs…though Oklahoma might be lacking in romance, they had steam heat and mattresses…

But despite the chill and the creeping things, Ayesha dozed. She was too weary and nerve racked not to. She awoke with a start. She heard the drumming of hoofs, a ragged volley of rifle fire, a bedlam of yells. Bullets whistled through the walls of the tent.

Flattening to the sand, she lifted the flap. The bandits were dashing towards the fringe of the oasis, but their escape was cut off by a semi-circle of horsemen that was closing about the encampment. Steel gleamed, bursts of orange flame probed the darkness, and the thunder of hoofs and guttural yells of the horsemen drowned the frenzied screeches of Ayesha’s captors.

She saw a lean, hawk-nosed, bearded Arab on a white horse wheel and slash home with a curved scimitar. One of her captors dropped, sheared from shoulder to hip. He lay twitching in the moonlight, a ghastly quivering heap of rags and gore. Another drew a pistol—but before he could level the weapon, an automatic chattered like a machine gun. He doubled up as though kicked in the stomach.

The survivors raised their hands. The Arab on the white horse shouted a command. Half raised blades were sheathed, and pistols lowered.

“God in heaven! What’s happened?” gasped Ayesha.

Fatimah’s placid countenance was tense. She eyed the man on the white horse, then she said in a low, trembling tone, “That’s Nuri Sultan—the wildest outlaw in Arabia.”

A bandit was a bandit. Ayesha was bewildered by Fatimah’s sudden terror.

“After all, we’re no worse off—”

“These are real bandits,” moaned Fatimah. “They’ll kill all the men, and as for us—”

“Real bandits?” italicized Ayesha.

Fatimah, dragging the girl from Oklahoma back into the tent, blurted out a partial confession.

“The first crowd—those that broke into your house,” she concluded, “were just some dragomans trying to get the Prince to pay off a big ransom for you. But this is awful! Oh, my God! Nuri Sultan! Even the French are afraid of him.”

And then Fatimah sent out a screech that shook the tent pole. Nuri Sultan, vaulting from his white horse, had heard their voices, and had seen the flurry of legs and arms as they ducked for cover. Before they could slip out under the edge of the tent, the flap was jerked aside, and Nuri Sultan stalked into the tent.

Ayesha was moving fast, but the bandit had wings. His hand closed on her shoulder, jerking her back into the tent. Her shriek brought half a dozen of the bandit’s men on the run.

“Mashallah!” they gasped in unison, seeing by the camp fire glow what their leader had discovered. Ayesha had worn little when Kane first saw her; and now she wore less. Her disarrayed hair trailed over her shoulders. Her pert breasts peeped through the twining blue black strands. Her shapely legs were something to dream about.

She still wore her jeweled girdle, but only a few sorry tatters of gauze hung from it. Ayesha’s heavy hair did not quite reach her hips—hence the chorus of “Allah be Praised!”

“Get out!” shouted Nuri Sultan, one arm pinning Ayesha to his side as he whirled to face his men. “And if you want to make good use of an idle hour, take her friend out of here and see what she is good for.”

As he spoke, he indicated Fatimah. She looked uncommonly good to the Arabs who had been dazzled by Ayesha’s youthful curves. The ensuing rush was like a subway jam. And before you could say Allah be praised, Fatimah was the center of a gathering that was diving for the oasis.

Nuri Sultan caught his lovely captive in both arms. She had thought for a moment that he was going to keep her unharmed and hold her for ransom; but it was now apparent that he first had to find out how much she was worth.

“Don’t! Stop—please don’t!” she shrieked as the Arab’s arms closed about her.

Ayesha, facing something worse than death, forgot every last word of Arabic she had learned, and the bandit captain didn’t understand English.

“Don’t—please don’t. I’ll pay you anything—”

She was an armful for any man to handle; but Nuri Sultan knew what he wanted. And by the time she had raised the bid to an even twenty-five thousand, the horseman from the desert had the advantage. Her breath was coming in panting gasps, and her struggles were subsiding…

“Thirty thousand—”

That impressive sum trailed off into a sobbing, despairing wail.

* * * *

Harrison Kane, leading his squad of city Arabs into the desert, finally distinguished three black tents pitched somewhat to the left of an oasis. He called for a halt to explain his plan of attack; and then Ibrahim learned what the haversacks contained.

“We’ll sneak up and toss a hand grenade out to the further edge of the camp. When they come running out, we’ll hose them with our pistols and give them the rest of the grenades. Then when—”

But the field order was interrupted by a low groan and a guttural cursing. Half a dozen dark figures were crawling toward the huddle. Kane jerked his pistol into line, but before he could fire, Ibrahim caught his wrist.

“Don’t shoot!” said the dragoman. “That’s my cousin, Habeeb!”

“Habeeb, hell!” growled Kane. “Let go or I’ll—”

“Ya Ibrahim!” gasped a voice. “Run for your life!”

A gargling of Arabic; and then one of Kane’s men translated: “These fellows aren’t bandits. They’re dragomans from Damascus.”

In a moment Kane had the story: “Nuri Sultan raided our camp. Then he slashed the soles of our feet and turned us loose, so we’d have to crawl back to town on our hands and knees. He’s just keeping the women…he’s going to take them to the slave market in Mecca to sell them.”

Kane began to understand. He caught Ibrahim by the throat.

“Cough up—or by God, I’ll take you to pieces by hand!”

The half-throttled dragoman confessed that the original kidnapping of Sitti Ayesha had been fake; but he forgot to mention that she was from White Horse, Oklahoma.

“Let’s go!” commanded Kane. “There’s not more than a dozen of them, and we’ll surprise them.”

He had scarcely resumed the advance when he heard a shriek that speared the desert silence like a fire siren. A woman’s voice. A woman crying out in English. Kane stretched long legs toward the oasis. He covered a heart breaking two-twenty—“An American girl!” Kane growled between gasps. “Shake it up!”

The oasis however was further than the sounds indicated. The desert air is deceptive. He heard her cries, clearly, but seemingly no closer. She was vainly pleading, and struggling to repel a bandit.

Nuri Sultan, raider and slave trader, had snatched an American girl as well as Sitti Ayesha. Kane, desperately hoarding his rapidly failing wind, pressed on, wondering if he could reach the camp before it was too late.

And then blackness swallowed Kane and his men. Too late, he saw that he was on the edge of a wadi. He recoiled, but lost his balance and plunged headlong down the steep wall of the ravine. His followers, equally at loss in the treacherous desert, piled after him. The opposite wall was too steep to scale. They lost precious minutes dashing along the rocky bottom.

And when Kane finally emerged on the open plain, there was no longer any outcry coming from the oasis.

He was battered and bruised, and he had lost his haversack of grenades; but exhausted as he was, Kane was in better shape than the city Arabs who painfully hoisted themselves clear of the ravine. He reeled for a moment, dizzy and panting. He heard the neighing of a horse; but the camp seemed deserted. There was no one at the flickering fire near the middle tent; no sign of bandits.

And then Kane heard a sound that froze his blood, and made his brain explode in a red flare…

He dashed like a madman across the rocky waste, leaving his exhausted followers far behind him. As he ran, he cursed in panting gasps, jerked his pistol from its holster, and hoped that he had misinterpreted what he had heard.

Great God! It couldn’t be—

The sounds now seemed to come from the oasis, and not from the central tent. He tried to tell himself that it must be his own panting breath that he heard as he forced himself onward. But as he reached the edge of the camp fire glow, Kane was beyond reason.

Without waiting for his men to catch up, he recklessly bounded toward the middle tent, tore aside the flap. He had no ears for pounding footsteps of the followers he had outdistanced, and he did not hear the yell that came from the oasis. He was aware of nothing but the occupants of the tent.

He could not see the girl’s face, but her bare legs and arms gleamed white in the glow of the camp fire. The American girl! She was sobbing and moaning, but she clung to the Arab who had her in his arms…

Kane’s pistol snapped into line. He had never shot a man in the back, but it was a good time to start. Yet despite his wrath, he restrained himself: the heavy .45 slug would kill the girl as well as her assailant.

And then the seemingly deserted camp flared into an uproar. Shouting men charged from the oasis to meet Kane’s squad. Pistols crackled. As Kane bounded forward, the Arab tore himself from the girl’s embrace. His bearded face was clawed to mincemeat, and his flowing djellab was torn to ribbons. The blast of Kane’s .45 shook the tent, but the Arab, seasoned to surprie attack, ducked and scooped up the pistol that lay at the edge of the rug.

“You damn’—!” raged Kane, jerking another shot. The Arab recoiled, fired wildly. Kane’s weapon snapped back into line. It jammed; but the American’s wrathful charge carried him inside the enemy’s guard. Dropping his useless automatic, he snatched the armed wrist, wrenched it, and bodily flung the Arab crashing against the heavy tent pole.

And then from without came an ear-shattering blast, the scream of iron fragments, a howl of dismay. A grenade had cut loose. Pistols chattered. Another bomb shook the encampment.

Kane, ignoring the battle, leaped forward to pin his enemy to the earth; but as he closed in, he saw that the Arab lay in a grotesque huddle, his head lolling at an unnatural angle, his face distorted, his eyes staring.

“Broken neck,” growled Kane. “He had it coming.”

He turned to the girl. Sitti Ayesha! Recognition was mutual.

“Thank God—but where did you learn to speak English?” she gasped. Then she remembered that he had arrived too late, and tried to rearrange the few sorry tatters of silk that still clung to her.

“In a convent,” Kane bitterly answered. “So you’re the American girl I heard? Circassian, hell! If you hadn’t pulled this flim-flam game, you wouldn’t have—”

He spat disgustedly and prodded Nuri Sultan with his boot.

Sitti Ayesha, née Burns, had no chance for words. Kane’s city Arabs came bursting into the tent, Aunt Fatimah at their heels. The show was over. The survivors of Nuri Sultan’s gang were dashing across the desert, on foot. Aunt Fatimah eyed the girl, the dead bandit chief, and Harrison Kane’s grim face.

“Oh, I wish I was dead,” sobbed Sitti Ayesha.

“Don’t be foolish,” consoled Aunt Fatimah. “There may be things worse than death, but so far, I doubt it—”

Sitti Ayesha through her tears regarded her maid and saw that she also had been thoroughly pawed.

“Oh, did they—”

Aunt Fatimah nodded and said, “Well…yes…but—”

Kane, noting her contented sigh, recognized a philosopher. He helped Sitti Ayesha to her feet. She was bedraggled, but nevertheless…

“I still don’t know what your idea was, posing as a Circassian,” he said, “but let’s go back to town and talk this over.” Then eyeing the dead bandit, he added, “After all, consoling widows is a white man’s duty.”