Miss. They're true to you. . . . And they fair burn your lips with hot kisses, Miss."
"You can do that much for yourself, with hot tea, Maudie. . . . Where did you learn so much about Sheikhs?"
"Oh--I've got a book all about a Sheikh, Miss. By a lady . . ."
"Wonder whether the fair sob-sister ever left her native shores--or saw all her Sheikhs on the movies, Maudie?" was Miss Vanbrugh's damping reply.
And when she told me all this, I could almost have wished that Maudie's authoress could herself have been carried off by one of the dirty, smelly desert-thieves; lousy, ruffianly and vile, who are much nearer the average "Sheikh" of fact than are those of the false and vain imaginings of her fiction. . . .
Some Fiction is much stranger than Truth. . . .
* * *
The dinner was a huge success, and I am not sure which of the two, Sidi Ibrahim Maghruf or Miss Mary Vanbrugh, enjoyed the other the more.
On my translating Ibrahim's courteous and sonorous, "Keif halak, Sitt Miriyam! All that is in this house is yours," and she had replied,
"What a bright old gentleman! Isn't he too cute and sweet? I certainly should like to kiss him," and I had translated this as,
"The Sitt admires all that you have and prays that God may make you strong to enjoy it," we got down to it, and old Ibrahim did his best to do us to death with the noblest and hugest feast by which I was ever defeated. . . .
A gazelle stalked solemnly in from the garden and pattered over the marble floor.
"Major Ivan, it isn't gazelles that Grandpapa Maghruf should pet. It's boa-constrictors . . ." groaned Miss Vanbrugh, as the thirty-seventh high-piled dish was laid on the red cloth at our feet. . . .
* * *
The feast ended at long last and we got away, surprised at our power to carry our burden, and staggered home through the silent moonlit night, preceded by Dufour and followed by Achmet (my splendid faithful servant, loving and beloved, Allah rest his brave soul!)--and Djikki, for I was taking no chances.
§ 5
For next day, at an hour before sunset, the good Colonel Levasseur, in his wisdom, had decreed a formal and full-dress parade of the entire garrison, to salute the Flag, and "to impress the populace." It seemed to me that he would certainly impress the populace with the fact of the utter inadequacy of his force, and I told him so.
He replied by officiously ordering me to be present, and "thereby render the garrison adequate to anything."
The good Levasseur did not like me and I wondered whether it was on account of Miss Vanbrugh or the fact that he was twenty years my senior and but one grade my superior in rank. . . . Nor did I myself greatly love the good Levasseur, a man very much du peuple, with his stubble hair, goggle-eyes, bulbous nose, purple face and enormous moustache, like the curling horns of a buffalo.
But I must be just to the brave Colonel--for he died in Zaguig with a reddened sword in one hand and an emptied revolver in the other, at the head of his splendid Zouaves; and he gave me, thanks to this officious command of his, some of the best minutes of my life. . . .
* * *
Cursing ce bon Levasseur, I clattered down the wooden stairs of my billet, in full fig, spurred cavalry-boots and sword and all, out into a narrow stinking lane, turned to the right--and began running as I believe I have never run before or since, not even when I won the senior quarter-mile at Eton--in somewhat more suitable running-kit.
For I had seen a sight which made the blood run cold throughout my body and yet boil in my head.
A woman in white riding-kit, on a big horse, followed by a gang of men, was galloping across an open space.
One of the men, racing level with her and apparently holding to her stirrup with one hand, drove a great knife into her horse's heart with the other, just as she smashed him across the head with her riding-crop.
As the horse lurched and fell, the woman sprang clear and dashed through the open gate of a compound.
It all happened in less time than it takes to tell, and by the time she was through the gate, followed by the Arabs, I was not twenty yards behind.
Mon Dieu! How I ran--and blessed Levasseur's officiousness as I ran--for there was only one woman in Zaguig who rode astride officers' chargers; only one who wore boots and breeches, long coat and white solar-topi.
By the mercy of God I was just in time to see the last of her pursuers vanish up a wooden outside stair that led to the flat roof of a building in this compound--a sort of firewood-and-hay store, now locked up and entirely deserted, like the streets, by reason of the Review.
When I reached the roof, with bursting lungs and dry mouth, I saw Miss Vanbrugh in a corner, her raised riding-crop reversed in her hand, as, with set mouth and protruding chin, she faced the bloodthirsty and bestial fanatics, whom, to my horror, I saw to be armed with swords as well as long knives.
In view of the stringent regulations of the Arms Act, this meant that the inevitable rising and massacre was about to begin, or had already begun.
It was no moment for kid-gloved warfare, nor for the niceties of chivalrous fighting, and I drove my sword through the back of one man who was in the very act of yelling, "Hack the . . . in pieces and throw her to the dogs," and I cut half-way through the neck of another before it was realized that the flying feet behind them had not been those of a brother.
My rush carried me through to Miss Vanbrugh, and as I wheeled about, I laid one black throat open to the bone and sent my point through another filthy and ragged jellabia in the region of its owner's fifth rib.
And then the rest were on me, and it was parry, and parry, and parry, for dear life, with no chance to do anything else--until suddenly a heavy crop fell crashing on an Arab wrist and I could thrust home as the stricken hand swerved.
Only two remained, and, as I took on my hilt a smashing blow aimed at my head, dropped my point into the brute's face and thrust hard--the while I expected the other man's sword in my side--I was aware, with the tail of my eye, of a pair of white-clad arms flung round a black neck from behind. As the great sword of the disconcerted Arab went wildly up, I sprang sideways, and thrust beneath his arm-pit. . . .
Then I sat me down, panting like a dog, and fought for breath--while from among seven bodies, some yet twitching in the pool of blood, a spouting Thing dragged itself by its fingers and toes towards the stairs. . . . Had I been a true Hero of Romance, I should have struck an attitude, leaning on my dripping sword, and awaited applause. In point of actual fact, I felt sick and shaky.
"The boys seem a little--er--fresh," complained a cool quiet voice, and I looked up from my labours of breath-getting. She was pale, but calm and collected, though splashed with blood from head to foot.
"Some dog-fight, Major Ivan," she said. "Are you hurt?"
"No, Miss Vanbrugh," I answered. "Scratched and chipped a bit, that's all. . . . Are you all right? . . . You are the coolest and bravest woman I have ever met. . . . You saved my life. . . ."
"Nonsense!"
