style="font-size:15px;"> "Our Lord the Emir el Hamel el Kebir offers you the three days' hospitality, due by Koranic Law--and by the generosity of his heart--to all travellers. He will see you when you have rested. All that he has is yours," said he.
"Including the edge of his sword," I said to myself.
But this was really excellent. I thought of poor Rohlfs and contrasted my reception at the Great Oasis with his at Kufra, near where he was foully betrayed and evilly treated.
Not long afterwards, two black slave-women bore pots of steaming water to the anderun, and a boy brought me my share, less picturesquely, in kerosene-oil tins.
"Can I come in, Major?" called Miss Vanbrugh. "I've knocked at the felt door. . . . More felt than heard. . . . I want to dress your arm."
I told her that I was feeling happier about her than I had done since we started, for I was beginning to hope and to believe that we were in the hands of an enlightened and merciful despot, instead of those of the truculent and destructive savage I had expected to find.
"How do you like this hotel?" I inquired as she pinned the bandage.
"Nothing like it in N'York," she replied. "Maudie's sitting on cushions and feeling she's half a Sheikhess already. . . ."
"I'm going to put on my uniform," I announced. "Will you and she help a one-armed cripple?"
They did. And when the Hadji Abdul Salam, and a dear old gentleman named Dawad Fetata, came with one or two more ekhwan to conduct me to the presence of the Emir, I was a French Field-Officer again, bathed, shaven, and not looking wholly unworthy of the part I had to play.
§ 2
Seated on dyed camel-hair rugs piled on a carpet, were the Emir el Hamel el Kebir and his Vizier, the Sheikh el Habibka, stately men in fine raiment.
I saw at a glance that the Emir, whatever he might claim to be, was no member of the family of Es Sayed Yussuf Haroun es Sayed es Mahdi es Senussi, and that if he pretended to be the expected "Messiah," Sidi Sayed el Mahdi el Senussi, he was an impostor.
For he was most unmistakably of Touareg stock, and from nowhere else could he have got the grey eyes of Vandal origin, which are fairly common among the Touareg, many of whom are blue-eyed and ruddy-haired.
I liked his face immediately. This black-bearded, black-browed, hawk-faced Arab was a man of character, force and power. But I wished I could see the mouth hidden beneath the mass of moustache and beard. Dignified, calm, courteous, strong, this was no ruffianly and swash-buckling fanatic.
My hopes rose high.
The Vizier, whose favour might be most important, I took to be of Touareg or Berber-Bedouin stock, he too being somewhat fair for a desert-Arab. He was obviously a distaff blood-relation of the Emir.
These two men removed the mouth-pieces of their long-stemmed narghilehs from their lips and stared and stared and stared at me, in petrified astonishment--to which they were too stoical or too well-bred to give other expression.
I suppose the last person they expected to see was a French officer in uniform, and they sat in stupefied silence.
Had not the idea been too absurd, I could almost have thought that I saw a look of fear in their eyes. Perhaps they thought for a moment that I was the herald of a French army that was even then getting into position round the oasis!
Fear is the father of cruelty, so I hoped that my fleeting impression was a false one. I would have disabused their minds by plunging straight in medias res, and announcing my business forthwith, but that this is not the way to handle Arabs.
Only by devious paths can the goal be reached, and much meaningless faddhling (gossip) must precede the real matter on which the mind is fixed.
I greeted the Emir with the correct honorifics and in the Arabic of the educated.
He replied in an accent with which I was not familiar, that of the classical Arabic of the Hejaz, I supposed, called "the Tongue of the Angels" by the Arabs.
Having exchanged compliments and inquired after each other's health, with repeated "Kief halaks?" and "Taiyibs," I told the Emir of the attack upon us by the Touareg at the Salt Lake, and of my fears as to the fate of my followers.
"The Sons of Shaitan and the Forgotten of God! May they burn in Eblis eternally! Do they dare come within seven days of me!" growled the Emir, and clapped his hands.
A black youth came running.
"Send me Marbruk ben Hassan, the Commander of a Hundred," said the Emir, and when the deformed but powerful cripple came, and humbly saluted his Lord, the latter gave a prompt order.
"A hundred men. Ten days' rations. Ride to the Pass of the Salt Lake. A band of the Forgotten of God were there three days ago. Start within the hour . . ." He then whispered with him apart for a moment, and the man was gone.
The Vizier had not ceased to stare unwaveringly at me, but he uttered no word.
The Emir and I maintained a desultory and pointless conversation which concluded with an invitation to feast with him that night.
"I hear that you are accompanied by two Nazrani ladies. I am informed that wives of Roumis eat with their Lords and in the presence of other men. I shall be honoured if the Sitts--your wives doubtless?--will grace my poor tent. . . ."
One thing I liked about the Emir was the gentlemanly way in which he had forborne to question me on the subject of the astounding presence of two white women. I accordingly told him the plain truth at once, thinking it wisest and safest.
"You will receive no such treatment here as they of Zaguig meted unto you," said the Emir, when I had finished my story. "They who come in peace may remain in peace. They who come in war remain in peace also--the peace of Death." His voice was steely if not menacing. "Do you come in peace or in war, Roumi?" he then asked, and as I replied,
"On my head and my life, I come in peace, bearing a great and peaceful message," I fancied that both he and the Vizier looked relieved--and I again wondered if they imagined the presence or approach of a French army.
§ 3
Whatever I may forget, I shall remember that night's diffa of cous-cous; a lamb stuffed with almonds and raisins, and roasted whole; bamia, a favourite vegetable of the Arabs; stewed chicken; a pillau of rice, nuts, raisins and chopped meat; kibabs of kid; camel-milk curds; a paste-like macaroni cooked in butter, and heavy short-bread fried in oil and eaten with sugar. Between the courses, we drank bowls of lemon-juice to aid our appetites, and they needed aid as the hours wore on.
When we were full to bursting, distended, comatose, came the ceremonial drinking of mint tea. After that, coffee. Finally we were offered very large cakes of very hard plain sugar.
Only five were present, the Emir, the Vizier, Mary, Maudie, and myself. We sat cross-legged on a carpet round a red cotton cloth upon which was a vast brass tray, laden with blue bowls filled to overflowing, and we ate with our fingers.
As I entered with Miss Vanbrugh
