cast at us a glance full ofwithering scorn.
The Sheikh raised his hand to command silence, but as herfellow-captives continued wailing, he ordered the removal of all butthis girl, who apparently set him at defiance. Turning his keen eyesupon her, he noted how extremely handsome she was, and while shereturned his gaze unflinchingly, her beauty held me in fascination. Inall my journeys in the Land of the Sun I had never before seen such anabsolutely perfect face.
"Who art thou?" demanded the dreaded chief, roughly. "What is thyname?"
"I am called Khadidja Fathma, daughter of Ali Ben Ushshami, cadi ofIdeles," she answered, in a firm, defiant tone.
"Ali Ben Ushshami!" echoed Abdul-Melik, knitting his brows fiercely."Thou art his daughter; the daughter of the accursed son of offal whoendeavoured to betray me into the hands of the Roumis," he cried,exultantly. "I have kindled the lights of knowledge at the flambeau ofprophecy, and I vowed that I would ere many moons seek vengeance."
"I have anticipated this thy wrath ever since thine horde of cowardlyruffians laid hands upon me," she answered, with a contemptuous toss ofher pretty head. "But the daughter of the cadi of Ideles craveth notmercy from a servant of Eblis."
"Darest thou insult me, wench?" he cried, pale with passion, andstarting up as if to strike her. "Thou art the child of the man whowould have given me into the hands of the Spahis for the sake of the twobags of gold offered for my head. I will return his good offices bysending him to-morrow a present he will perhaps appreciate, the presentof thine own hands. He will then be convinced that Abdul-Melik knowethhow to repay those who seek to injure him."
"Dost thou intend to strike off my hands?" she gasped, pale as death,nevertheless making a strenuous effort to remain calm.
"At sunrise the vultures will feast upon thee, and thine hands will beon their way to Ideles," he answered, with a sinister smile playingabout his hard mouth.
"Malec hath already set his curse upon thee," she said, "and by eachmurder thou committest so thou createst for thyself a fresh torture inAl-Hawiyat, where thy food will be offal and thou wilt slake thy thirstwith boiling pitch. True, I have fallen captive into thine hands,having journeyed to Tilouat to see my father's mother who was dying; butthinkest thou that I fear thee? No!" she added with flashing eyes."Though the people dread thee as the great and powerful Chief, I despisethee and all thy miserable parasites. If thou smitest off mine hands,it is but the same punishment as thou hast meted out to others of mysex. Thou art, after all, a mere coward who maketh war upon women."
"Silence, jade!" he cried, in a tumult of passion, and, turning to themen beside him, commanded: "Take her away, secure her alone till dawn,and then let her hands be struck off and brought to me."
Roughly the men dragged her away, but ere she went she cast at us a lookof haughty scornfulness, and, shrugging her shoulders, treated thisterrible mandate with ineffable disdain.
"The jade's hands shall be sent to her father, the Cadi, as a souvenirof the interest he taketh in my welfare," the Sheikh muttered aloud."Her tongue will never again utter rebuke or insult. Verily, Allah hathdelivered her into my hands a weapon to use against mine enemies."
I uttered eager words of intercession, pointing out the cruelty oftaking her young life, but he only laughed derisively, and I wascompelled to sit beside him while the other captives were questioned andinspected.
That night I sought repose in a shed that had been erected in a portionof the ruins, but found sleep impossible. The defiantly beautiful faceof the young girl who was to die at dawn kept recurring to me withtantalising vividness, and at length I rose, determined if possible tosave her. Noiselessly I crept out, my footsteps muffled by the sand,saddled one of Abdul-Melik's own horses, and without attracting thenotice of either sentry on duty at each end of the encampment, I enteredthe ruin where, confined to an iron ring in the masonry by a leathernband, she crouched silent and thoughtful.
"_Fi amani-illah_!" I whispered, as I approached. "I come to havespeech with thee, and assist thee to escape."
"Art thou a friend?" she inquired, struggling to her feet and peering atme in the gloom.
"Yes, one who is determined that the outlaw's command shall never beexecuted," and taking the _jambiyah_ from my girdle, I severed thethongs that confined her hands and ankles, and next second she was free.
Briefly I explained how I had saddled a fleet horse and placed asaddle-bag with food upon it.
"If I get safely away I shall owe my life to you," she said, withintense gratitude, pressing my hand for an instant to her quiveringlips. "I know this place, and ere two moons can have risen I can travelthrough the rocky defile and be at my father's house in Ideles. Tell methy name, so that my father may know who was his daughter's liberator."
I told her, and in the same hasty breath asked for some souvenir.
"Alas! I have nothing," she answered; "nothing but a strange ornamentwhich my father's mother gave to me immediately before she died, an hourprevious to the attack being made upon the village," and placing herhand deep into the breast of her dress she drew forth a rough disc ofcopper, about the size of a crown piece, with a hole in it, as if it hadbeen strung upon a thread.
"When she gave it to me she told me it had been in her possession foryears, that it was a talisman against terror, and that some curiouslegend was attached to it, the nature of which I do not now recollect.There is strange writing upon it in some foreign tongue of the Roumisthat no one has been able to decipher."
I looked, but unable to detect anything in the darkness, I assured herthat its possession would always remind me of her, and slipped it intothe pocket of my gandoura.
Then together we crept along under the shadow of the wall, and, gainingthe spot where the horse stood in readiness, I held her for a secondwhile she kissed my hand, uttering a fervent word of thanks, andafterwards assisted her into the saddle. Then a moment later, with awhispered "_Allah iselemeck_!" she sped away, with her unbound hairflying behind her, and was instantly lost in the darkness.
On realising that she had gone I was seized with regret, but feelingthat at least I had saved her from a horrible doom, I returned to mylittle shed and, wrapping myself in my burnouse, slept soundly until thesun had risen high in the heavens.
Opening my eyes, I at once remembered Khadidja's quaint souvenir, and onexamining it, was astonished to find both obverse and reverse of theroughly fashioned disc covered with an inscription in English crudelyengraved, or rather scratched, apparently with the point of a knife.Investigating it closely I was enabled, after some difficulty, for Ihave only an elementary knowledge of the tongue of the Roumis, to readthe following surprising words:--
"_This record I leave for the person into whose hands it may fall, for Iam starving. Whosoever reads this let him hasten to Zemnou, in theZelaf Desert, two days from the well of El Ameima, and from theBab-el-Oued pace twenty steps westward outside the city wall, and underthe second bastion let him dig. There will he be rewarded. John EdwardChatteris, held captive in the Kasbah of Borku by order of the Sultan'Othman, Sunday, June 13, 1843_."
Chatteris! Instantly it occurred to me that a celebrated Englishexplorer, archaeologist, and member of the Royal Geographical Society ofthat name, had years ago been lost, and his fate had remained a completemystery. Inquiries for news of him had been circulated throughout thegreat Desert among the wandering tribes, with an offer of a reward.This, then, was a message inscribed, with apparent difficulty within theimpregnable citadel of the warrior Sultan of Borku, whose littlemountain kingdom was situate five hundred miles south of Mourzouk,between the Tibesti Mountains and Lake Tsad; a secret that for half acentury had been in the keeping of those who could not decipher it.
What might not be buried at the spot indicated by this curious relic ofthe great traveller? My curiosity was excited to the utmost. Impatientto investigate the truth, but compelled, nevertheless, to remain patientuntil such time as I could escape from my undesirable companions, Iconcealed the disc and rose to j
oin Abdul-Melik at his morning meal.
Khadidja's escape caused the old outlaw intense chagrin, and his angerknew no bounds, but luckily no suspicion fell upon me, and havingremained with them during two whole moons I succeeded one day, when wewere near the town of Rhat, in evading them and getting away. Asquickly as possible I returned to In Salah, where I exhibited the metaldisc with its strange inscription to our three headmen, who became atonce interested in it, announcing their intention to accompany me nextday to investigate the truth of the engraved record.
With an escort of twenty of our men, all well mounted and armed, we rodeout of In Salah at dawn, and for nine days continued our journey acrossthe desert due eastward, first taking the caravan route to Tarz Oulli,beyond the