A FACE IN THE AMBER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20203, 13 March 1929, Page 20

A FACE IN THE AMBER.

A SHOET STOEY.

BY ALBERT DORRINGTON.

The,night -was hot, with a big red moon tover the date palms. Elsie Findlay sat alone on the wide verandah of the tradehouse, 'where the Hafiz road brought strings of camels from the everlasting Band-belts of the Northern Sahara. From tho rear of the tradehouse came the fragrant smoke of burning olive logs, tho bivouac fires of the .Arab horse-boys and cotton-buyers.

Ever since she could remember Elsie had listened to the prattling voices of Algerian cameleers, the cainp fire talk of the white-gowned traders from Jaffa and Constantinople, vendors of perfume, ivory and bergamot.

Her father, Dan Findlay, depended on tho cross-desert traffic for a livelihood. He bartered English goods for oil and franc's. He sold the snow-white twill and sheeting that is made into Arab cheche and burnous. In time Dan had begun to regard this lonely desert outmost a3 bis own territory. Only one white man had challenged Dun's right to annex the Jaffa-bound desert trade. His name was Bede Templeton, an inexperienced youngster from an English public school. Templeton's smile had not deserted him in the months of neglect and failure that followed his appearance in the Hafiz district. But the smile of trusting youth is not equal to the abysmal cunning of the desert. He had returned, one night, after a ride in the sands, to find his tradehouse a blazing ruin. Everything was burnt to the ground.

It was a crushing event for Elsie iFindlay. Templeton had been so kkeable. Her father said it was Bede's own fault. "The boy didn't know a real sheik from _a henna shampoo. Always he allowed beggars and cadging old women about bis gateway, when he might have used a whip! Any old crone with a tale to tell 01 her ' starving brats could pull the goons from Bede's shelves. Dan Findlay recalled Old Nabbou, the witch woman, to whorn ho had given clothes and even money. Money! And because of a little rain and cold 'the young fool had allowed tho internal old witch to camp in his yard! l' iro, medicine, blankets and milk! „ Mo wonder (he sheiks and traders had kept away! And then a gang of Algerian 'bullies, from the French military depots, cleaned out his storo ond then applied a firestick to his walls. \V itches and beggars! Bede Templeton had gone away in the dark without a look or a word from the people he had helped. Irt the long hot months that followed, j;i s jo heard nothing from the boy, who tad cast away his inheritance.

Elsie listened to the sounds outside the high stockade, the faint, far-off tinkle of camel-bells, tho soft chanting tones of a Mahotnniedan at prayer. Her lather bad gone to Makaran to negotiate some credit, limes had changed since tho war. Dan found himself at grips with foreign competition, Belgian and French, lie would not return till past midnight. (Lilith, a soft-eyed Eritrean girl, who worked among the fabrics in the deepshadowed trade-room, slipped noiselessly across the verandah and whispered a dozen sing-song words in the vernacular. Elsie put aside her book and stood up to peer across the palm shadows, beyond the high stockade. A team of camels had halted silently a hundred yards from the gate. The yielding sand gave no s'ourid under the slouching tread of laden beasts. But the harsh voices of the Arab drivers were audible. "It is El Manek, mam'zelle!" Lilith intoned. "The Amber Sheik!" Elsie stared at the black shadows moving hither and thither among the date palms. Her father had 'often discussed tho notorious El Manek. 1' rom Biskra to the Great Lakes his caravans collected ivory and skins in return for amber and francs. His name had been linked with the slave-runners of the old Sudan. Lilith stood back in the shadows of the verandah, whispering in sharp, frightened sentences to her young mistress.

/'Listen, marn'zelle! lie is coming up the path!" ' , , The Amber Sheik came slowly up the path, halted where the tall, singularly wistful figure of Elsie was silhouetted in the lights of the house. Elsie spoke. " I'm sorry, El Manek, you have come at this hour. My father has gone to Makaran. It will be late before he returns. El Manek drew a suliu leaf from his belt, rolled it dexterously about a twist of green tobacco. His grunting voice came through the acrid fumes as lie smoked. ~, •'Hear rne, Daughter of the Dawn, he commanded. "It is not thy father 1 seek. Let thine eyes rest on the tall •white man out there!" He jerked in the direction of the moving shadows of his followers outside the stockade. Look •well, for he is f easy to see among my desert pigmies!" , . Elsie leaned from the verandah, staring wide-eyed at the circle of camel drivers. In the centre of the circle stood a tattered, travel-mired figure, a long camel-halter about his waist and wrists Bare of foot his face revealed the sea s and bruises of a long and tern » L journey through sand and cacti. On his breast, gleaming faintly, was the > y cross of the Legion. Jiede Templeton!

** a prisoner?" It came from Elsie in * suffocating unrlerbrcath. " How dare you put a rope about a white n J : ' n • slO demanded, her warm breast swelling with

auger. , , i i x ilie Amber Sheik stooped toward Iter his bright earrings quivering in the moonk" He is known to thee! Thou knowest. also that his sword hath been turned against tho great Abdel. He was wounded I found him in th- sands of the Magln i, two hundred miles south of the Hamniada Jlomra. His life is mine. The award of five hundred pounds offered by Abdel, for every soldier of the 1* oreign Legion brought to him, awaits me!

A silence. Elsie Find lay was listening to (lie beating of her own heart. Why had he brought l!ede lo her? Why had this old slave-runner traversed the unending leagues of desert and mountain to show her the beaten body of the boy who had thrown away his chances El Manek spoke. " I am not cruel, Daughter of the Dawn. I seek only to trade. This man, whom thou knowest. is worth five hundred pounds to mo if 1 hand him to the agents of Sultan AI idol!" Five hundred pounds! Elsie remembered her father's almost desperate financial position. . ~,1-1 "'Yet money is not my need, Manek went oil, his tiger-brown eyes shifting again to the glowing lump of pure amber, lying on Dan's desk within the trade room.

Elsio knew what was coming. " Give me the piece of amber," he Trent on. indicating the shining, glowing mass on her father's desk, " in return for this prisoner! Then T will go my way leaving him in thy care.' He to read the causo of her hesitation iO accept his offer. Bv Allah, sho needed a spur! With the speed of a 'Wolf lie turned to his followers at the gate. " Move on with this white dog! _ There is nothing here for us! Elsewhere his body will bring the reward!" El Manek was outside the gate now, adjusting his big riding saddle, shortening the long halter that bound Templeton to his pommel. Jhis time there could be no return! L

(COPT RIGHT.)

The rop6 jerked him to his knees as El Manek's big camel plunged forward. Not a sound escaped him. His fine eyes seemed steeped in misery, his chin sunk to the little cross on his breast. He had seen Elsie's sliin figure in the trade house lights. He could not even guess what had" passed between her . and El Manek. All lie knew was that one's dreams never came true.

Ahead lay thirst, blows and finally a bullet—if his lucky star held. His young teeth snapped as he flung into line with the swinging, lashing pack beasts in the rear.

God! Why had they revealed his hope less defeat to a woman with pitying eyes ?

A white shape was running in the wake of the fast disappearing camel train. It was Elsie's voice that called across the hoof-trodden sands.

" Stop! I was wrong to let you go, Here is what vou ask!"

El .Manek halted his camel, slinped from tho saddle, and stood before the quickbreathing girl. In her hand was the glowing. honey-coloured piece of He took it with a grin, and then, with a slash of his knife, severed the rope that bound Templeton to his saddle. Elsie's hands went out to his swaying shoulders as the disappearing carnel train left them alone in the moonlit sands. The fragrance of her hair stole into his fainting blood as they reached the stockade gate. Elsie led him to the cool room •where she had waited and dreamed during the long summer for a sign of his return. El Manek uttered an Arab oath at the moment Elsie and Templeton gained the tradehouse. A black, clawing figure bad risen from the sands and was clutching his driving rein. " Nabbon!" He glared down at the old witch as the team halted, the drivers staring in superstitious amaze at her furious and flaming eyes. Her long black fingers had closed over the piece of amber in his fist. He had raised his rawhide to strike her from his path. "Thief!" she accused, her long bony fingers playing over the luminous surface of the amber. " Turn thy evil eyes into this well of light!" She held up the glowing mass to his frightened stare. " Gaze into the heart of the light, jackal of tho sands! Maybe thou wilt see the face of thy dead son whom Abdel's butchers led away!" El Manek would have struck her with his rawhide and flung the writhing sorceress into the drifts. But she was holding the spheroid of moon-whitened amber above the whip, was clinging to the neck of his camel with the tenacity of a panther. Hypnotized he glared into the depths of ghost-pale amber, half-dazzled, awed, but cursing under his breath. Was it the moonlight or her twirling black fingers that gave life to the glowing sphere of amber? Within its smoky depths leered the faces of dead slaves and limited women, (he streaming eves of fear-crazed native children. Hundreds and hundreds of them, and then The witch thrust the amber closer to his blanched eyes, as the face of his son showed in the fuming depths of colour, the boy who bad gone with the Sultan's armies to fdl a grave on the Ourcq. At his s'ck gesture she drew away the amber. " Begone ! " His lips barely shaped the word- " Thou devil-cat.'

The old witch stood firm under ( the white glow of tho desert moon. " Begone, thou, El Manek! Cover thy wicked head. Tempt not devils when they bid thee go in peice! " she retorted. The'drivers in the rear sheltered thejr eves from her baleful stare from the whitelv glowing mirror of death in her slinking claw. At a sign from El Manek they moved on. Once or twice he looked appvehensivelv at the old witch, hobbling across the sands, the piece of magic amber in her shut claw. Inshallah! It was not a thing to have in one's tent! Yet be prayed that the Prophet would scourge her body before many dawns had passed.

It was very still on the trade-house verandah where Elsie sat with 'templeton settled in a low, cushioned chair. A food had acted like magic on his overwrought senses. Already in his boyish exuberance he was inclined to laugh over the bitter hardships he had recently endured. What was it Elsie had given to El Manek that had caused tho old slaverunner to cut him* loose? Els;r evaded the question. It was nothing, she said; a piece of mineral stuff Manek had begged Iter to give him from the store, Often these Arabs set value on a piece of worthless stuff lying on the tables.

Elsie's joy at Bede's deliverance was not without misgiving. The thought of her father's dismay and anger at the loss of the precious amber began to cheat the moments of their aching delight. If she had given away a piece of cloth, a bolt of silk, Dan might never have guessed. She saw his buckling brows, his scowling surprise when he found the amber gone from his desk. A crunching of feet in the path warned Elsie that her father had returned. His bent shadow slanted across the verandah. Tho rifle he carried was slammed into the hall rack. Behind liirn came Mr. Drummond the district commissioner. The commissioner's glance went straight to Templeton in tho low-cushioned chair. But Elsie had eyes only for her father. He appeared fretted and worn. His visit to Makaran to raise money had failed. TTer heart gave a little twisting leap. Mr. Drummond's voice, as he leaned over Templeton',s chair barely reached her. "Gad, boy; we'd given you up! Of course, we're sorry your father's gone. Tho estate is—or— unentailed if T rrmv say so. There has been no litigation. Everything goes to your good self, a matter of fifteen thousand a year. Dammit, boy, you've given the consulates no end of trouble!" Ho shook hands violently with the dumbfounded boy in tho chair. Dan Finlay emerged suddenly from the traderoom, a hacrgard look in his face as ho signed to Elsie. "The amber's gone!" ho, flung out. " I forgot to lock it tip! " Silence that was like an unspoken tragedy froze Elsie as her father turned with a sick gesture from the room. How could she explain ? Tcini/iglon was listening to the loud voice of the district commissioner. Yet ho hoard Elsie's soft breathing beside him, felt something of the sudden anguish that had come up on her.

And then A black claw was thrust through the dark foliage beside the verandah, where he sat. A lump of shining amber fell into his hand. Tho voice of Jsabbon, the witch, ca'tne from the shadows.

"It was the price of thy life, effendi! Oulv for it thou wouldst now be on thy wav to the execution grounds of the Red Sultan! Never, never must thou forget that! A long drawn sigh escaped Nabbon as she vanished in the shadows of the Ilafiz road. Templeton stood np with Elsie's halffainting form drawn to him. His voice broke the almost savage silence. " Ahoy, there, Findlay," lie called, " Are you looking for a lump of amber ? " The 'startled face of Dan Findlay appeared in the doorway of the room. His eyes leaped toward the precious object in Templeton's hand. A sharp pause. " You see, Findlay," Templeton spoke at last, " T want to corno into your business. And this piece of amber is going lo bo my first gift lo Elsie. Will you let me come into your business, Dan ? " His voice was oddly wistful. The district commissioner broke in unexpectedly. " You may draw on the consulate for fen thousand pounds, tomorrow, Templeton," ho said, lighting a big cheroot. " The money's there! " The beaten look went out of Dan Findlny's eyes as Templeton drew Elsie closer to his breast. Perhaps Dan's answer did not matter, after nil. The fragrant night was too full of the melody in Elsie's heart to heed other sounds*