“All in favor,” she said with her eyes firmly on the passion-purged orbs of Amut, the non-abductor, “will say ‘Aye!’”
“Aye!” said the Sheik Amut Ben Butler in a loud, firm voice.
But biting the while a quivering underlip, he soon burst into tears.
Immediately Verbeena whipped out a paper from the breast of her Norfolk jacket and laid it before him. (That girl had just thought of everything! She even had a fountain pen right ready for him!)
“Sign,” she said simply.
The red pepper wasn’t all out his eyes by any means, but the broken, quivering creature was able to read:
“I, Sheik Amut Ben Butler of Oasis No. 4 Sahara, and I, Verbeena Mayonnaise of London and lots of other places, on this day do take each other unto each other as man and wife, the party of the first part and the party of the second agreeing not to part unless through the intervention of an undertaker or a divorce judge in which latter case alimony to the tune of fifty horses, ten camels and seventeen tons of dates a month shall be promptly and persistently paid unto the party of the second part together with fifty-fifty on the proceeds of any caravan holdups hereinafter possibly to occur.”
“You will see that it’s dated yesterday,” said Verbeena, “but that’s only a technicality.”
The Sheik Amut signed. She signed. Spaghetti signed. Hulda hurled her mark on the document.