[THE BULLET-PROOF MAN.]
A STORY OF NORTHERN AFRICA.
BY DAVID KER.
A bright, burning summer day on the border of the Sahara Desert; the huge bare cliffs of the El Kantarah Pass hanging like a cloud on the northern horizon; a quivering film of intense heat along the line where the rich blue of the cloudless sky met the hot, lifeless, brassy yellow of the desert; and in the foreground a group of Arabs, encamped beside a tiny stream, in the shade of the clustering palms that overhung it.
Some were munching handfuls of parched corn, others were lying fast asleep, while one dried-up old scarecrow with one eye, and a head like a worn-out scrubbing-brush, was droning out some interminable Eastern legend.
The story did not appear to get on very fast, however, which was not surprising, inasmuch as the whole of it, from beginning to end (if it ever had any), was pretty much in this style:
"Now when the Prince Selim (may his name be honored forever!) came up to the gate of the palace—a gate higher than the dome of the Kaabah [holy place] at Mecca, and built all of marble whiter than the whitest milk—lo! there stood before it a giant, mighty and exceeding terrible. Then was the Prince of Gulistan sore amazed, and said, 'Never since I, Selim, son of Mahmoud, son of Sayid, son of Ali, first wore a yataghan [sabre] have I beheld such a monster as this!'"
And so on for another half-hour, keeping poor Prince Selim waiting at the gate of the palace.
But on a sudden an exclamation of astonishment broke from one of the group, and all eyes were turned to stare at a spectacle quite as wonderful to them as any of the marvels to which they had just been listening.
Sauntering leisurely over the burning plain, as composedly as if he were lounging along the boulevards of Paris or St. Petersburg, instead of traversing one of the most dangerous spots in the whole north of Africa, was a solitary man, coming slowly toward them. True, he wore the white mantle and huge many-folded turban of the East, but he was none the less a European, as his fair complexion, well-trimmed beard, and jauntily cut pants sufficiently showed.