For Love of a Bedouin Maid

by Voleur

Presently the two woodsmen returned bearing a large bundle of lengths of fibrous wood. These were distributed among the party, each piece being about two feet long, and two inches thick. In addition to the bundle of sticks, one of the two men carried a pole two inches in diameter and about ten feet long.

This he handed to the old Sheik, who, mounting his horse, once more rode away, leaving St. Just and his followers standing under the rocks.

While St. Just was absently gazing across the lake and wondering what was going on, he saw the old Sheik on the bank stop and plant his pole in the water close to the bank, and in a line with the pillar. Then to his amazement, he saw the pillar topple and fall with a terrific splash into the lake, whose waters instantly closed over it, the only signs that it had ever stood there being the bubbles that rose to the surface as the mass of stone sank deeper and deeper towards the bottom.

Then the old Sheik returned and, drawing St. Just apart, took from his garment the miniature of the fair Halima which had but lately hung around St. Just's neck and had received the bullet aimed at him and thus saved his life.

"My son," he said, "I take it that the wish of your heart is to possess the woman whose picture I now hold. On the faith of this, I am about to tell you many things. But, before you hear them, you must swear by that which you rate above all other things that you will obey and be faithful to the commands that I shall give you."

And St. Just, because of his great love for Halima, blindly swore to do that which the Sheik should bid him.

Then the old man went on.

"Twelve hundred and fifty years after the coming of the Messiah to Jerusalem, one of my forefathers ruled in Egypt. Now the visitation of Christ gave rise to the prophecy that when a white man, a soldier, should come to us, Egypt would again be free. Now I, who am the last of the true princes of the land, believe you to be the man foretold, and it is for the furthering of my plans that I have brought you here. On the spot on which we stand, buried far beneath us, lies a city that was formerly one of the chief cities of the gods. Here their worship lingered for many years after the introduction of Christianity; then it vanished. In those troublous days my ancestor buried in the lake, which aforetime stretched even to the Nile, a vast treasure, marking the spot with the stone pillar upon which he had engraved his title—that pillar that was here but now. Now, the times in which he lived were so fraught with danger, that he entrusted the secret to but one person, with injunctions that it should be passed on at the death of one of the two who knew it, and so on for generations. Thus it came to me. The only other person who knew it died lately, so I tell it you. You will wonder at my destroying the pillar that marked the treasure's spot, but it had to be. Else it might have guided some marauder.

"Owing to some cause I am unable to explain and, it follows, unable to remove, the lake is falling foot by foot, and, in a few weeks, it will have dried up and become a portion of the desert, and the rocking pillar will soon be buried fathoms deep in sand. But enough of this for the present."

By this time the sun was getting low in the heavens, and the hour for the afternoon meal had come. When this was over, the old Sheik gave orders for the men to resume the staves, that had been distributed as torches, and to follow him.