Show nil 14 17 SYNOPSIS george percival val algernon jones vice president e 1 ident of the metropolitan oriental rr hug 1 company of 0 new york th asting for or romance is in cairo on a bus ness trip horace bryanne arrives at tle tl e hotel in cairo with a carefully guarded bundle bryanne sella sells jones the famous holy ahl ordes rug which he adm ts having sto e en s from a pasha at bagdad jones mee meets t major ca lahan and later Is introduced to fortune Ched soye by a woman to who whom m he had loaned pounds at monte car carlo 1 0 some months previously and who turns out to be fortune a mother jones takes mr Ched soye and fortune to a polo game fortune returns to jones the money borrowed by her mother mr mrs Ched soye appears to engaged in so some mysterious mst erious enterprise unknown to the da ahter bryanne interests jones in the united romance and adventure corn pany a concern which tor for a price w 11 II arrange any kind of an adventure to or der mrs Ched soye her brother major gallahan fal Val lahan wallace and ryan e as the united romance and adventure company plan I 1 a risky enterprise involving jones van bryanne n akes known to mrs Ched soye his intention to marry fortune mrs Ched soye declares she will not permit it plans are laid to prevent tones sailing for home avanne steals jones letters and cable dispatches he wires agent in new york in jones name that he is renting house in new york to some som friends mahomed keeper of the holy holy carpet Is on bryanne s trail bryanne promises fortune that he will see that promises jones omes comes to no har n as a result of his purchase chase of the rug mahon ed accosts bryanne and demands the Yh lordes rue rug bryanne tells him jones has the rug and suggests eug geets the abduction of the new york merchant as a means of securing its re turn the rug d sap pears from jones room fortune quarrels with her mother when the latter refutes to explain her mys my erious a eions fort ne gets a mes bage purporting to be from bryanne ask ing her to meet him in a secluded place that evening jones receives a message asking him to meet bryanne at the bar the same evening jones Is carried off into the desert by bv mahomed and his accomplices after a desperate fight he discovers that bryanne and fortune also are captives the former la Is badly battered and unconscious bryanne recovers con ness and the sight of fortune in captivity reveals to him the tact fact that mahomed intends to get vengeance on him through the arl g rl fortune elges that she stole the rug from jones room she otters offers to return it to Ma mahomed horned it if he will free all three of them ma homed horned agrees to I 1 berate fortune and one of the men in return for or the rug A cour ler ter la Is sent to cairo tor for the rue rug but re turns with the information that mrs Ched soye and her brother have sal sat ed for new york fortune spurns offered free dorn which does not include her two corn the caravan continues the jour ney toward bagdad bryanne tells jones that mrs airs Ched soye Is the most smuggler of the age and Is overheard bv by fortune the three captives are rescued by henry ackermann who is in charge of 0 a carpet caravan mahomed escapes CHAPTER continued we might as well well get fortune s things out of the way too celeste yes madame and bring my chocolate at halt half after eight in the morning it Is qi ite its possible that we shall sail tomorrow night from port said if not from there from alexandria it all depends upon the booking which can not be very heavy going west this time of year As madame knows came from the depth of the cavernous trunk celeste was no longer surprised at least she never evinced this emotion for twelve years now she had gone from one end of the globe to the other upon the shortest notice while surprise was lost to her or under such con arol as to render it negligible she still shivered with pleasurable excitement at the thought of entering a port madame was so clever so transcend trans cen dently clever it if she celeste had not been loyal she might have retired long ago and owned a shop of her own in the busy rue de divoll but th thit tt would have brieant a humdrum ex istance and besides she would have grown fat which of the seven hor bors confronting woman BO so madame bald said was first in number be very careful how you handle that blue ball gown oh madame reproachfully it Is the silver braid do not press the rosettes too harshly celeste looked up mrs airs Ched soye answered her inquiring gaze with a thin smile you are wonderful madame and so are you celeste in your way at ten clock mrs Ched soye was ready tor for her pillow she slept fit fully awoke at eleven and again at twelve after that she knew nothing more till the maid roused her with the cup of chocolate she sat up and sipped slowly celeste waited at the bedside with the tray her admira tion tor for her mistress never waned mrs Ched soye was just as beautiful in dishabille as in a ball gown she drained the cup and as she turned to replace it upon the tray dropped it with a clatter a startled cry coming from her lips madame fortune a bed bedl 1 it had not been slept in the steamer cloak lay across the counter pane exactly where celeste herself had laid it the night before mrs Ched soye sprang out of her bed and ran barefoot to the other fortune had not been in the room since dinner time celeste dress me as quickly as possible hurry something has happened to fortune never in all her years of service could she recollect such a toilet as madame made that morning and bever never before had she shown such con corn over her daughter it was abaz 1 ing I 1 the little fool the little tool 8 la 18 ibias Cheda Ched oye soye repeatedly murmured as the nimble fingers of the maid flew over her the silly little tool fool and at a time like this not that re morse of any kind stirred mrs ched soye s conscience she was simply ex annoyed she hastened out into the corridor and knocked at the door of her broth er s roon no answer she flew down stairs and there she saw him coming in from the street he greet ed I 1 er cheerily its it s all right kate plenty of room on the L ludwig u dwig we shall take the aft ernson train for port said she sails at dawn tomorrow to morrow instead ot of to night what s up 7 suddenly noticing his sister s face fortune did not return to her room last night where do you suppose the little tool fool went ment thena they both seemed to look upon for tune as a little tool fool yesterday she threatened to run away run awaya kate be sensible how the deuce could she run away awaya she chasn u t a penny it tales tal es money to go anywhere over here she has probably found some girl friend and has spent the night with her we 11 soon find out where she Is the ma jor wasn gasn t worried have you seen horace with dis nible anxiety no I 1 didn dian t wait up for him he lie s sleeping off a night of it you know his falling failing find out it if he Is in his room go to the porter porters s bureau and inquire for both him and jones the major perceiving that his sister was genuinely alarmed rushed over to the bureau no neither mr ry anne nor mr jones hid had been in the hotel since yesterday would the por ter send some one up to the rooms of those gentlemen to make sure no there was no one in the rooms the major was now himell perturbed he went back to mrs Ched soye kate neither has been in his room since yesterday if you want my opinion it is this hoddy has seques jones all right and Is some where in town sleeping off the effects of a night of it he has run away with rort fortune unet she cited her expression wa was tragic she couldn coulden t have told whether it was due to her daughter daughters s disappearance or to horace horaces s detection defection did he not threatens 7 9 sh slit not so loud kate the little simpleton defied me es berday and declared she would leave me C y n ROLD M MG of HEARTS AND MD ra cho MAN lykan ON 01 THE TM BOX ca y r pap 1911 by apan Y 4 bulletin bullet inboard board returned to the he win dows and watched the feluccas sail past as the great bridge opened and during all these aimless occupations 1 but a single thought busied her mind I 1 what could a man like horace see in a chit like fortune 7 it was an hour and a half before the major put in an appearance he ile was war out of breath and temper come up to the room once there he sat down and bade her do likewise there s the devil to pay you heard hodd speak of 0 the v ho guard ed the holy and that he wanted to get out of cairo before he turned upa well he turned up he lie fooled hoddy to the top of h s bent so tar far as I 1 could learn fortune and hoddy and jones are all in the same boat kidnapped by the mahomed and carried out into the desert headed god knows where I 1 now don t get ex cited take it easy luck is ith us tor for hoddy left all the diagrams with me we need him but not so much that we can t go on withof bif vif chim him you see these arabs are like the hin ein dus touch anything that concerns conc errs their religion and they 11 have your hair off how ilow fortune 7 got into it I 1 cant can t imagine unless mahomed saw her with hoddy and jumped to the conclusion that they were lovers all this mahomed wants is the rug and he is going to hold them till he gets it no use notifying the police no one would know where to find him none of them will come to actual harm anyhow the coast la is clear kate there s a big thil g in front no nerves we ve got to go to day time is everything our butler and first man cabled this morning that they had just started in and that every thing was running like clockwork clock work we 11 get into new york in time for the coup remember I 1 was against the choie ft hole business at the start but now I 1 ni going to see it off feverishly mrs Ched soye prepared for the journey she was irritable to celeste she was nas unbearable to her brother who took a seat in a forward compartment to be rid of her it was only when they went aboard the steamer that night that she became reconciled to the inevitable at any rate the presence of jones would counteract any influence horace might have gained over fortune that the three of them might suffer un heard of miseries rever formed fortune did not return to her roo roon n last night the major fingered his im penal that puts a new face to the subject but jones 1 he ile has not turned up we can not move till we find out what has become of him I 1 know III I 1 II 11 jump into a carriage and see it if he got aa as far aa as the english bar mrs Ched soye did not go upstairs up stairs but paced the lounging room lithe and frequently she paused as if examining the patterns in the huge carpets she entered the recep tion room came back wandered off into the ballroom ball room stopped to inspect the announcement hanging upon the V tt thought in her mind it appealed to her in the sense of a comedy which annoyed rather than amused her they were greeted effusively by wallace he of the bulbous nose and his first inquiry BBS was of bryanne brief ly the major told him what bad had hap bened and added his tears fears wallace was greatly cast down hoddy had so set his heart upon this venture that it was a shame to proceed without him he ile had warned him at the be ginning about that infernal rug but hoddy was always set in hia his daredevil schemes so long aa as the major had hd a the plans he supposed that they could turn the trick without hoddy a assis ance only it seemed rather hard for him not to be in the sport he told me that nothing would give him greater ileaure plea ure than to stick his fist in the first bag of yellow boys u nas as something mysterious in he way he wed tided to chuckle over the thing when I 1 first sprung it on him he saw a joke somewhere lets let go into the smoke room for a peg it won wont t hurt either of 0 us and that poor little girl it s a hell of a world eh h 9 the major admitted that it was but he d d not no add that fortune fortunes s wel fare or III fare was of little or no con cern of his the little spitfire had bad always openly despised him they were drinking silently and mo rosely when mrs Ched soye pale and anxious ap reared in the companion way A ay she beckoned them to follow her down to her cabin had fortune arrived had she did not answer arriving at her cabin she pi shed the two wondering men inside and pointed at the floor A large steamer roll lay uns rapped spread out I 1 only just opened it she said I 1 never thought of looking into it at cairo here it looked so bulky that I 1 was curious why its that damned Yh lordes exclaimed the major wrathfully what the devil is it doieg in for tune s steamer roll rolla that is what I 1 should like to know it if they have been in order to recover the rug whatever will become of thema and mrs Ched aoe e touched the rug with her foot absently she was repeating in her mind that childish appeal you don t know how loyal I 1 should have been they took the first good sailing out of naples twelve days later they landed at the toot foot of fourteenth street there was some trifling biffl culty over the rug it had been de dared but as mrs airs Ched soye and her bretl er always declared foreign reel denoe dence there was a question as to whether it was dutiable or not being a copy it was not an original work of art therefore not exempt and so forth akerso and so on it was finally decad ed that mrs Cheda Ched oye soye must pay a duty the major paid very cleverly assuming an irritability well known to the inspectors the way vay the united states government mulcted her citizens tor for the benefit of the few was a scandal of the nations A smooth faced young man ap pro preached ached them from out the crowd Is this major Callahan 7 9 yes this must be mr reynolds the agent yes everything Is ready forvour for your occupancy your butler and first man have ever thing shipshape I 1 could have turned over to you drw mr jones not at all not at all said the ma jor they would have been strangers to us and we to them our own ants are best you must be ary good friends of my client I 1 have known him for years said mrs Ched soye sweetly it was at bis his own suggestion that we take the house over for the month he really insisted that we should pay him noth ing but of course such an arrangement could not be thought of oh good by mr wallace tolerantly we hope to see you again some day wallace taking up his ills role once more tipped his hat and rushed away tor for one of his favorite haunts bounder growled the major well well a ship ships s deck Is always liberty hall you have turned your belongings over to an 7 9 asked the agent these were charming people and any doubts he be might have enter tallied dissipated and why should be he have any jones was an eccentric young chap anyhow an explanatory letter written by the major in jones careless hand backed up by a cable was enough authority tor for any reasonable man everything Is out of the way said the major aken if you wish I 1 can take you right up to the house in my car your butler said that he would have lunch ready when you arrived very kind of you how noisy new nev york Is I 1 you can take ou our r hand lug mrs Ched soye would have made st anthony uneasy of mind reynolds young alive metaphorically fell at her feet plenty of room tor for it I 1 am glad of that you see mr jones In trusted a fine old rug to us to bring I 1 ome for him and I 1 t want anything to happen to it the major looked up at the root roof of the dingy shed he ile did not care to have reynolds Key no e the flicker of ad nitration mi ration in his eyes the cleve cleverest rest woman of them all the posit ve and he would not have thought of it ouch touch to the whole daredevil affair IV an tk ON 1 you see mr jones In trusted a pine fine rug to Us to bring home for him had he lived to be a thousand one might as well disembark in a stable he said aloud ah ali I 1 we are |