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Show Qnumphs of Ok MJoiuiuell&M b& Melville Davisson Post r NEA Service . lnc THE LAUGHTER OF ALLAH Monsieur Jonqunlle, the Prefect of Police of Paris, told mo this Mory. We I were on tho deck of hln yacht in the Mediterranean; tho coast of Africa was In tho distance. We had been j talking of that strange, famous ESnff-i ESnff-i llshman whose tragi'- death In the North Sea had stirred the world. Why had he never married the I greatest Englishman ot his tlrm ' We I did not name him Monsieur Jon-Iquelle Jon-Iquelle railed him "Sir Renry" in the J story' The Prefect of Police of Par,- presented pre-sented the story though It Were n detached tali' of an oriental storj teller tell-er In a bazaar of Cairo. And I Lb t ened with my eye . lobed on tho coOl deck, moved slowly by the Iohr Swells listened to tho tragic love story of this strange, reserved famous Englishman who had lived lii i j i .- -tcry and died in mystery. Tho man who rode north from the eitudel along the Boulevard Mohammed Moham-med All, was n longer young. Tie t-at firmly In the saddle nnd to the distant ' . be tiros hard and lean like a hunu-r In condition, but his! face discolored by wind and sun, In repose, wus tired. It was un unusual face, seamed and 'Tossed with lim-.s, the mouth Mrm, almost harsh, With the muscles developed along) the jaw. Hut It wan not thru- features that lm-pressed lm-pressed ono. it was the man's extraordinary eyes They were large and sH far apart, 'J he color you Immediately saw a dark, metallic blue- thf blue Of certain re- mote spaces In the tropic sky. The litis drooped, giving the man an OJtprei- slon at once of serenity and menace, He rode a gray Arab, unO his clothes wero evidently the besr product or a Bond street tailor. He rode like a soldier like one accustomed to live days and nlghta In the saddle The man felt old and tired. The vast, eternal unchanging aspect as-pect of Egypt Oppressed him. Hero all human effort seemed equally futile. fu-tile. Here, as In India, one grew only old and accomplished nothing. And on this evening, he felt acuto-ly acuto-ly tne menace of l-gypt England hud nniy extended fingers on this great desert running soutn into Impenetratable mystery. She had only the peace pi the Dayone. and behind the indoh nee. the listless resignation of these, desert peoples, there seemed to lie a vast. Inherent hatred of the Invader that never lessened less-ened and that wuited always with an unfailing patience. In India this thing skulked in the distance, but here It j seemed to approach to be at hand. Perhaps what the man knew staged this Impression. The whole world of Islam wan uneasy. She had been de-j de-j spoiled In Turkey and shamed. She I felt that weak rulers for gain or the ! love of life, had held her In leash I when she ought to have been loosened with a great shout to a holy war. The j heads of Islam were quiet, but the I tribes were restless England, feeling always with her idellcato antennae, knew this and al-I al-I ways wise, moved first. She had .withdrawn this man trom India and sent him hero to set tn- butt of tho I Lee-Endfleld a little firmer In the sand south toward Khartum. He had a fortnight In Cairo before , he took up this tremendous labor, and 1 he used It to be free, to be alone, to ' ! ride when he liked without an orderly always at his heels It was great honor that England did him He might. In the end, Become Be-come viceroy or India or Sidar of Egypt. Hut, on this evening, he was 1 linpresseu with the value of what lie paid his youth had uceii required or him. Wlii n ne Bhould come up out of this desert, he would be old. And what had he got wnat would he gft out of these great honors' 1 The man rode nlowiy, holding tho nervous Aran in. The Htrango. m-congrous m-congrous current of the city passed him, but he was thinking of something some-thing else, and he gave It no attention atten-tion h There was another thing. He mused j iragpeiy. He had seen on this very I duy, in tho shade ot r magnificent flowering vine, a young soldier and an English girl. They were sitting on a bench, neither moved, and only their hands tOucned They did not speaK, and yet their faces were like the faces! of angels. j i 1 nis was a thing that he had always hated It wa not the enemy In the front that Tnrentened the army, it was these loving creatures In the rear. 'Ruthless anu dotermlnedi he had set his face against it. The army should he celioati Ann ho had broken and Ibowed out the men who would en- j cumber tneju Selves with u loving' heart. Weill he had lived by the rule himself him-self Tlvre hi.ii ie en 'hi woman about him on the frontiers of the empire' When he came, now and then, to Lon-'don. Lon-'don. the current of life In which they .moved, failed to touch him. They were creatures apart. Ho knew of them only what ap-I ap-I oeared beTore the eye. And, while ! he saw the beauty which they asseni- I , hied h .'.aw also th. thousand follies , j that seemed to give them pleasure and I he wondered In what mysterious) charm lay their appoltlng Influence' on his soldiers. j And on this evening, ftlone In this , rnyetrloii3 city, he began to be as-, as-, sailed by a curious cbttsumlng woi i dor. Ho beijnn to doubt the value of the one thing that he lfhd got-I 'ten out of life What was this oth-, j er thing that gave an Ignorant soldier 'and a. common housemaid, motionless and silent in tho shadows of a flow-lering flow-lering irlne the faces of angels? What did this mysterious word li mean that men used to designate thisii uud , xiv Know w me iovo m inv 'was, for ho had seen every Hort of creature fight desperately to live; and he know the lovo of gain und tho love of power. But men, all man, cvery-I cvery-I where, imperiled and abandoned these I things for the lovo of women, and they did It with no doubt, like one who trades glass for a Jewel? He reflected There was no virtue jir tho thing that he had. In the thln ifor which he traded away his life, thus to transfigure the human face. ,v J when ne should come up out of this great desert south toward Khartum, he would be old' Suddenly he realised that the horse could not go on, and that he was controlling con-trolling It with difficulty. Ho had traversed tho Rue Muskl. skirted the Place Esbeklya and was about to cross the Kamel Pasha, that short boulevard entering tho Placo Esbeklya from tho north, when a procosslon stopped him. Tho sacred carpet had arrived from Mecca. Tho streets before him were gorged with people, and fho whole city echoed with weird Oriental cries-There cries-There was little new to him In th orgy of thesa native ceremonies, with their riot of sound and color, and their vast medley of tribes assembled from the waste places of th- erth. For moment, a a soldier, he approved ap-proved the precaution taken by the Enfllth authorities- . company of He Realised That the Horse Could 'd (.() I !l troops thrown In. here and there, to divide the tribes and the horde of natives na-tives that surged along with every color, and with every sort of cry. and every extravagant gesture. Hfl approved, too, the diplomoey that gave these regiments a gala air with their bands of music. M though they rivaled the Arab and the fellah In doing honor to the holy relic, while, In fact, they held the fingers of England Eng-land on the city lest they slip off In a "udden rising of these native hordes. Then his mind returned to Its reflection, re-flection, with an Idle ' Interest he Watched the strange. half-naked, primeval creatures Uiat appeared, Issuing Is-suing out of the vast limitless ocean Of -and that lay endlessly to the south, from trills, old and unchanged since the days of Abraham creatures from the uncharted deeps of tho Sahara, Sa-hara, naked and subsisting llko the Kaptlst. What lay far off there in the dead cities of this sand-swept wilderness whence camo these mad men, gaunt, covered with hair, and Infinitely old, no human creature could say. Perhaps the muglclan and the wizard of old limes lived on there. And there In an lent tombs, In honeycombed walls sifting full of sand, In strange wilderness wil-derness eternally dead nnd silent old wise men abode who knew the ancient formulas by which the Inexorable course of nature could be turned aside Perhaps they maintained there to this day that mysterious power which the sacred books of all religions agree that certain dread members of the race possessed iu the morning of the world. And the streaming horde, with Its cries and colors, slashed and Intersected Inter-sected by smart European regiment, mingling the drum and the Highland pipe with the walllngs of the desert became a thing unreal a fantastic background for that other mystery that so profoundly disturbed the man. And while he sat In the saddle looking look-ing down at these wild people of the desert, another looked down at him. A woman, accompanied by the resident resi-dent doctor and a maid, entered the English hotel on the other side of the square, crossed the- foyer and got into the lift As she passed, a little dapper man, bald, dressed like a tailor's print, nnd with the air of one who Is a so- lal register, spoke x his companions pouring a cup of tea at a table by the wall. ' That's Xolly Landsear used to be a famous Southern beauty In the SUites. Jove! She's gone to pieces! Had a devil of a life I Married Brlst-ed Brlst-ed Ames dirty little beast! My word, she was a wonder once! Hooks flft todav." And he began to tell tho dramatic story of this woman and the creature I that she had married, the story of a, tireless effort to keep a weakling on his feet, to make a man of him. The story over again of Daude's "Ivlnirs In Exile ' A storv that was a tragedy of failures. Another Installment f this thriuine; story will appear In our next Issue. |