When he would have staggered blindly up from the cushions she was on him with a whirlwind of left and right hand hooks. Then came jabs, swings, swats, wallops, biffs and bangs! And hammerlocks, half Nelsons, strangle and toe-holds! This way and that! All Tawd and the other fellows had ever taught her she was using. She wouldn't leave enough of him to crawl through a rat-hole. A vamp of violence and vengeance working at top form was then Verbeena Mayonnaise! "Spaghetti!" squealed the Sheik Amut ardently. His faithful servant's pallid face appeared in the flapway. Only to see his august, beloved chieftain on all fours with Verbeena just mounting his back. "O, momma! O, polpetteenies!" gasped Spaghetti. "You keep out of this, Mac, or you'll get yours!" warned the fightin' flapper with flashing eyes which shone from her face. "Sapristi, Queena Verbeena! Escusa! I come only to maka aska what you lika for eata? What da nica, sweeta lady she lika for deener, eh?" "_Duck!_" said Verbeena. Silently, swiftly the perfect servant withdrew. The while Verbeena had not for an instant paused in massaging Sheik Amut. She was all dressed, you remember, for riding and when she got on the back of the once proud devil of the desert she gave him the spurs. And then the hat-pin. His screams to Allah could have been heard in Mecca. His wild horses strained at their tethers, neighing piteously at the frightful cries arising from the canvas abbatoir that had once been the happy bachelor apartments of the Sheik Amut Ben Butler. The humps of the camels grew pale with fright and misery. The swash-buckling horde of Amut's men, after getting what strings of information they could from the gasping Spaghetti, took to the palm trees from whence they tried to make it plain to Allah that their beloved master had gone up against a _sheitana_, which the same is a lady devil of the first water, and that really something should be done to save him but that nothing--nothing short of heaven could really avail. Meanwhile, the proud Verbeena just roweled that lofty, haughty boy to rags. And ever, ever, ever, ever, always the hatpin! The more he reared to plunge the fairer the mark. Truly now had he become what first she had called him--a Shriek. But as not less than a thousand shrieks sounded the plentifully punctured passionut of the Sahara! Besides ordinary damage his proud soul goosefleshed with horror. His hauteur became hiatic. And yet--and yet how wonderful she was! _What a marvelously active Verbie!_ He felt the stirrings in his heart of a love, ponderose, grandiose, glamorous, stupendous! It was indeed very dominant in his veins just about the time she slammed him back on the cushions and slapped his face for him good. Her vibrant tones in spite of the inner cries of protest of his desiccated manhood he found adorable as to him then she said: