"The truth now," said the distinguished novelist, "is on the point of bursting forth! "Amut is that woman's son!" "Mr. Hitchings!" "I don't wonder that you are surprised. Amut was too when he heard it. We all were! You see my father was in America at the time and the Sheik was in China and so they met. By the same chain of circumstances, Amut and I were both educated in Siberia. You understand? But even if you don't, I don't either. Still it is explanatory, is it not?" "Mr. Hitchings!" "Beg pardon." "Let me get you a fresh green carnation." She pinned it on him. They grow freely in the desert. But she said emphatically: "The story, sir, is wholly unworthy of you." "Good heavens!" said Mr. Hitchings in ineffable alarm. "This isn't my stuff! How could you think it? How ridiculous of me to have permitted myself to be persuaded by Amut to try and put this over! I regret the attempt abysmally. Right now, hear me, fair lady: I wash my hands of the Hull thing!" "Friendship may excuse this conduct of yours," said Verbeena coldly. "But how, if you are also English, is it that Amut makes a friend of you?" "Now, there's something else again, isn't it? Just as if a rebellious Sheik around here for an instant would make a bosom friend of a Frenchman. It's a desperately silly story all the way through and I surely apologize and--O--what?" Verbeena had seized both hands and just wouldn't let go. "Forget it," she was saying. "I've something much more important." Her eyes flamed. "Will you--O, will you, my dear Mr. Hitchings, do a moving picture for me?" "I most certainly will," replied Mr. Hitchings, "immediately--of a man packing his grip." "But I beg of you, who is he? For God's sake, listen to a woman's plea! Solve this mystery of me lord's true identity!" By this time, however, Mr. Hitchings had engaged the drawing room of a camel and was navigating the Sahara by means of the good, old, honorable North Star. CHAPTER XI Mr. Hitchings was in such a hurry hurtling off the Sahara with a broken climax that he left some things behind. There were two collar buttons, a large piece of dignity and a newspaper clipping. The collar buttons Verbeena knew she would be able to use, she kicked the lost dignity aside but stood interested in the newspaper clipping. Logically too. It was about her. "MISS MAYONNAISE MUCHLY MISSING." Such was the headline in the Biscuit _Bismallah_. And the article went on to say: "The world is in stupendous alarm over the disappearance of Miss Verbeena Mayonnaise who left the Hotel Biscuit here without her bacon and eggs more than a month ago or giving the clerk her forwarding address. She even forgot to pay her bill. "Her intention was to take a jaunty junket into the far wild places of the Sahara and it would appear that she has. "Not a squeak has been heard from Miss Mayonnaise since.