The girl continued, “I would have carried out his orders but for an
incident I have never forgotten. As I was about to swing myself over
the rail, a gentleman came up to hand me a handkerchief I had dropped
in my excitement. He kept talking to me, not realizing, I suppose, my
true intentions.”
Carl, his mouth half-opened in astonishment and looking at her as if
dazed, reached across the table to clasp her hand, when she said, “I
believe it was you who saved my life.”
Silently they gazed at each other, the tears coming to their eyes.
The girl had difficulty to keep from crying aloud, while Carl, deeply
moved, could find no word to relieve the situation. Words are helpless
things at times and at best they fail to convey our true feelings.
Volumes were spoken in silence by the look in their eyes and the
pressure of Carl’s hand.
The girl’s hands trembled in his clasp, although he felt a slight
pressure of them on his own. He drew one hand away to reach for a
handkerchief so that she might dry her eyes. For a moment the gaze of
the few people still present, caused him embarrassment. What he would
have liked to have done was to take her in his arms, to console her and
kiss the tears away.
Steeling herself against the emotion which was striving to get the
better of her, Sana dried her eyes and attempted to smile. It was like
the first sunbeam that shoots from out the rifts of the departing
storm clouds. It served to restore the equilibrium which had been so
sorely disturbed by the emotional interlude.
It was difficult for them to continue the conversation on this subject,
so they had some refreshments, talking the while of everything and
nothing. It was the most natural thing for the conversation to drift
back to New York, and drift there it did.
They spoke of many things of mutual interest. Carl told her of his work
at home, of his books, and why he visited the Sahara. Still puzzled
though as to why Sana should be here in the desert, he asked her the
reason.
“That, too, is part of my story. But I shall begin at a point before I
was born.
“As a youth, Baron von Seckt was the ‘black sheep’ of a family of
the German nobility. He was what you Americans call a good sport,
squandering his parents’ money and contracting debts. Naturally he was
much mixed up in social affairs and was the cause of many a family
‘row.’
“At last his escapades became too much for his father, who decided that
the son would have to go either to America or Africa. The young man
selected the latter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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