WOT. Of CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELE% 
 
COPYRIQHT BY EDMONSTON, WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
 ZELDA 
 
DOUGLAS 
 
 BY 
 
 HIRAM W. HAYES 
 
 Author of "Paul Anthony, Christian" "The Man of Clay," 
 "The Peacemakers," and Others. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY EDMONSTON 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE HOWERTON PRESS 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. 
 
Copyright, 1912, by Hiram W. Hayes 
 
 Registered at Stationers' Hall 
 London, England 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I AN UNANSWERED QUESTION ... 1 
 
 II WHY AND WHEREFORE .... 13 
 
 III AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE . 23 
 
 IV THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS ... 43 
 V A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE ... 55 
 
 VI THE FAITH OF AHAB 74 
 
 VII WHY DOUGLAS DRANK .... 85 
 
 VIII A DESERT EXPERIENCE .... 101 
 
 IX THE GARDEN OF JOY 116 
 
 X ZELDA 129 
 
 XI THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION . 141 
 
 XII A DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT . . 155 
 
 XIII DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN . . 166 
 
 XIV THE DAWN 178 
 
 XV THE STORY OF ANNA 190 
 
 XVI THE NATURE OF GOD . . . . 211 
 
 XVII A LESSON IN BEING 222 
 
 XVIII A FEAST OF REASON 233 
 
 XIX DOUGLAS TAKES AN ASSIGNMENT . 244 
 
 XX THE LIGHTER SIDE 259 
 
 XXI DOING SOMETHING FOR SOMEBODY . 270 
 
 XXII A FEW POINTERS ON LAW ... 282 
 
 XXIII THE WISDOM OF ZELDA .... 293 
 
 XXIV THE FIRST PROOF 304 
 
 XXV THE WAY OF SALVATION .... 314 
 
 XXVI DOUGLAS ACCEPTS A TRUST . . . 324 
 
 XXVII DOUGLAS AND I DISAGREE . . . 335 
 
 XXVIII THE GREAT QUESTION ANSWERED . 343 
 
 21.304G3 
 
DOUGLAS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AN UNANSWERED QUESTION. 
 
 THIS is the true story of one mortal man the story 
 of his comings-in and his goings-out; his fortunes and 
 his misfortunes; his triumphs and his disappointments; 
 his hopes and his fears, his quests and his discoveries 
 and his progress out of the darkness of despair into 
 the broad sunlight of faith and understanding. 
 
 It is the story of a man whom many of you have met 
 in your goings to and fro, and your walkings up and 
 down throughout the world; and you will speedily 
 recognize him and wonder how anyone ever became 
 intimate enough with him to gather the details of his 
 life as herein set forth, because many of the things he 
 has confided to me are the foibles and fears that few 
 will admit even to themselves. 
 
 Recalling my first meeting with him, I know that I 
 often wonder how I ever became his confidant but I 
 did, and it is upon his personal request that I have 
 written down the story of his life, with a brief outline 
 of its vicissitudes, happenings and adventures. 
 
 As you progress with the story provided you be- 
 come sufficiently interested to get beyond the first 
 chapter, you will easily perceive that I must have 
 
 1 
 
2 DOUGLAS 
 
 known even his thoughts, to have set forth some of 
 the matters herein detailed; but you will also under- 
 stand that for the telling of this story it was absolutely 
 necessary that he should reveal to me the most secret 
 impulses, emotions and desires by which he was moved 
 to this or that action. 
 
 In fact, to make a long story short, you will discover 
 that there has not been a single passion or motive of 
 his life, which he has not revealed to me for the purpose 
 of this narrative. 
 
 Why should any man, you will ask much less 
 this one wish to bare his innermost soul to the 
 scrutiny of an inquisitive and critical world ? The 
 answer will be found in the question. It is because 
 the world is inquisitive always seeking knowledge 
 either of good or evil, and for either a good or evil 
 purpose. And it is the belief of this particular man 
 that it is most frequently a knowledge of good for a 
 good purpose. It is his belief that most men in fact I 
 think he says all men would be better if they knew 
 how. As he views their inquisitiveness, it is simply a 
 desire to acquire something better than their present 
 knowledge and thus better their condition. In their 
 quest many fail. It is in the hope, therefore, that 
 through the perusal of the record of his bitter experi- 
 ence, these inquisitive persons these harmless in- 
 quisitors may be able to better themselves, that he 
 desires his story told. 
 
 My meeting with this man was so commonplace that 
 we were never formally introduced and I came to know 
 him only as I heard him refer to himself. I was 
 unable at that time to decide whether it was his Chris- 
 
AN UNANSWERED QUESTION 3 
 
 tian or surname, and that those who read this history 
 may have the same pleasurable experience in figuring 
 it out that I did, I shall refer to him simply as Douglas 
 which is quite sufficient for the purpose of this narrative. 
 
 Commonplace though our meeting was, I shall never 
 forget it. There are features connected with it inci- 
 dents pertaining to succeeding events as well as to that 
 particular event which stamp it indelibly upon my 
 memory. 
 
 It was the night following the terrible eruption of 
 the volcano of Mt. Pelee. It had been a strenuous 
 time for every man on the paper; but so absorbed had 
 all of us been with the details that I am sure none of 
 us had noted our physical condition. I know that I 
 had not, for although it was now more than an hour 
 past midnight and I had been on duty since two o'clock 
 the previous afternoon with only a few minutes for 
 dinner and a still shorter time for luncheon at the 
 counter in the composing-room while I looked over the 
 make-up of the mail edition I had never felt the 
 burden of the work, or the responsibility, so little. 
 
 The edition having gone to press, I had come down 
 stairs to my desk and was lighting my pipe before look- 
 ing over the galley proofs which the boy had just hung 
 on my hook. As I held the match to the tobacco and 
 took a few vigorous puffs, I chanced to glance through 
 the cloud of smoke I had created and there before me 
 stood the man of whom I am about to write. He was 
 glancing casually at an afternoon edition that lay spread 
 out on the table and seemed to feel my gaze upon him, 
 for he turned from the paper exclaiming: 
 
 "Terrible, isn't it?" 
 
4 DOUGLAS 
 
 Of course I knew what he meant. No one was 
 thinking about anything else, and so I replied as I still 
 held the match to my pipe: 
 
 "Worst since Pompeii." 
 
 "Suppose you had been there!" he said. 
 
 I threw away the match and taking the proofs from 
 the hook began to run over them as I replied : 
 
 "Well, suppose I had?" 
 
 "Where would you be now?" he asked tremulously. 
 
 I took my pipe from between my teeth and blew a 
 great cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. 
 
 "That doesn't answer my question," he snapped 
 almost fiercely it seemed to me. 
 
 "It's the best I can do." 
 
 "Then you admit you don't know?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly," I replied. "Do you ?" 
 
 A look of fear that was almost pitiable came into his 
 eyes as he exclaimed: 
 
 "No; but I must." 
 
 The expression on his face and the tone of his voice 
 both seemed to awaken a responsive thought in my own 
 consciousness and I again removed my pipe from 
 between my teeth and regarded him earnestly. 
 
 "Yes, I must!" he continued, speaking rather to 
 himself than to me. "I must know what would 
 become of me if I were suddenly snuffed out as were 
 those thousands at St. Pierre. I must know whether 
 that would have been the end or whether as the 
 preachers say I should have continued my existence 
 in some place dependent upon my manner of life here. 
 Furthermore, if the preachers are right, I must know 
 
AN UNANSWERED QUESTION 5 
 
 where those two places commonly designated as 
 heaven and hell are." 
 
 "How do you expect to find out ?" I asked, more to 
 hear what he would reply than with any expectation of 
 a coherent answer for I had about made up my 
 mind that the man before me was mentally unbalanced. 
 
 Again upon his face came that look of fear, and, as he 
 took a step toward me, he replied in a husky voice: 
 
 "I don't know, but I must." 
 
 "Why?" I asked with a mocking laugh. "Why 
 must you know? What difference will it make? If 
 there has been a place fixed, that's where you'll go. 
 You can't change it, so what's the use of worrying 
 about it?" 
 
 "It's the uncertainty of it." he exclaimed. "The 
 terrible uncertainty. Don't you understand?" 
 
 Yes, I understood perfectly. I had had a touch of 
 the same thing myself; and in my newspaper experience 
 I had seen many men men of strength and courage 
 blanch and tremble and sweat great drops while 
 awaiting some terrible ordeal; yet when brought face 
 to face with the danger when in the midst of the 
 trial they were as calm and unmoved as though 
 undergoing the most simple experience of daily life. 
 
 Perceiving by my looks that I understood his mean- 
 ing, my visitor continued : 
 
 "There must be some way of solving the mystery. 
 It is not within reason that man was brought into 
 existence with no way of finding out whence he came 
 and whither he is going. It is as though I should 
 suddenly find myself engaged in some great under- 
 
6 DOUGLAS 
 
 taking and should say to those about me: 'How did I 
 come into this work, what is the object of it and what 
 am I to do after it is finished ? ' And the only reply I 
 should get would be: 'It doesn't matter. Just you 
 keep on working, Douglas, and leave the rest to the 
 man in charge.' How much use do you think I'd be?" 
 
 "I should say it would depend a good deal upon 
 how much confidence you had in the man in charge." 
 
 Douglas laughed a mirthless laugh: "If I didn't 
 know any more about him than I do about the Being 
 who is running the universe, I would not have much, 
 would I?" 
 
 "I can't say that you would." 
 
 "Can't you say that I wouldn't?" he exclaimed with 
 that same fierceness which seemed characteristic of his 
 nature. 
 
 "I suppose I can if that will help you any," I replied, 
 considerably nettled by his manner. 
 
 "It will help me a lot." 
 
 "How?" I asked in surprise. 
 
 "By corroborating my reasoning. I shall feel better 
 if I find that some one else sees the foolishness of this 
 whole matter the same as I do." 
 
 While this was entirely a new idea, it struck me as a 
 reasonable one and appealed to me as a touch of that 
 human nature which has caused some one to say that 
 misery loves company. Furthermore, it convinced me 
 that Douglas, as he called himself, was not so unbalanced 
 as I had thought. 
 
 "Won't you sit down?" I asked, as I pushed one of 
 the office chairs towards him, and seated myself at my 
 desk. 
 
AN UNANSWERED QUESTION 7 
 
 He took the proffered seat without a word and I 
 began looking over the proofs. For some minutes 
 there was silence and I had almost forgotten his pres- 
 ence until, glancing up from the column of print before 
 me, I found his eyes fastened upon me. To interrupt 
 his gaze I asked: 
 
 "Pardon me, are you waiting for some one?" 
 
 He started at my words as one aroused from a 
 dream and replied: "Yes. I wanted to see the 
 managing editor." 
 
 "He's gone for the night," I explained. "I'm his 
 assistant. Is there anything I can do for you ?" 
 
 "Why " he answered in a hesitating manner, 
 "you see I spent some time in Martinique a couple 
 of years ago and I didn't know but I could write you 
 a little something that might be of interest at this time." 
 Then, as an afterthought: "I've traveled quite a bit." 
 
 "Any pictures?" I asked. 
 
 "A basket full, I guess." 
 
 "Bring them in the first thing in the morning," I 
 said, "together with any thing you can write. We'll 
 take all you can give us at double space rates. You're 
 in the habit of writing, are you ? " I asked as he arose. 
 
 "Been at it all my life." 
 
 "That's not very definite," I laughed as I glanced 
 him over with somewhat more interest, thinking he 
 might be anywhere from twenty-four to forty-four, 
 "but I've no doubt it's long enough." 
 
 He smiled a little grimly as he replied: "Yes, I am 
 a bit of an enigma like everything else in life. I'll 
 bring the stuff and photos in before noon. See you 
 later," and he bowed himself out in a manner that 
 
8 DOUGLAS 
 
 corroborated his statement that he had traveled "quite 
 a bit." 
 
 "Some free lance who went out during the war with 
 Spain," I thought to myself as I turned to my proofs. 
 "I shouldn't be surprised if he turns in some pretty 
 good stuff." 
 
 I was not mistaken. When I came down to the 
 office the following day I found the story on my desk 
 where the managing editor had laid it, together with a 
 note saying that he had ordered a full page of the 
 pictures made. A man who had not traveled could not 
 have written such a story. It was redolent with 
 the atmosphere of the Antilles and the life of its people. 
 It was full of little incidents that gave to the narrative a 
 touch of human interest and filled the heart of the 
 reader with the deepest sympathy for those of the 
 unfortunates who had survived the eruption, but who 
 were without food or shelter. It was just exactly such 
 a story as we needed, and I thanked my lucky stars 
 for "Douglas" whoever he might be. I was not sur- 
 prised, therefore, to recognize in the signature which 
 he had placed at the end, one of the best known 
 noms de plume of the day. 
 
 Later on, about the same hour as on the previous 
 night I should say he dropped in on me again. 
 
 "Was the stuff all right ?" he asked. 
 
 "Fine," I replied. "Here is an order on the count- 
 ing room for $100. I don't think you can get it before 
 morning, however." 
 
 He mechanically made as if to put the little slip of 
 paper in his vest pocket as he said in a faraway sort of 
 voice: "There's no hurry. I don't need it." 
 
AN UNANSWERED QUESTION 9 
 
 "That's no reason why you should lose it," I said as 
 I stooped down and picked up the check which had 
 not gone where he thought it had, but had fluttered to 
 the floor. 
 
 He smiled as he took it from my hand, and this time 
 put it away with a little more care. 
 
 "Money never did mean much to me," he said 
 apologetically, "and I've sometimes thought that is 
 the reason why I have had such a hard time trying to be 
 somebody." 
 
 "I don't know as I understand your philosophy," 
 I replied, seeing he was disposed to talk. 
 
 "Why," he returned with considerable more anima- 
 tion, "can't you see that if you don't value money, you 
 simply throw it away, 'burn it up,' as the saying 
 is?" 
 
 "That's every man's privilege, I reckon." 
 
 "No, it is not," replied Douglas with decision. 
 "Money stands for something in this world. Inas- 
 much as it brings us pretty nearly everything we want, 
 I can see that it ought to stand for a great good. 
 Therefore, it should be used for a good purpose not 
 to be squandered on things which do us no good 
 even though they are not a positive injury." 
 
 "And how does that apply to you ?" I asked. 
 
 "Why, riot appreciating the real value of money, I 
 have squandered it and thereby become a nobody." 
 
 "You don't think that money makes the man, do 
 you?" 
 
 "No, but the thing that money stands for does 
 or if it does not entirely it helps." 
 
 "How?" 
 
10 DOUGLAS 
 
 "That is a question that cannot be answered in a 
 sentence," he replied. 
 
 "All right. Then take two," I laughed. 
 
 He smiled: ''I don't want to take up your time, if 
 you are busy?" 
 
 "I am not so busy I cannot listen to that." 
 
 "Well then, if money stands for a great good a 
 means for doing good cannot you see if a man appre- 
 ciates that and spends his money in doing good, he can 
 become somebody?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," I replied, "I can see that readily." 
 
 "Well then, the more money a man has, the more 
 good he can do. As a man is measured by the good 
 he does, you can see what I mean by saying that the 
 thing money stands for makes the man." 
 
 I looked at him quizzically as I asked: "Don't you 
 think there is anything to a man except the good he 
 does?" 
 
 "I can not see that there is." 
 
 "How about the evil that men do, which Shakespeare 
 says 'lives after them, while the good is oft interred 
 with their bones ?' " 
 
 "I am afraid I shall have to disagree with Shakespeare. 
 Of all that I have ever done, how much do you think 
 will live after me ? " 
 
 "Not knowing all that you have done," I began, but 
 he interrupted me: 
 
 "How much of me, do you think, would be alive 
 now had I been one of those wiped out by the Mt. Pelee 
 eruption?" 
 
 This second manner of asking seemed to put a new 
 phase on the question and for the moment I was non- 
 
AN UNANSWERED QUESTION 11 
 
 plussed. He must have seen the puzzled expression 
 in my face for he remarked dryly: "I see you do not 
 care to commit yourself." 
 
 "It isn't that," I hastened to say. "It is simply 
 ignorance. Perhaps if I knew you better I might give 
 you an entirely different answer especially " I 
 added "if your other works are as good as the story 
 you turned out today." 
 
 The little compliment seemed to touch him, for his 
 face brightened, and he asked somewhat eagerly, as I 
 thought: "Do you think it will do any good?'* 
 
 "Any good ?" I asked in a puzzled manner. "Why, 
 I don't know as the publishing of anything does any 
 particular good." 
 
 "You don't?" Douglas retorted eagerly. "Don't 
 you think what I have written will help to bring relief 
 to those who are left? Don't you believe in pub- 
 licity?" 
 
 "Certainly," I replied, answering both questions at 
 once. 
 
 "Then I am satisfied," was his reply. 
 
 "We have already started a relief fund," I explained, 
 "and I am sure this will help a lot." 
 
 He flushed, the first look of the kind I had seen on 
 his face. Then suddenly his fingers went into his vest 
 pocket. 
 
 "Here," he said as he pulled out the slip I had given 
 him but a few minutes before, "add this to the fund, 
 will you. I need something to my credit some- 
 where," and laying it on my table he was gone. 
 
 This brief description of my first meeting with 
 Douglas will give the reader a glimpse of the condition 
 
12 DOUGLAS 
 
 of his mind and the trend of his thought at that time. 
 Since then but why go into explanations ? It is 
 better simply to go ahead and tell the story of Douglas 
 and how he found the answer to his great question, as 
 I have learned the facts through almost constant com- 
 panionship with him from that time to this, 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 WHY AND WHEREFORE 
 
 IN every human being there are, seemingly, two per- 
 sonalities the one arguing for good and the other 
 arguing for evil; the one counseling courage, the other 
 suggesting fear. Of course this is only seemingly so, 
 for it is plain that man is only one, not .two, 
 individualities. 
 
 There is an explanation for this illusion, but at the 
 time that I became acquainted with Douglas he had 
 not yet reached it, and so, as he left my office that night, 
 these two seeming personalities in him began an argu- 
 ment something after this fashion: 
 
 "Why should you worry about death and the future ?" 
 
 "Because their uncertainty uncertainty of the in- 
 visible fills me with fear." 
 
 "Fear of what?" 
 
 "Uncertainty of the invisible, to be sure." 
 
 "What! Uncertainty fills you with fear of itself?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Uncertainty is nothing. It is only a belief in the 
 absence of something absence of a definite knowl- 
 edge." 
 
 "But where shall I get the knowledge ?" 
 
 "I don't know; but wait! Somewhere I have read: 
 'Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof/ ' 
 
 "I don't worry about today. It is the future I mind. 
 I must know the future." 
 
 IS 
 
14 DOUGLAS 
 
 "No man can know the future." 
 
 "That's why I am afraid." 
 
 "O forget it!" 
 
 "I can't forget it!" 
 
 "Yes you can. You know the way." 
 
 "But I don't want to forget it in that way." 
 
 "For the present there is no better. Come on." 
 
 And, giving way to the evil voice, Douglas went, as 
 he had gone many times before. 
 
 The place to which he went was brilliantly lighted 
 and the clink of glasses and the hum of voices mingled 
 pleasantly to Douglas' ears as he entered. Screened 
 from view behind many potted plants a stringed or- 
 chestra was playing softly. Seating himself at a table 
 where he could get a good view of what was going on, 
 Douglas gave his order to one of the soft-footed waiters 
 and in another moment was seeking forgetfulness in 
 that which ultimately "biteth like a serpent and 
 stingeth like an adder." 
 
 "There," exclaimed one of the seeming personalities, 
 "isn't this better than worrying about the future?" 
 
 "But think of tomorrow," replied the other. 
 
 "There is no tomorrow," was the answer and 
 Douglas poured out more drink, "laying up wrath 
 against the day of wrath." 
 
 Douglas did not lack congenial company. The 
 place was filled with seekers after the same intoxication 
 Douglas sought. Not all, perhaps, sought it for the 
 same purpose; but the ultimate result was to be inevi- 
 tably the same. 
 
 "Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die," is 
 the creed of the sensuous materialist and the fear 
 
WHY AND WHEREFORE 15 
 
 that beset Douglas showed how material was his thought. 
 
 "Have another," said a voice behind him, and turn- 
 ing Douglas recognized a chance acquaintance. 
 
 In the conviviality of the moment one companion was 
 as good as another and they joined each other. The 
 world began to take on a more roseate hue and for the 
 moment Douglas was lifted out of the fear which had 
 oppressed him since he first heard of the frightful erup- 
 tion which had sent so many into what the world is 
 pleased to term eternity. He forgot the future, forgot 
 his fears, forgot even his manhood. 
 
 Again and again were the glasses filled. One by one 
 the company around the table increased to half a dozen 
 as the night-workers, having covered their assignments 
 and having no other place to seek a few minutes' 
 recreation, dropped in. 
 
 Douglas was an entertaining talker when not de- 
 pressed, and this morning the liquor seemed to make 
 him unusually brilliant. He was one of those who 
 could tell a story of personal adventure without appear- 
 ing egotistical, and his broad experience in many parts 
 of the world, not only as a news- gatherer, but as an 
 analytical writer of international affairs from personal 
 observation, equipped him with a fund of what the 
 newspaper man terms good copy. He was as familiar 
 with conditions in Egypt as he was with affairs in Wash- 
 ington. His views on the policy of Russia in the Orient 
 were as pointed and interesting as his description of 
 experiences during the Boer war. He had learned 
 Japanese in Nagasaki, Scandinavian in Stockholm, and 
 Persian at the embassy in Paris. Just once he mentioned 
 his nom de plume and then every man at the table 
 
16 DOUGLAS 
 
 raised his eyebrows in pleased surprise and every one 
 wanted to order another drink. 
 
 Then it was that Douglas, glancing at the marble 
 clock above the great mirrors, appeared for the first 
 time to notice the hour, and declared he must go. 
 
 The gray dawn was beginning to dim the electric 
 lights as he emerged from the cafe and almost ran into 
 me as I hastily turned the corner on my way to catch an 
 early car. I hardly recognized him until he begged my 
 pardon. Then his foreign manner of salutation at- 
 tracted me, and I exclaimed: 
 
 "Oh, it's you! Been having a night of it?" 
 
 "No," he replied, and his eyes sparkled through the 
 glasses which were such a part of him, "just escaping 
 from Mt. Pelee. Won't you get aboard ?' ' 
 
 "Where are you bound?" I laughed. 
 
 "No place in particular. Make it the Heidelberg." 
 
 I'm not a drinker myself, but as he insisted I finally 
 agreed, to the extent of a small nightcap. Douglas 
 drank cognac. 
 
 "Hadn't you better be getting home and to bed?" I 
 asked him. "The sun will be up in another half 
 hour." 
 
 "Home!" he exclaimed. "Home! I've almost 
 forgotten the meaning of the word." 
 
 "Still you have one?" 
 
 "I've a place where I work and sleep that is when 
 I do sleep." 
 
 "Then you'd better be getting there." 
 
 "Why ? You don't think I can't take care of myself, 
 do you ? ' ' 
 
 "O no, but you've had enough." 
 
WHY AND WHEREFORE 17 
 
 "That's no reason to me." Then after a pause: 
 "But there is a reason. I'll go! So long!" 
 
 A sleepy cabby was just climbing into his seat pre- 
 paratory to turning in. Douglas gave him an address, 
 lurched into the cab, slammed the door and they rattled 
 up the street. 
 
 It was some minutes before my car came along and 
 when it did I had become so absorbed in running 
 through the columns of our greatest rival that I had 
 forgotten Douglas, until, chancing to glance out of the 
 car window, I saw him going up the steps of a large, 
 old-fashioned residence on M street in rather an un- 
 steady manner. The only other feature I had time to 
 note as the car sped by was a handsome girl in a fresh 
 morning costume, who stood bareheaded in the door- 
 way looking down upon him with such an expression of 
 surprise and grief that it lingered with me for days. 
 
 I turned instinctively in my seat to get a clearer view 
 as I passed. Before the adjoining building hid her 
 from my sight, I saw the girl cover her face with her 
 hands and flee into the house. 
 
 ' ' I saw that you reached home all right this morning," 
 I said to Douglas when he showed up at the office that 
 night with another batch of copy, seemingly unaffected 
 by his hours of dissipation. 
 
 He looked at me in a startled manner as he asked : 
 
 "What else did you see?" 
 
 "What else was there to see ?" I asked evasively. 
 
 "There might have been a good deal." Then medi- 
 tatively: "I wish I knew exactly what did happen." 
 
 ' * Why do you think anything happened ? ' ' 
 
 For a moment he was silent. Then he said slowly : 
 
18 DOUGLAS 
 
 "Some men were born to make women unhappy. 
 They have a way of saying things or doing things, or not 
 doing things, or something or other that causes women 
 to become interested in them, and then of failing to 
 measure up to the woman's standard. And you know," 
 he finished half apologetically, "how any of us hate to 
 have our idols shattered." 
 
 I nodded my head but made no reply. 
 
 "Well," he continued when he saw I was expecting 
 him to go on, "I seem to be one of those unfortunate 
 men. I never made love to a woman in my life. I'm 
 afraid of them, but I always treat them with the greatest 
 deference and respect and I try to talk about myself as 
 little as possible. I couldn't do any less, could I?" 
 
 "Certainly not," I admitted, thinking how interesting 
 such a man always is to the opposite sex. 
 
 "Neither can I do any more," he added fiercely. 
 
 "That ought to be enough," I suggested. 
 
 "But it isn't!" he declared rising to his feet, "It 
 isn't! They expect a whole lot more of one. Because 
 you hold yourself in, when in their presence, they seem 
 to think you a sort of Sir Galahad and they begin in 
 their minds to make a hero of you. Then, when they 
 find you are only an ordinary mortal, the blow is more 
 than they can stand." 
 
 "Well, what has that to do with your going home 
 this morning?" 
 
 "Oh nothing, only there is a girl up there a niece 
 or something of the woman who runs the place, that 
 has been setting me up on a pedestal simply because 
 she knows nothing about me." 
 
 "That's kind of her, I am sure." 
 
WHY AND WHEREFORE 19 
 
 "Very," exclaimed Douglas with a shrug, "and I 
 have appreciated it the more, because she is not an ordi- 
 nary sort of a girl. If I were writing for publication I 
 should say that in spite of her seemingly humble position 
 she is a queen among women." 
 
 ' ' I thought you said she was a girl ? ' ' 
 
 "She is. A typical American girl. In years she 
 may not be more than twenty-two, but her thoughts 
 are those of a woman." 
 
 I looked at Douglas quizzically for a moment ere I 
 suggested that in the matter of pedestals he seemed to 
 have placed the girl on quite as lofty an one as she had 
 him. 
 
 "She's entitled to it," he declared. "I'm not. 
 Even you can see that." 
 
 Just exactly what he meant by "even" me I do not 
 know, but I was too interested to quibble over words; 
 so I admitted that I thought he was a long ways from 
 being the ideal man. 
 
 "And now that you have laid your scene and intro- 
 duced your characters, what's the story?" I asked. 
 "What happened?" 
 
 "Her idol is shattered," he laughed. 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "I suppose she must have seen me when I went in 
 this morning." 
 
 "What makes you think so ?" 
 
 "Because when I spoke to her as I came out this 
 evening, instead of answering she burst into tears ex- 
 claiming: 'O Douglas!' and left me standing on 
 the steps feeling like a fool. Now, what does it all 
 mean ?" 
 
20 DOUGLAS 
 
 Then I told him what I had seen in the morning and 
 finished by asking: 
 
 "Does she always call you Douglas?" 
 
 No, now I think of it, I am sure she always ' mistered' 
 me before." 
 
 "Douglas," I exclaimed fiercely, "you're a brute." 
 
 "It's just my luck," he declared bitterly. "I 
 thought I'd get in without her seeing me, although I 
 didn't suppose she'd care one way or the other. Natur- 
 ally a man doesn't want a woman to see him under the 
 influence." 
 
 "Still, as long as he drinks, it's likely to happen. 
 Why do you do it ?" 
 
 He raised his eyes and regarded me with the utmost 
 surprise. 
 
 ' ' Don't you know why men drink ? " he finally asked. 
 
 "Because they are fools," I replied. 
 
 "No, because they're cowards." 
 
 "Cowards?" 
 
 "Yes, cowards educated cowards. They begin 
 to be scared to death the minute they are born per- 
 haps before first by their grandmothers who are 
 always saying: 'Don't let the baby do that or he'll be 
 sick;' next by their mothers, who won't allow the child 
 the slightest liberty of thought or action for fear of dire 
 results; then by the doctor, who sets up a code of laws 
 regarding health that makes it too dangerous to live, 
 and lastly by the preacher, whose dogmatic doctrines 
 make it even more dangerous to die. 
 
 "Is it any wonder," he demanded fiercely, "that 
 men indulge in drink or in any manner of excesses which 
 
WHY AND WHEREFORE 21 
 
 will enable them to forget ? ' ' And he began pacing up 
 and down. 
 
 "I can't say that it is." 
 
 "You can't say that it is ?" and he turned and looked 
 at me in disgust. ' ' Is there nothing to you but a nega- 
 tive side ? Haven't you any opinions ? Can't you say 
 yes or no, instead of that everlasting, 'I can't say that it 
 is, or I can't say that it isn't ? ' I know I am a coward 
 I know I am afraid to die I know I do things I should 
 not do. Can't you say that it either is a wonder or it is 
 not a wonder that I do it ? " 
 
 I was not accustomed to being addressed in this 
 manner and it angered me. Therefore I replied with 
 considerable emphasis: 
 
 ' ' Of course I can answer you. I can see you are not 
 a fool, so you must be a coward. It's no wonder you 
 get drunk. The only wonder is that you are ever sober. 
 If I were afraid to live as you say, or afraid to die as you 
 evidently are, I'd get drunk and stay drunk." 
 
 I had expected him to make an angry retort. Instead 
 a smile played upon his expressive features as he replied: 
 
 "You can't do it; not on liquor." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 ' ' Because that would be suicide, but " as I was 
 about to speak, "I try to keep myself intoxicated in 
 other ways in order to keep from thinking about the 
 future and the uncertainty. That is why I have gone 
 any and everywhere I could find excitement." 
 
 "And about the girl?" I asked, greatly mollified by 
 his manner. 
 
 His face fell. 
 
22 DOUGLAS 
 
 "I don't know!" he confessed. "What do you 
 think I ought to do ? " 
 
 "I am no surgeon of lacerated hearts," I declared. 
 
 "Rubbish! Her heart isn't lacerated. It isn't even 
 chafed." 
 
 "If you could have seen the expression on her face 
 that I:saw this morning you would know differently." 
 
 "You don't really mean it? "and he turned a shade 
 paler, a thing that seemed well-nigh impossible, for 
 Douglas was as fair as a girl in spite of his outdoor life. 
 
 "I really do." 
 
 "Then there is but one thing for me to do," he de- 
 clared emphatically, ' ' and I'll do it, much as I shall 
 regret the necessity." 
 
 "What's that?" I interrogated with some surprise 
 and no little trepidation, for I was sure I did not want 
 to impel him to do anything rash, even though at that 
 time he was only a chance acquaintance. "What is it 
 you will do?" 
 
 "I shall get another rooming place the first thing in 
 the morning." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 
 
 THERE were so many news features to the Mt. 
 Pelee disaster stories of thrilling escapes, deeds of 
 heroism and incidents full of heart interest that it 
 seemed as though all other news was too insignificant 
 for publication; but right in the midst of this strenu- 
 ous season, the employees of the Street Railway 
 Company took it upon themselves to add to the 
 mental eruption by a strike that tied up every line in 
 tht city. 
 
 The result was in so far as I was concerned 
 personally that when I left my apartment to go to 
 the office one fine afternoon in May, I found it was 
 either a case of walk or ride in a delivery wagon. A 
 carriage or cab, because of the unusual demand 
 down town, was out of the question. 
 
 In view of the numerous news centers thus simul- 
 taneously created and the difficulty of reaching them, 
 we immediately pressed into service every available 
 writer in town, and even at that were unable during 
 the next two weeks to cover the city in anything like 
 the manner it should have been. 
 
 In this emergency Douglas was one of those who 
 came to our assistance. His broad experience and 
 versatility made him most valuable, and because of 
 
 23 
 
24 DOUGLAS 
 
 his world- wide reputation, his signed articles were a 
 feature of the daily developments. He refused to 
 take specific assignments but regularly each day 
 brought in gossipy stories of the daily happenings. 
 They were brief and breezy, but presented a concise 
 statement of the day's doings doings not only 
 numerous, but oft times thrilling. 
 
 For the first week the strike was peaceable. Then 
 came a time when an attempt was made to break it. 
 The history of strikes is too well known to need repeat- 
 ing. Sympathizers, rather than strikers, opposed the 
 law, and rioting and bloodshed followed. 
 
 When human passions are not subdued, destruction 
 is the inevitable result. 
 
 Controlled by his haunting fear of death and its 
 uncertainties, every form of excitement was but a 
 species of intoxication to Douglas to keep his mind 
 off his ever present specter. As a result he plunged 
 into these scenes of disorder with as little seeming 
 fear as though he were going to a ball game which 
 simply goes to show that a man's actions are not always 
 a correct index of his thoughts. Although the excite- 
 ment which he craved was created by the danger 
 of the situation, he seemed to lose all consciousness of 
 it in the intoxication of news gathering. 
 
 "Sure you're liable to get your head broken if you 
 go down among them Greeks and Dagoes," warned 
 Sergeant McHugh, the big officer in charge of the 
 mounted squad in the third precinct, as he saw 
 Douglas pass the station one afternoon. 
 
 "No more liable than you," was the reply. 
 
 "That's what we're paid for," said McHugh grimly. 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 25 
 
 "So am I," declared Douglas. "Doubly paid if 
 that's what I happen to get. But none of them know 
 me!" and down into the danger zone he went. 
 
 It was five minutes later that a riot call was turned 
 in, and McHugh at the head of half a dozen horsemen 
 dashed down the street. There, facing a howling, 
 blood-thirsty mob, stood Douglas, livid with fear and 
 anger, while back of him cringed an old woman, 
 stripped of all her outer garments and with what she 
 still wore torn to rags. 
 
 A street-car, nearly half way off the track, with torn 
 sides and shattered windows, bore mute evidence of 
 what had happened. It had been dynamited and 
 the crew driven away. The woman, who chanced to 
 be the only passenger, had been set upon by women 
 and young hoodlums as she left the car and her cloth- 
 ing torn from her. She would have been completely 
 denuded as had been the case on one or two 
 previous occasions had not Douglas interfered. 
 
 Forcing his way through the crowd he threw the 
 woman's assailants to one side and weaponless, 
 except for a tongue so sharp that its scathing rebuke 
 cut deeper than any weapon he could have wielded, 
 he faced the mob. 
 
 "You're a fine lot of American citizens, you are!" 
 he shouted. "To tear the clothes off a poor, gray- 
 headed old woman who never heard of you nor your 
 strike you hoodlums ! " 
 
 For a moment the mob was taken by surprise, and 
 then it turned upon him with a shout of rage, while 
 many hands were put forth to seize him. His coat 
 was torn and his hat knocked from his head. For- 
 
26 DOUGLAS 
 
 tunately the scene occurred on a piece of asphalt 
 pavement where stones were scarce; but the mob 
 knew where to look and just as McHugh and his men 
 dashed down the street, stones began to fly, many 
 being thrown by those too large to be called boys. 
 Douglas protected his head with his arm as best he 
 could, but one of the stones struck him, inflicting a 
 scalp wound from which the blood was streaming. 
 
 "I told you to keep out of here!" shouted McHugh 
 as he dashed up striking out both sides with the flat of 
 his saber; for McHugh had been a cavalryman in his 
 younger days and insisted upon his right to use a 
 cavalryman's weapon, "I knew what would happen 
 to you if you came here." 
 
 The words were hardly out of his mouth when 
 there was an explosion that sent great chunks of 
 asphalt flying through the air and scattered both the 
 horsemen and mob like chaff before the wind. It 
 must have been a stray bit of dynamite, for no one in 
 the crowd would have been foolish enough to have 
 taken any such chance. 
 
 When McHugh had his horse under control and 
 again returned to the spot, he found only Douglas. 
 
 Word of the trouble reached the office just as I 
 came in, and being considerably interested in Douglas 
 by this time, I hastened to the hospital. They had 
 laid him on an operating table and he appeared to be 
 suffering greatly, although the only external marks 
 were a bruise on his side and the wound on his head. 
 
 "What do you think is the matter?" he asked in a 
 low voice, after the surgeon had made a careful 
 examination. 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 27 
 
 "Some internal injury, the nature of which I cannot 
 determine. It seems pretty serious." 
 
 Douglas' face had been pale, but it suddenly be- 
 came almost death-like, while over his countenance 
 spread that look of fear which had been so pronounced 
 the first time I met him. 
 
 "You don't think I'm going to die, do you?" 
 
 "Oh, no." 
 
 Then as the surgeon placed his hand on the side 
 where a great swelling was beginning to appear, his 
 face belied his words. 
 
 "You are lying to me," Douglas groaned. "I can 
 see it on your face. But I can't die," and great drops 
 of sweat stood on his forehead. "Do something for 
 me, can't you ? I don't mind the pain. I don't care 
 how much it hurts; only don't let me die." 
 
 The surgeon cast a look almost of disgust upon him 
 as he said: 
 
 "Be a man!" 
 
 "I can't!" Douglas groaned. "It isn't in me." 
 
 "Oh, come now, of course it's in you. We will do 
 the best we can to pull you through this, but we've 
 all got to go some time." 
 
 "My God! not now! Not now!" and Douglas 
 closed his eyes while his face contracted with pain. 
 
 I called the surgeon to one side and explained to 
 him in a few sentences what I had gathered of the 
 accident and also of the terrible fear of death that 
 seemed such a part of the man. 
 
 "His actions would prove that he is not a coward," 
 I declared. "It's just that fear of the hereafter. I 
 actually believe he is dying of fear." 
 
28 DOUGLAS 
 
 The surgeon returned quickly to Douglas and again 
 placed his hand upon his side. The injured man 
 opened his eyes and looked at him. 
 
 "I think I have located the trouble," he finally said. 
 
 Douglas' eyes grew almost glassy. "Do you think 
 it will prove fatal ?" he gasped. 
 
 "Not necessarily. You have a good fighting 
 chance. But I think we'll have to operate on you. 
 You're not afraid of chloroform, are you ?" 
 
 "I'm not afraid of anything that will help me to 
 live," he said. 
 
 While preparations were being made to administer 
 the anaesthetic I stood over him. 
 
 "He thinks I'll pull through, doesn't he?" 
 
 "Sure!" I replied. 
 
 Then as I turned to leave him: "I'll be down to 
 see you in the morning." 
 
 He seemed satisfied with this and I left. I had 
 little hope of his recovery; but contrary to expecta- 
 tions he pulled through. Before the strike was over 
 he was around, and although even more fearful, 
 apparently willing to take the same chances over 
 again. 
 
 "You're certainly a mystery to me," I exclaimed a 
 few nights later as we were having a bite to eat at the 
 "shoe-string counter," the name by which the little 
 restaurant across the street from the office was known, 
 "if I were as afraid of death as you are, I'd never 
 take another chance." 
 
 "I have to," he replied as he regarded reproachfully 
 the size of a small steak the waiter had just brought 
 him. 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 29 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I have to live, don't I?" 
 
 "Evidently you do. You're too scared to die. 
 But why don't you seek some less dangerous employ- 
 ment?" 
 
 "You're just as safe in one place as in another," 
 he declared. "Death is walking around with you 
 everywhere you go. If God doesn't get you one time, 
 He will another." 
 
 "God?" I ejaculated. "You don't think God 
 kills people, do you ? " 
 
 "That's what I've always been told. At every 
 funeral I've ever attended I have heard the preacher 
 declare that God had taken the victim to Himself 
 only they don't usually refer to the departed one as 
 the victim. If the preachers are wrong, what is the 
 fact?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Maybe you are one of those who do not think God 
 actually sends trouble and death, but only permits 
 them to exist," he suggested. "What do you believe 
 any way?" 
 
 "I don't know what I believe. I don't ever stop 
 to think about it." 
 
 "Don't you ever expect to die?" 
 
 "Of course I do." 
 
 "And then what?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "And you are not afraid?" 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 "Then you are either one of two things." 
 
 "Yes? Suppose you name them." 
 
80 DOUGLAS 
 
 "You are either a saint or a fool." 
 
 "I don't think I am either," I declared with some 
 wrath. 
 
 "You must be!" and he sawed savagely at his 
 steak. "Any man who deliberately goes stumbling 
 through life when he knows that he is likely to be 
 punished for the evil that he does and either does 
 not reform, or fear for the ultimate result, must be a 
 fool." 
 
 "Why don't you reform then ?" I asked with a good 
 deal more emphasis than I can express in words. 
 
 "I don't seem to know how. I've tried to live a 
 Christian life, but the job simply seems impossible. 
 As I read the Bible, there is no half-way position. 
 You either have to confess your sins, be converted, 
 and never do anything wicked thereafter, or else you 
 are worse off than you were before." 
 
 "In other words," I suggested, "a man is either all 
 good or all bad." 
 
 "Well, not exactly, but when Jesus cured people 
 of sickness he said : ' Go and sin no more, lest a worse 
 thing come upon you.* To me this means that if you 
 see your sin, turn to God, as the saying is, and then 
 don't stick to it, you are worse off than ever." 
 
 "Then I take it, you think you would be better if 
 you knew how ? " 
 
 "Yes, but I don't know how. I don't even know 
 if my theory is right. I don't know anything, and as 
 a result I am simply afraid of the future and its uncer- 
 tainty afraid of the invisible. 
 
 "I don't believe," he continued as he looked up 
 from his plate, "that I am afraid of physical suffering. 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 31 
 
 I do not think I am afraid of the pain that precedes 
 death, for I've been through a lot; but I'd rather be 
 torn on the rack than to die." 
 
 "Well," I remarked encouragingly, "I don't think 
 you need fret about the matter. No one wants to 
 die, and every man will fight to live as long as he can." 
 
 "No, you are wrong. A lot of men have died 
 simply for principle; but not I. Why, I'd recant 
 every conviction I have ever had to save my life." 
 
 I regarded him curiously. I wondered if he were 
 absolutely the only one of a kind, or if he were one of 
 a class a type so to speak. I was sure that to my 
 knowledge I had never before met one, but, and I 
 went back into myself I did not believe most men, 
 feeling as Douglas did, would admit it. Therefore I 
 might have met many like him, whom fear of ridicule 
 would have prevented from admitting it. 
 
 As best I could, I explained my thoughts aloud. 
 
 "I have seen the time I would not admit my fear," 
 he replied. "But ever since I began my search for a 
 real solution to this problem, I have discussed it with 
 every one who might be able to throw any light on 
 the future." 
 
 "I hope you didn't think that I could ?" 
 
 "I hadn't thought much about you. I was sort of 
 surprised into divulging my feelings to you. But 
 since you did not make fun of them, I began to 
 look upon you as one in whom I could confide." 
 
 "I appreciate your good opinion," I laughed. 
 "And now if you'll take my advice, you'll let the city 
 editor get you a permit to carry a revolver during 
 the rest of the strike." 
 
32 DOUGLAS 
 
 "No shooting irons for me not in the United 
 States. Why, one shot from a revolver can get a man 
 into more trouble hi ten seconds than half a dozen 
 lawyers can get him out of in ten years." 
 
 "But wouldn't you feel safer?" 
 
 "When a man's a coward he never feels safe," and 
 again that look of fear. 
 
 "I don't believe it is honest for you to call yourself 
 such a name after the way you acted in that riot. To 
 stand between an old woman and that mob, certainly 
 took some courage." 
 
 "That wasn't courage. That was anger. It made 
 me mad; but I was nearly scared to death every 
 minute." 
 
 "You can call it what you please, but if I were in a 
 tight place, I'd rather have such a man as you at my 
 back than a good many who pride themselves on their 
 bravery." 
 
 He shook his head slowly. "You'd be sadly dis- 
 appointed. You would better take your chances with 
 the other fellow. 
 
 "I don't know," he continued after a pause, "what 
 makes me do some of the fool things that I do. I 
 think it must be the same impulse that impels a man 
 to thrust his hand into moving machinery, or to want 
 to jump off a high place; or it may be simply my 
 thirst for the intoxication of excitement. But what- 
 ever it is, I am eternally getting into places where I'd 
 give all I possess if I could only get out and run away 
 I'm so scared." 
 
 "Then why don't you?" 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 33 
 
 "I don't dare. I know that my only safety lies in 
 facing the danger." 
 
 "He who fights and runs away may live to fight 
 another day,'" I quoted. 
 
 "Yes, provided some one doesn't shoot him in the 
 back. I never could get up courage enough to run. 
 The very uncertainty of what was behind me would 
 paralyze me with fear." 
 
 "The uncertainty of things in general seems to be 
 your Nemesis," I laughed. 
 
 "Not only mine, but every man's." 
 
 I suppose he noticed the incredulous expression on 
 my face, for he hastened to explain : 
 
 "You don't believe it? I'll back it up with the 
 words of as great a student of human nature as the 
 bard of Avon. Doesn't he say: 'For who would 
 bear the whips and scorns of time' and so forth. 
 
 'When he himself might his quietus make 
 With a bare bodkin * * * 
 But that the dread of something after death 
 Makes us rather bear the ills we have 
 Than fly to others that we know not of.' " 
 
 "But you were speaking of the uncertainties of life." 
 
 "To some they are worse than the uncertainties 
 of death." 
 
 "Which accounts for the occasional use of the 'bare 
 bodkin,'" I suggested. 
 
 "Undoubtedly. But whether in this world or the 
 next, it is uncertainty that fills us with fear and makes 
 cowards of us all." 
 
 "Which doesn't agree with Shakespeare," I laughed. 
 "He says it's 'conscience."' 
 
84 DOUGLAS 
 
 "Which amounts to the same thing. A man's con- 
 science is the most uncertain of all uncertainties," 
 declared Douglas. 
 
 "I'll have to figure that out later," I said as I 
 picked up the checks and left the table. 
 
 But I didn't find time that night, nor did I think of 
 it again until another story developed big enough to 
 take our minds off the strike, just as the strike had 
 topped Mt. Pelee. It was one of those stories with a 
 metaphysical feature and I put it in here simply as 
 showing how Douglas figured it out from his peculiar 
 viewpoint. 
 
 This new item was brought to the attention of the 
 public through startling disclosures regarding the 
 misdeeds of a prominent attorney, a bare suggestion 
 of which had been printed a few days before. The 
 story will easily be remembered by newspaper 
 readers as the Olds case, in which the misdeeds 
 referred to consisted of the misappropriation by 
 Attorney Harvey P. Olds of large funds entrusted to 
 his care, betrayal of the confidence of his clients and 
 gross misuse of his position in society a position 
 won by a long line of upright and honorable ancestors. 
 
 Like the Mt. Pelee story it promised many ramifi- 
 cations. Already facts enough had developed to 
 make it the talk of the city, and, pending action by 
 the authorities, all that was needed to make it a 
 typical newspaper story was a character study of 
 Olds a story by one well enough versed in meta- 
 physical and psychological deduction to make it of 
 value. By this I do not mean that it must necessarily 
 be by a Nordau or a Lombroso, but simply by one 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 35 
 
 whose knowledge along those lines would be patent 
 to every reader. 
 
 We did not have a man on the staff equal to the 
 task and Williams, the managing editor, had just 
 decided to ask the services of a well known alienist, 
 when Douglas, unannounced, entered the sanctum, a 
 bit the worse for liquor. We were not only surprised 
 but considerably annoyed at the interruption, and 
 Williams was about to request him to withdraw when 
 he asked in a matter-of-fact manner: 
 
 "What do you think he did with it?" 
 
 As on a former occasion it was unnecessary to ask 
 to whom or what he referred. 
 
 "Blew it, I suppose," said Williams curtly. 
 
 "It's easy for a man like Olds to spend a couple of 
 millions," I ventured. 
 
 "What do you think he did with it?" asked 
 Williams. 
 
 "Gambled!" declared Douglas. 
 
 "On stocks I suppose?" 
 
 "On anything." 
 
 "He didn't need the money to gamble. He had 
 plenty," I suggested. 
 
 "Not the way he gambled," said Douglas. "He 
 didn't care whether he won or lost. 
 
 "Then why did he gamble?" 
 
 "For the excitement. He's been trying to forget 
 something. I know the look." 
 
 For an instant his own face took on that expression 
 I have so often mentioned. Then I guessed the 
 wherefore of his condition. 
 
 "Have you seen him?" I asked. 
 
36 DOUGLAS 
 
 "Yes, I've been watching him." 
 
 "Why?" snapped Williams. 
 
 "Just studying him." Then in explanation, "I 
 met him several days ago at the bar banquet, and the 
 hungry look on his face attracted me. There seemed 
 no reason for it from all I could learn and so I deter- 
 mined to make it my business to find out. I am sure 
 I have, and I predict that unless he is speedily arrested 
 and guarded he will commit suicide unless," he 
 added as an afterthought, "some one can talk him 
 out of it." 
 
 "What did I tell you?" said the city editor. 
 "That's just my opinion." 
 
 "Can you write us something along that line?" 
 asked Williams. 
 
 "I have already written it. Here!" taking a manu- 
 script from his pocket, "see if it's what you want." 
 
 Williams glanced over it hastily. 
 
 "Couldn't be better," he said. 
 
 He handed it to the city editor. 
 
 "Put it in a box and use it on the first page." 
 
 Then to Douglas: "How'd you like to help us out 
 on this story?" 
 
 "Glad to," was the reply. 
 
 An hour later found Douglas at the Olds' home- 
 stead. As he entered the spacious grounds the 
 attorney was pacing up and down the broad veranda 
 that ran around the front of the house. 
 
 Approaching, Douglas accosted him, but Olds 
 made no answer, nor did he cease his restless pacing. 
 
 For a moment Douglas stood irresolute and then 
 began walking along with the distraught man. 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 37 
 
 "Listen to me," he said, taking hold of Olds' coat 
 sleeve. 
 
 Olds looked at him blankly for a minute, and then 
 seeming to awaken exclaimed: 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "Why did you do it?" 
 
 "Do what?" 
 
 "Gamble away other people's money?" 
 
 Olds stopped and glared at him fiercely: 
 
 " I didn't gamble. Who says I did ? " 
 
 "I say you did. Why did you do it?" 
 
 The man resumed his walking and for several 
 minutes Douglas kept pace with him. 
 
 "Stop and tell me!" he finally demanded as he 
 halted in his tracks and brought his companion up 
 with a short turn 
 
 For a space Olds regarded him angrily. 
 
 "Young man, do you know what fear is?" he 
 finally asked. 
 
 Douglas shrank as from a blow. Only his news- 
 paper training enabled him to conceal his feelings 
 as he replied: 
 
 "Fear of what?" 
 
 "Fear of what? Why, fear of everything. Fear 
 of the simplest things in life. Fear of eating; fear of 
 sleeping; fear of losing a case; fear of losing money; 
 fear of sickness and fear of poverty; fear of ridicule 
 and fear of criticism; fear of living and fear of dying; 
 fear of everything the future may hold, in this world 
 or in the next." 
 
 "How about fear of wrong-doing?*' queried 
 Douglas, "and the fear of being found out?" 
 
38 DOUGLAS 
 
 Olds' face became ashen. 
 
 "And the fear of punishment?" 
 
 The man trembled in his grasp. 
 
 "Why do you torment me with such questions?" 
 he gasped. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said Douglas loosening his 
 grasp upon Olds' arm, "I didn't mean to torment you, 
 I simply wanted to get your reason for the thing you 
 did." 
 
 Olds stared at him helplessly and sank into a porch 
 chair. 
 
 "There may have been good reasons," suggested 
 Douglas. "That is, they may have seemed good to 
 you." 
 
 "They did!" exclaimed Olds. "They did! But 
 who will believe me? Who will believe that I did 
 what I did, just to forget?" and he buried his face in 
 his hands. 
 
 Douglas confessed to me later that he felt an 
 inward sense of great elation as he asked: 
 
 "To forget what?" 
 
 "My fears, of course." Then after a pause: "Or 
 it might be more correct to say the things of which I 
 am afraid." 
 
 For a space the two men eyed each other without 
 speaking, the one triumphant, the other fearful. 
 
 "You don't believe it?" said Olds. 
 
 "Absolutely," replied Douglas. "I know the 
 symptoms, but are you not mistaken as to the thing 
 you fear?" 
 
 "What?" cried Olds springing to his feet. "Mis- 
 taken ? Don't you think I know what I fear ? 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 39 
 
 Haven't I laid awake night after night disturbed and 
 harassed by the thought I might lose a case ? Haven't 
 I spent hours and days in figuring out my income and 
 expenses and fearing that through some unforeseen 
 turn I might reach a time where I would be unable to 
 maintain my position ? Haven't I lost money because 
 I was afraid to take chances ? Haven't I cringed 
 and crawled and denied my own honest convictions 
 time and again for fear of ridicule and " 
 
 "I should say that was pride!" interrupted Douglas. 
 
 "It may have been pride that made me fearful, but 
 it was fear just the same fear of poverty, of failure, 
 of death, of the future that has driven me to do 
 anything that would keep the specter out of my mind." 
 
 "I think you are wrong in your conclusions, Mr. 
 Olds. If you were a poor man today, with health 
 and a clear conscience, you would not fear poverty. 
 You would at once go to work to overcome it. Isn't 
 that so?" 
 
 Olds remained silently thoughtful for a moment ere 
 he replied: "Yes, I think it is." 
 
 "And if ever you failed to score a point in a case, 
 you didn't quit. You simply went to work harder. 
 Isn't that so?" 
 
 "Why, yes." 
 
 "Then it is not failure, poverty, loss of position 
 you fear it is something a good deal more subtle. 
 It is " and Douglas paused to give his words their 
 full effect, while Olds eyed him suspiciously 
 "It is uncertainty you fear the uncertainty of the 
 future and what it has in store for you. It is the 
 uncertainty of developments in your present trouble 
 
40 DOUGLAS 
 
 that you fear now. Before the exposure came it was 
 the uncertainty of what your friends, your wife 
 
 "My wife!" groaned Olds. "For God's sake 
 don't mention her. It is killing her. The only way 
 I can save her from further disgrace is to kill myself. 
 But I dare not ! No, I dare not ! I fear ' he 
 looked inquiringly at Douglas who finished the 
 sentence for him. 
 
 "The uncertainty of the future the invisible!" 
 
 Olds buried his face in his hands and his frame shook 
 with suppressed emotions as he exclaimed under his 
 breath : 
 
 "Yes, but the sooner the uncertainty is over the 
 better." 
 
 So absorbed had Douglas been in the interview that 
 he had failed to hear the click of the opening door, 
 the approach of footsteps, or to realize that he was 
 not alone with Mr. Olds, until he felt himself brushed 
 aside and Mrs. Olds flung herself upon her knees 
 before her husband exclaiming: 
 
 "Not that, Harvey! Do not add the disgrace of 
 cowardice to your other wrong-doings!" 
 
 "Cowardice!" exclaimed Olds looking up quickly. 
 
 "Yes; it would be cowardly to end your life." 
 
 Olds looked up at Douglas with an expression of 
 such doubt that the latter was moved to say: 
 
 "It takes a brave man to die, madam!" 
 
 "It takes a braver man to live," Mrs. Olds replied, 
 raising her eyes and casting upon Douglas such a look 
 of scorn and anguish as he had never before en- 
 countered. 
 
 "It was as though she thought I was urging her 
 
AFRAID TO DIE AFRAID TO LIVE 41 
 
 husband to kill himself," Douglas explained to me 
 afterwards in telling me of the interview, "and for 
 the moment she almost convinced me against my own 
 belief that the uncertainty of life was more to be 
 feared than the uncertainty of death." 
 
 "It certainly was a remarkable interview," I said, 
 "I don't see how we can print it." 
 
 "Not print it!" exclaimed Douglas. "Not print 
 it? Why, man, it gives a better insight into the 
 personality of Harvey Olds than all the character 
 studies that could possibly be written. You'll have 
 to print it. If not tomorrow soon." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because his wife, in her attempt to arouse him, 
 will, instead, convince him that, as Shakespeare 
 negatively suggests, the uncertainties of death are not 
 really so greatly to be feared as those of life, and he 
 will choose the lesser evil provided that fear, itself, 
 does not kill him in the meantime. If she had left 
 me alone, I would have convinced him the other way." 
 
 Douglas' prediction though which you will have 
 to decide proved correct, although many doubt it 
 because of its dramatic details. 
 
 Through the advice of his lawyer, Olds went to court 
 the following day, had a formal charge preferred 
 against him, was bound over to the grand jury and 
 was released on $50,000 bond. He had a fainting 
 spell in the court room and had to be assisted to his 
 carriage. From his home that evening came the 
 report that he was quite ill, and for several days 
 newspaper men were denied admission to the grounds. 
 
 On the third day, however, he sent word that he had 
 
42 DOUGLAS 
 
 a statement to give out. At the appointed hour half 
 a dozen representatives of the morning papers went 
 to his house. 
 
 Olds was seated in a chair on the porch, his wife 
 by his side. As the reporters came up the walk he 
 arose to greet them. For a moment he stood looking 
 at them irresolutely. 
 
 Suddenly his face grew white, a spasm passed over 
 his entire body and he pitched forward from the 
 steps. The coroner gave a verdict of heart disease. 
 
 Then we printed Douglas' interview. 
 
 As for myself, I am free to admit that I have never 
 been able to decide whether it was heart disease, fear, 
 or suicide. Douglas now declares it doesn't make 
 any difference that they are all one and the same 
 thing. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 
 
 I HAD known Douglas something like two years, and 
 I was now managing editor of the Herald when he 
 appeared at my office one night in an unusual condition. 
 I had become used to seeing him in unusual conditions, 
 not always, I am sorry to say, by events which would 
 naturally excite, but rather by over-indulgence in the 
 curious liquors he had learned to drink in various parts 
 of the world. He would disappear for weeks at a 
 time and then as on this occasion appear without 
 warning and almost invariably with a story that was 
 well worth while. 
 
 "Where do you get them?" I once asked, for 
 although I was aware that he knew personally nearly 
 every man of prominence in the political and diplo- 
 matic world, it did not seem that they would always 
 have a story saved up for him. 
 
 "I don't often give away secrets," he laughed, "but 
 I'll tell you this one. I look upon every man I know 
 as just so much copy and I draw upon them, as I would 
 upon any other repository, only when there is a supply 
 on hand." 
 
 On this particular night his condition was clearly 
 not induced by any of the various liquors above alluded 
 to about which at some time I am going to tell you, 
 
 43 
 
44 DOUGLAS 
 
 and how Douglas became addicted to their use but 
 to a more remarkable, if not more unreasonable cause. 
 
 That I was glad to see him you will readily believe, 
 when I tell you there was not a first page story in sight 
 and his condition savored of news. Therefore it was 
 with unusual warmth that I invited him to be seated 
 and remarked: 
 
 "To judge from your looks it must be a big one?" 
 
 "It is," he replied, "but it's not for publication." 
 
 The answer was a surprise, for it was the first time 
 I had ever heard Douglas suggest that there was any 
 story that could not be published. 
 
 I must confess, however, that during the months of 
 our acquaintance he had continued much of a mystery. 
 While he and I frequently spent an evening at the 
 theater and usually dined together at least twice a 
 week when he was in town, I had never been to his 
 home, wherever it might be, nor up to this time did I 
 know much of his private life. With his disposition, 
 his doubts, and his fears, I had become fairly well 
 acquainted, as a reasonable part of our conversation 
 was always along metaphysical lines. I also knew his 
 faith in publicity and so I was surprised to hear him 
 say that there was any story that could not be published. 
 
 "If it's not for publication," I began after a minute. 
 "Why have you brought it to me ?" 
 
 "Because," he replied, "I've simply got to tell it to 
 somebody." 
 
 "And if it's as big as all that, what do you think 
 will happen to me when I come to know it ? Why, I'll 
 have to print it!" 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 45 
 
 "No fear of that," he replied. "You simply won't 
 believe it; that's all." 
 
 ' ' Have I ever questioned any of the stories you have 
 brought me ? ' ' 
 
 "Never; because you have always been able to 
 verify them. This one you can't, although I believe 
 it can be proved." 
 
 More than ever I was filled with surprise. 
 
 "You know," he continued after a moment, "the 
 best stories in life are never printed." 
 
 "It's a traditional belief of the profession," I repliedo 
 "At any rate, I've so often heard it stated and never 
 disputed that I am willing to accept it as the truth." 
 
 "I am sure of it," he exclaimed, "Why ? Because 
 the best stories in the world are not recognized as such 
 by the only persons who know them. You know very 
 well the ordinary newspaper reader has no idea of the 
 value of a story outside of the size of the head he finds 
 on it." 
 
 "Possibly," I admitted. 
 
 "And if you were to tell the average man that there 
 was anything in his life that would make a story, he 
 would not believe you." 
 
 "Probably not!" 
 
 "Nevertheless, there are men walking up and down 
 the streets right outside your very doors, who could 
 give you stories so big that you could not find type 
 large enough to properly display them." 
 
 "I'll take your word for it," I laughed. "But 
 what has all this to do with the thing that's bottled up 
 in you ready to destroy you unless it finds vent ? ' * 
 
46 DOUGLAS 
 
 Assuming an air of great importance Douglas began : 
 ' ' I believe I have found the man whose consciousness 
 at this moment contains THE story of all time." 
 
 I looked at him with a quizzical smile as I said : ' ' All 
 right! Out with it!" 
 
 Placing his hands on my knees and leaning over so 
 that his face was not more than six inches from mine 
 he said in a voice little more than a whisper: 
 
 ' ' I have found a man who has discovered the secret 
 of Being." 
 
 For a moment I regarded him silently and then, 
 placing my hands on his shoulders, I pushed him 
 gently from me as I remarked: 
 
 "That may interest you; it doesn't me. Neither, 
 I am sure, would it interest the readers of the Herald 
 even if they did believe it." 
 
 ' ' Not if he could prove it ? " 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 Douglas' lips parted and he eyed me in speechless 
 surprise. At last he exclaimed in a voice so loud it 
 startled me: 
 
 "What? You don't think it would interest the 
 world to know who we are what we are where 
 we came from and whither we are going ? You don't 
 think it would interest the world to know the where- 
 fore of the past and to be able to solve the mystery of 
 the future ? Why, man, if this individual's theory is 
 correct and he is able to prove it, it is the greatest 
 piece of news in the world. Thousands yes, 
 millions of men are today trying to discover this secret 
 and have been trying since the world began. Every 
 preacher of every creed and denomination in the world 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 47 
 
 is trying to explain it. Millions more are hungering 
 to learn it, while you you, the managing editor of 
 one of the greatest dailies in the world, cannot see the 
 value of it as a news item." 
 
 He sank back into his chair and threw up his hands 
 with an expression of the utmost disgust while I replied 
 as calmly as I could: 
 
 "Of course I see the value of such a piece of news 
 as you describe just as I see the value of the dis- 
 covery of a practical system of wireless telegraphy. 
 The wireless discovery will be made some day in 
 fact I am not sure but it already has been. An item 
 to that effect has just been published. But did we 
 make a spread ? No. We used a brief announce- 
 ment. Why? Because having no understanding of 
 the matter, most people do not yet believe it possible 
 and have no interest in wild theories. Such news has 
 to develop. It will be a big story some day.* 
 
 "It is just the same with this story you have. The 
 world is not ready for it as news, even though the man 
 can prove his position to you and to me. Instead of 
 looking upon it as a scientific discovery, ninety-nine 
 out of a hundred of our readers maybe more 
 would regard it simply as a new religious doctrine. 
 Having their own religion, they would either regard it 
 with supercilious derision and pay no attention to it 
 whatever, or else they would want to write us letters 
 showing its disagreement with established beliefs. 
 Yes," I laughed, "we'd get a barrel of letters and every 
 man would demand that we print his or he would stop 
 his paper." 
 
 * This prediction has since been fulfilled. EDITOR. 
 
48 DOUGLAS 
 
 ' ' But if we could prove it ? " 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "Convince a man against his will,'" I quoted, "'and 
 he's of the same opinion still.' Just think how long 
 Columbus was in convincing the world that the earth 
 is round." 
 
 "Because they wouldn't give him a chance." 
 
 "Neither will they give your discoverer a chance," 
 I laughed. " But who is he ?" 
 
 "His name is Ahab Kedar Kahn and he is a Persian 
 at least he comes from Persia although I believe he 
 is a Jew. He is something or other connected with 
 the Persian government, and a proposition he has just 
 made me is what brings me here tonight. 
 
 "As you are aware, Persia is in a bad way financially 
 as well as organically. He is here on a diplomatic 
 mission which has something to do with systematizing 
 its finances. It's going to be a big story some day 
 bigger than any future development in the Orient, 
 unless it be the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty, 
 which I look upon as most likely. But that has 
 nothing to do with Ahab's proposition to me. 
 
 "You see I met him at a Gridiron Club dinner in 
 Washington some weeks ago. When I heard he was 
 in the city I called upon him. He was glad to see me, 
 particularly as I speak a little Persian. It appears he 
 has seen some of my stuff somewhere and seems to 
 think I am just the one to go over to Persia and write 
 a book which shall set that nation right before the 
 world and create a sentiment that shall prevent it from 
 being partitioned and absorbed by the great powers." 
 
 "I should say he had made a good selection," I 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 49 
 
 replied. "I have no doubt that you will do it well. I 
 trust the pay will be as satisfactory as the work." 
 
 "Quite, He offers a good salary while the work is 
 in progress, all expenses and a bonus of five thousand 
 dollars when the book is accepted." 
 
 "That seems rather attractive." 
 
 "Oh yes, but there is a stronger incentive than the 
 money. You may remember that I told you once 
 before that money never meant much to me," he ex- 
 plained with a laugh. 
 
 "Yes, and I think now, as I did then, that you are in 
 a class by yourself." 
 
 "Perhaps; but my interests regarding this offer are 
 quite commonplace I assure you. First, the novelty 
 of a strange country always attracts and Persia to 
 me is full of romance. Secondly I have a desire to 
 know more of Ahab Kedar Kahn and his religious 
 views. Perhaps he found them in Persia. Perhaps I 
 may find in studying the ancient history and religions 
 of Persia what I am after." 
 
 I regarded him earnestly for several minutes and 
 then I asked: "What are you really after, anyway?" 
 
 "A solution of the mystery of Being its source 
 and its finality. Where did we come from and where 
 are we going especially the latter." 
 
 "Yes," I laughed, "I cannot see that it makes much 
 difference where we came from as long as we are here; 
 but I shouldn't mind knowing where we are going. 
 What says this Ahab?" 
 
 "I haven't gone into him that deep yet," laughed 
 Douglas. "However, his ideas suggest something 
 new and may help me to get sufficient knowledge 
 
50 DOUGLAS 
 
 of the future to destroy the skeleton in my closet." 
 
 He laughed a mirthless laugh, and knowing what 
 was in his mind I said: "You mean the rats in your 
 garret." 
 
 "I am glad that is the way you look at it," he said, 
 "I wish I could." 
 
 "Are you going to accept this offer?" I asked as I 
 reached for my pipe and began filling it. 
 
 "On one condition." 
 
 "What's that?" and I picked out a match and 
 scratched it on the side of the box. 
 
 "That you go with me." 
 
 "What?" I exclaimed stopping and staring at him 
 in wonderment. 
 
 "You heard what I said." 
 
 The flame from the match burned my fingers. 
 
 "Yes," I exclaimed quickly dropping the ember, 
 "and I'm glad I burned myself or I should have 
 thought I dreamed it." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Look here," I said tipping back in my chair and 
 looking him squarely in the eye, " do you see anything 
 like insanity in my face?" 
 
 "Not at all; neither is there in mine. There is 
 absolutely nothing insane about this> nor is there any 
 reason why you should not go." 
 
 "Except my job, and the lack of money enough to 
 pay my expenses and live a year without work." 
 
 " What's your job pay you?" 
 
 '" Well, seventy-five a week, if you want to know." 
 
 "That's three hundred a month. I'll guarantee 
 you at least one good magazine story a month that'll 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 51 
 
 pay you more than that; and as for expenses, I am 
 sure Ahab will be glad to pay them as a publicity 
 fund." 
 
 "But this is a permanent place," I replied. 
 
 "So Williams thought; but you see how quickly he 
 was dropped when he chanced to let something go into 
 the paper that didn't suit the man higher up. 
 
 "No, Warren," Douglas continued, "even outside 
 the proposed trip to Persia, it's a whole lot better to be 
 a free lance. If you are worth seventy-five a week to 
 the Herald, you are worth more than that to yourself." 
 
 "Possibly so; but this thing is out of the question." 
 
 "I'm sorry," he said and there was genuine dis- 
 appointment in his voice, "for I should really like to 
 
 go-" 
 
 "Well, can't you go without me?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I can; but I won't!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 Douglas removed his glasses and began polishing 
 them on a piece of newspaper. 
 
 "I'll tell you," he began as he slowly rubbed the 
 lenses between his thumb and forefinger: "Strange as 
 it jaay seem, I've taken a liking to you. I've never 
 had a chum like most chaps. I've sort o' lived alone 
 with my fears. I suppose most people doctors at 
 least would call me a hopeless neurotic; perhaps I 
 am. However, I have my likes and dislikes, and so, 
 disagreeable as you often are," he laughed, "I've 
 found you more to my liking than any other man I 
 ever met." 
 
 "A bit left-handed, but I appreciate the compli- 
 ment," I said. 
 
52 DOUGLAS 
 
 "Besides," he continued without noting the inter- 
 ruption, "you're a good deal of an optimist most 
 big men are, I've noticed and you have a way of 
 asserting your superiority that I like, because well 
 because because you don't drink and you keep me 
 from it," he finished. 
 
 I looked at him in some surprise as I remarked: "I 
 hadn't noticed it." 
 
 "Well you do not entirely; but I drink a whole 
 lot less when I am with you than at any other time." 
 
 "Then you want me to go to Persia with you as a 
 sort of a guardian?" I laughed. 
 
 "No, as a chum. Besides I feel sorry for you." 
 
 "Sorry for me ?" and I looked upon his slight figure 
 and pale face and wondered. "Sorry for me? And 
 why pray?" 
 
 "Because you've never been anywhere. Of course 
 the west is all right, but you need the experience of 
 travel." 
 
 This was an argument I could not deny. I had 
 often felt my limitation in this matter, but I was not 
 convinced. However, I could not offhand refuse to 
 go after such a confession as Douglas had just made, 
 and so I said evasively: 
 
 "You'll have to give me time to think." 
 
 "You can have until five o'clock tomorrow after- 
 noon," he replied as he rose to leave. "I have to 
 give Ahab my answer at six. If you decide I'll fix the 
 deal." 
 
 "All right. Tomorrow's my day off. I'll meet 
 you at the Heidelberg at 4 o'clock," and I turned to my 
 work with about as much expectation of complying 
 
THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 53 
 
 with his absurd proposition as I have of being Secretary 
 of State. 
 
 But man proposes and something else disposes. 
 When the boy brought in the midnight mail I found 
 in it a letter from the president of the company, then 
 in New York, stating that owing to the poor financial 
 showing of the previous quarter, he had decided that a 
 general reduction of expenses was necessary. I was 
 instructed to reduce the local staff, curtail the special 
 features, buy nothing that was not absolutely neces- 
 sary and let my assistant go. 
 
 I knew what such an order meant extra work, 
 ultimate dissatisfaction with the editorial management 
 and my own subsequent dismissal. I decided then 
 and there, that, instead of discharging my assistant, I 
 would discharge myself and let my assistant have the 
 joy of announcing the cuts and arranging the new 
 order of things. 
 
 When I met Douglas at 4 o'clock the following after- 
 noon he had already heard of my action for news 
 of that sort travels fast around the Fourth Estate 
 and he greeted me with outstretched hand. 
 
 "I knew what it meant as soon as I heard it," he 
 exclaimed, "and I've already seen Ahab and made 
 the arrangements. You are to have all your ex- 
 penses, the sole right of anything official for current 
 literature, and quarters with me during our stay." 
 
 While I was in the habit of acting quickly myself, 
 the news rather staggered me, for Douglas had not 
 during our limited acquaintance, ever before developed 
 this side of his character. He had taken whatever 
 came to him in a nonchalant manner that impressed 
 
54 DOUGLAS 
 
 one with the belief that work and money were a bore; 
 but, for the time being, at least, he was changed and 
 was activity personified. 
 
 "When do we leave?" I asked. 
 
 "At six tomorrow. Have you any special arrange- 
 ments ?' ' 
 
 "Only to pack my trunk and write a few letters. 
 How about the magazine you mentioned?" 
 
 "We'll see it as we pass through New York." 
 
 "How about yourself?" I asked. 
 
 "I have just one call to make. Can you go with 
 me?" 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "This evening." 
 
 "Man or woman?" 
 
 "Woman. Yes, the same one," he added in re- 
 sponse to my look. "As I told you long ago she's 
 worth knowing." 
 
 "Then you didn't move that time after all?" 
 
 "Oh yes, I did; but she didn't. I still knew where 
 to find her whenever I was in town." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 
 
 "I wasn't able to 'phone her," remarked Douglas 
 as we started out to pay our call several hours later, 
 "but it'll be all right. She's always at home." 
 
 "A home body?" I observed. "I suppose that is 
 why she attracts the attraction of opposites." 
 
 "Perhaps," he laughed. "At any rate she doesn't 
 get a chance to go out much. I imagine she has a 
 pretty hard time of it, although there is every indica- 
 tion that the family has been in much better circum- 
 stances." 
 
 As we drew near the large, old-fashioned house, I 
 had in mind the picture I had seen in the doorway 
 that morning months before and so I was not at all 
 surprised as we started up the steps to hear a sweet 
 voice singing: 
 
 "Could ye come back to me, Douglas, 
 In the old likeness that I knew." 
 
 It was evidently as much of a surprise to Douglas 
 as our visit was to the girl and for a moment he hesi- 
 tated as if he were about to turn and run away; but 
 I gave him no opportunity and we were soon at the 
 door, which, in answer to our ring, was opened by the 
 young woman herself. Of course her face flushed 
 
 55 
 
56 DOUGLAS 
 
 when she saw who it was how could it help it 
 but outside of that, she gave no indication of having 
 been surprised. 
 
 Seated in the large, old-fashioned parlor, under a 
 chandelier which had been a most elaborate affair in 
 years gone by, and clad in a becoming gown which no 
 one need expect me to describe, Hester Gordon ap- 
 peared to me to fit exactly Douglas' description of her. 
 I found no occasion then, nor have I since, to disagree 
 with his statement that she was well worth while. 
 
 I have always been quite susceptible to womanly 
 beauty, and long before we left the house that evening, 
 I found myself wondering how Douglas could find it 
 in his heart to leave so fair, fascinating, and congenial 
 a friend for so poor and tawdry a land as Persia. I 
 was sure that had there been such an attraction to 
 hold me, I should have thought a long time before 
 discharging myself from even so trying a position as 
 the managing editor of the Herald. 
 
 Although Douglas declares otherwise, I am a deal 
 better judge of a news item than I am of women ; but, 
 at that, I was certain that the announcement of 
 Douglas' departure for a year's sojourn in the orient 
 was most unwelcome news to Hester Gordon. 
 
 "What can tempt you to leave so peaceful and en- 
 lightened a land as this, for so barbarous and ignorant 
 a country as that ? " she asked with an effort at levity 
 which to my judgment was forced. 
 
 "Barbarous indeed!" exclaimed Douglas. "Why 
 Persia was a land of learning long ere the existence of 
 this hemisphere was thought of." 
 
 "True," replied Hester, "but does not Xenophon 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 57 
 
 invariably refer to them as barbarians ? And he was 
 writing at a date much later than that to which you 
 refer." 
 
 "Perhaps Xenophon was prejudiced," I laughed. 
 "His writings always impress me as similar to political 
 editorials decidedly colored from the writer's view- 
 point." 
 
 "They undoubtedly were," replied Douglas, "for 
 any one will admit that the religion of the Persians 
 was a deal nearer the truth than the mythology of 
 Greece, with its scores of gods and goddesses moved 
 and controlled by the very worst of human passions." 
 
 "And I have Douglas' assurance, Miss Gordon," I 
 interrupted with a laugh, "that the great reason 
 why he wishes to visit Persia is the hope that he may 
 find in the old Persian religion something that will 
 answer his unanswerable questions regarding the past 
 and the future." 
 
 The girl looked at me quite seriously for a moment 
 and then replied with a little rippling laugh: "If he 
 will take care of the present, I do not think he need 
 concern himself about the future. As for the past 
 that is gone." 
 
 "True," I replied, "and as for the future we never 
 reach it." 
 
 "That is the way I have been taught," Hester 
 replied. "There is no time but now." 
 
 "No," interrupted Douglas with that same fierce- 
 ness which so often characterized his speech, "but 
 there is eternity." 
 
 "Yes, and we are living in it," replied Miss Gordon, 
 quickly. 
 
58 DOUGLAS 
 
 "But I do not think Mr. Warren came up here to 
 hear you and I discuss our religious beliefs now did 
 you ? " turning to me. 
 
 "I came up because Douglas asked me for which 
 I am under deep obligations. I certainly should 
 regret having left the United States without meeting 
 you, Miss Gordon." 
 
 "I fear you are a flatterer." 
 
 "On the contrary, I haven't made it as strong as I 
 feel. I am sure if I were Douglas I wouldn't go." 
 
 The girl colored but Douglas was adjusting his eye- 
 glasses and did not notice it. If my impertinent 
 speech caused her any embarrassment she quickly 
 hid it by remarking: 
 
 "I shouldn't mind visiting Persia and the Orient 
 myself, under favorable conditions." 
 
 "That is why I agreed to keep Douglas company," 
 I replied. "No condition could be more favorable." 
 
 "Not for a couple of Bohemians," she laughed. 
 
 "There is nothing Bohemian about this," declared 
 Douglas. " Officially we are going as members of the 
 royal household. Our private purpose is even more 
 respectable." 
 
 "Indeed, and may I know what it is?" 
 
 Douglas hesitated and I replied: "To indulge in 
 the intoxication of adventure and to study primitive 
 religion." 
 
 "Both of which," added Hester decidedly, "are 
 much healthier conditions of mind than are found in 
 the life you newspaper men lead." 
 
 "We're not so bad, Miss Gordon." 
 
 "No, not as men look at things, but " 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 59 
 
 ' ' But me no buts,' " interrupted Douglas. "Warren 
 is the most circumspect and conservative of men." 
 
 "I certainly am glad he is going with you," replied 
 Hester earnestly. 
 
 "Yes, I know I need looking after." 
 
 The smile on Hester's lips died away as she replied 
 a bit sadly, I thought: 
 
 "I'm afraid you do. However, in the land of past 
 splendor and strange religions you may find some one 
 who, like Moore's peri will point 
 
 ' out the road 
 
 ' For some pure spirit to the blest abode.' " 
 
 "If he had said some impure spirit, it would have 
 come much nearer fitting my case," he replied. 
 
 "Douglas!" the girl exclaimed under her breath. 
 
 Douglas looked at her in such a surprised and 
 quizzical manner that it flashed upon me in an instant 
 that, as upon a former occasion, she had been surprised 
 into thus addressing him. Furthermore, I am fully 
 persuaded that had Douglas had the same belief re- 
 garding Hester's attitude toward him when he went 
 to the house that evening that he had when he left an 
 hour later he would not have been in such haste to 
 close the bargain with Ahab Kahn. 
 
 I am further moved to make this statement, because 
 I have since discovered that in spite of his years of 
 roving, Douglas has always been a home-lover and an 
 ardent admirer of the good and pure in woman but 
 he has always been too bashful to express to them 
 this admiration. In fact, the only real conviction 
 he had ever had up to the time I met him that 
 
CO DOUGLAS 
 
 heaven was attainable to earth dwellers, came through 
 his boyhood experience with a pure and womanly 
 thought. 
 
 Now that I have referred to this early episode I 
 think it might be wise to tell you something, very 
 briefly, of his boyhood. I say wise, for I feel that 
 such an account of his youthful education and 
 environments will explain, better than any reason I 
 can give, the cause of his present condition of 
 thought. 
 
 In relating this most interesting episode, I must 
 lead up to it by explaining that Douglas' earliest recol- 
 lection of himself and he has no other record than 
 his memory to go by, being without hereditary kith or 
 kin begins when he was digging holes in a sand- 
 bank just back of an old red school-house from which 
 came the hum of children's voices. Douglas was not 
 old enough to go to school, so he used to play about 
 barefooted in the sand until the children came out for 
 recess, or noon. Then he would join the youngest ones, 
 first having hidden the yellow sunbonnet which his 
 Puritanical grandmother insisted that he should wear. 
 
 How he did hate that yellow sunbonnet, or more 
 correctly speaking, those yellow sunbonnets. He 
 often wondered where his grandmother found the 
 cloth out of which to make them. Finally he came to 
 the conclusion that God must have given it to her, for 
 to Douglas, God seemed to have made about all the 
 disagreeable things in life. 
 
 As the boy grew older this impression was strength- 
 ened by this same Puritanical and conscientiously 
 good grandmother and by the heated theological dis- 
 
A. TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 61 
 
 cussions which were a daily part of Douglas' home 
 life. He used to look at his grandmother with awe as 
 she expounded the creed of fallen man to her sons, 
 daughters and "in-laws," among whom were Douglas' 
 parents and wonder how she knew so much about 
 heaven and hell. She did not look to him as though 
 she had ever been to either place. Then he would 
 watch her as she pored over the big Bible and com- 
 mentaries and wonder if that was where she got her 
 information. 
 
 Sometimes she would tell him nice stories out of the 
 Bible, but her favorite one was about Elisha, especially 
 that part where some children mocked him and cried 
 out: "Go up thou bald head!" By the time she 
 reached this part, Douglas with wide-opened eyes 
 waited for the rest, although he knew it by heart. 
 
 "And Elisha turned back," his grandmother would 
 say, "and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And 
 there came forth two she-bears out of the woods and 
 tare forty and two children of them." 
 
 Douglas would always exclaim, "Oh!" and every 
 time he would see old Mr. Beardsley, with his long 
 gray beard and his shiny bald pate, the boy would 
 wonder what would happen if he should say "Go up, 
 bald head!" The only thing that kept him from try- 
 ing was fear of the she-bears. 
 
 In this same way he would like to have done a lot of 
 other things that were done by the wicked children in 
 the Bible, but was prevented by fear. He was sure if 
 he did them he would be eaten up by she-bears and 
 after that be burned in an everlasting fire. 
 
 Sometimes Douglas saw his grandmother do things 
 
62 DOUGLAS 
 
 that he did not think were just right and he wondered 
 if she, too, were not afraid of being burned. 
 
 As Douglas grew, this fear of future punishment 
 grew with him. As he became old enough to distin- 
 guish more clearly between the things his grandmother 
 and her Bible taught him he should do, and the things 
 he did do, he discovered that he was doing hardly any- 
 thing in a manner which would not bring punish- 
 ment. 
 
 When he was about seven he was forbidden to go 
 in swimming. When he saw all the other boys going 
 in, the temptation was too great and he disobeyed. 
 When his mother undressed him that night she found 
 he had his shirt on wrong side out. She immediately 
 guessed the truth and asked him about it. 
 
 "Haven't you been in swimming?" she asked. 
 
 "No, ma'am!" he replied. 
 
 "Then how did your shirt come to be on wrong 
 side out?" 
 
 "I took my clothes off and ran up and down the 
 bank of the creek to get cool," was the hesitating 
 reply. 
 
 The absurdity of the story was too much for the 
 mother's sense of humor and she burst into a laugh, 
 which saved him a whipping; but the knowledge of 
 the lie made the child's life a burden to him for days. 
 
 "I've told a lie," he kept saying to himself, "and 
 I'll have to go to hell." 
 
 He was afraid to go to bed in the dark and he was 
 afraid to go to sleep. He tried to tell his mother, but 
 she just laughed. He didn't dare tell his grandmother, 
 because he was sure she was so well acquainted with 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 63 
 
 God that she would tell Him all about it and He would 
 simply be angrier than ever. 
 
 Fear of future punishment brought with it that fear 
 of death which had since become such a part of him. 
 It was not the fear of the pain of dying, for it never 
 occurred to the boy that it would hurt to die. It was 
 the fear of what might happen after death; and the 
 older he grew and the more he was able to realize that 
 most of the thoughts which filled his mind were not 
 holy thoughts, the greater became his fear of the future. 
 
 One day it dawned upon him that the only time he 
 was not thinking about the future was when he was 
 busy playing, or was so interested in something else 
 that he forgot the future. 
 
 Right then and there he determined that he would 
 always be so busy that he would not have the time to 
 think of the future. From that time on he became 
 one of the most active children, where previously he 
 had been one of the quietest. He went from one thing 
 to another with an activity that caused his family to 
 remark upon his untiring energy. He was always 
 busy. He preferred to play, but he would study. No 
 game was too strenuous, no adventure too hazardous 
 to deter him from engaging in it. To illustrate: 
 
 The winter that Douglas was eight, there were in 
 the school a number of big boys, right off the farm. 
 They were almost men and fit to go out into the world, 
 and he heard much talk from some of them that they 
 were about to run away and go west. Douglas sug- 
 gested that he would like to go, too, but they laughed 
 at him. The thought of it, however, filled his waking 
 hours to the exclusion of all else. It seemed the one 
 
64 DOUGLAS 
 
 thing necessary to keep his mind off the distant future. 
 The longer he thought about it, the more decided he 
 was to go, and so one March afternoon, having 
 persuaded a boy about his own age that he could easily 
 make a living for the two of them, they started for the 
 city some dozen miles away c 
 
 Fortunately for them they took the railroad track 
 which passed the neighborhood about half a mile from 
 the school house. Three or four miles from home 
 they encountered a gang of section men who questioned 
 them sharply. Upon discovering what they were up 
 to, the boss, who later became a great friend of Douglas, 
 sent them home saying: 
 
 "Sure if yez don't go straight back to yer home, I'll 
 be after takin' yez back to the village and havin' yez 
 locked up." 
 
 His companion took a short cut across lots to his 
 father's farm, while Douglas trudged back up the 
 track in the gathering darkness, stirred inside to the 
 boiling point with mingled disappointment, fear, and 
 hatred of the men who had interfered with his plans. 
 
 Along about this time, his parents having moved to 
 town, another phase of his malady took possession of 
 him. 
 
 If there is any one who thinks that the term malady 
 does not define the thing that was troubling Douglas, 
 let him study his dictionary. 
 
 Having always been a Sunday-school scholar, 
 Douglas now felt that his only salvation from endless 
 future punishment lay in getting religion, The op- 
 portunity came with the week of prayer, which in many 
 small towns marks the end of the holidays, and the 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 65 
 
 series of protracted meetings which followed and were 
 expected to bring in a religious revival. 
 
 If you have never lived in a little town you cannot 
 understand what that word revival means to most young 
 people. It is the time when all the religious sentiment 
 in the village is aroused, and professed Christians and 
 church members set about convincing the rest of the 
 village that they are condemned sinners, whose only 
 salvation consists in accepting the orthodox idea of 
 God and His Christ. If there are a number of religious 
 denominations in the village, they usually start in with 
 union services and these continue to a point where a 
 large number have been converted as the term 
 goes. 
 
 Then, to acquire a complete salvation, the convert 
 must join one of the churches. Here the way of salva- 
 tion diverges. One set of Christians decide that you 
 must be immersed. Another is satisfied if you are 
 sprinkled. One decides that only the elect shall par- 
 take of the communion and another invites all who 
 desire to commune. Instead of religion pure and 
 undefiled, the new convert is dosed with doctrine, and 
 if he happens like Douglas to be only a boy of 
 twelve, it is pretty easy to imagine the result. He 
 joins the church to which his parents belong and ac- 
 cepts their beliefs as best he can until he is old enough 
 to think for himself. 
 
 This is exactly what Douglas did. He attended the 
 revival meetings, listened to the preaching, singing, 
 and exhortations; became convinced that there was a 
 way of salvation ; was filled with a strong desire to find 
 it, accepted his grandmother's explanation of the way 
 
66 DOUGLAS 
 
 and joined the church to which his family had belonged 
 ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. 
 
 For a time he felt better. Buoyed up with the ex- 
 citement of the season, his fear seemed to leave him 
 and he felt that he had escaped that punishment with 
 which he had been threatened. He tried to do better 
 and felt more light-hearted than for years. He be- 
 came more active in church work and had a kindlier 
 feeling for every one. The following winter there was 
 another revival and he was among the most interested 
 of the young people. A noted evangelist was secured 
 to lead the meetings and on the first night he opened 
 his talk by asking: 
 
 "If you should die tonight where would you go ?" 
 
 Douglas gave a mental start. 
 
 The evangelist repeated the question. Mentally 
 Douglas tried to answer it. He looked about at the 
 others. They, too, seemed to be trying to answer it. 
 Then he went back into himself. The rest of the 
 preacher's words were lost. He could only keep re- 
 peating to himself the question: "If I should die 
 tonight, where should I go?" 
 
 He was sure he could not tell. 
 
 During the past year Douglas had almost ceased to 
 think of death. He had only been trying to do better. 
 He had been so comfortable in doing good, that death 
 seemed a faraway event. Now it was presented to 
 him as the one question to be answered. What were all 
 his good deeds? He had been taught that man was 
 not saved by good deeds, but by the sacrifice of another. 
 
 But now even this was forgotten. The main thing 
 was, that some time, if not tonight, he must die, and 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 67 
 
 then where would he go ? He was absolutely certain 
 that he did not know. 
 
 He went home from the meeting in a daze, his old 
 fears filling his mind. All night he pondered and slept 
 little. The following morning he was cross and more 
 disturbed than ever, and when at the breakfast table 
 the evangelist's talk of the night before came up for 
 discussion he said nothing until his grandmother said 
 to his grandfather: 
 
 "It must have set people to thinking. If you were 
 to die tonight, father, where would you go?" 
 
 And her husband, who gave no attention whatever 
 to religious matters, replied : "I don't know. Do 
 you?" 
 
 "To heaven, if I am good enough," was the em- 
 phatic reply. 
 
 "Well, are you good enough?" 
 
 Douglas waited eagerly for her reply. When it was 
 not at once forthcoming he exclaimed in a manner so 
 excited as to draw the attention of all upon him: 
 "Yes, grandma, are you good enough?" 
 
 The aged woman's face flushed as she replied 
 meekly with tears in her voice: "I don't know." 
 
 It was no answer to Douglas and his heart sank 
 within him. In his stunned condition he failed utterly 
 to grasp the import of his grandfather's reply, who, 
 with more insight into the nature of God than most 
 men of his day, said softly to his aged wife: 
 
 "You needn't worry, Nancy. I know." 
 
 But Douglas didn't know and his grandmother's 
 confessed ignorance of the future caused him to doubt 
 if there were any one in the world good enough to be 
 
68 DOUGLAS 
 
 saved from the punishment which he was sure was the 
 ultimate fate of the wicked a doubt which aroused 
 within him the latent fear which had never been 
 destroyed and which continued with him until finally 
 destroyed by the revelation which changed his very 
 being. 
 
 What might have been the immediate effect of this 
 loss of faith in human goodness it is difficult to say, 
 had not Douglas suddenly experienced an entirely new 
 sensation, and this brings me up to the episode I wish 
 to relate. 
 
 The indirect cause of this new sensation was the 
 arrival of a strange family in the village. The 
 direct cause was a pair of roguish eyes that 
 glanced up at Douglas through a wealth of wavy hair 
 as he passed the house of the newcomers the following 
 afternoon. 
 
 Her name, as Douglas afterwards learned, was 
 Millie Coy; but the first sight of her as she swung airily 
 on the front gate, clad in dainty white, with a red 
 ribbon at her throat and a red rose in her hair, drove 
 all thought of so inconsequential a thing as a name 
 out of his mind. He could only think of those eyes 
 and their witchery. 
 
 The fact that Douglas fell in love with Millie at first 
 sight was convincing proof of his good taste and 
 stamped him at once a competent judge of feminine 
 loveliness, for a more beautiful child than Millie Coy 
 could not have been found in the entire length and 
 breadth of the Empire state. Her hair and eyes were 
 raven black, her cheeks were as red as the proverbial 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 69 
 
 peony, while otherwise her skin was as fair as that 
 other emblematic flower the lily. 
 
 In that first glance the whole world changed for 
 Douglas. In place of the fear which had possessed 
 him, there came into his consciousness the realization 
 that there was something worth living for after all. It 
 was as though he had unexpectedly met an angel 
 and who shall say that the uplifting thought which 
 came to the boy through this glimpse of the beautiful, 
 was not an angel visitant sent from the source of all 
 beauty. It would by no means be the first time that 
 a pure thought proving itself the angel of a divine 
 presence has come to mankind through the pure, 
 spiritual consciousness of woman; nor was it the last, 
 as Douglas was one day to learn. 
 
 Although it had been easy and pleasurable to fall 
 in love, Douglas found it was by no means so easy to 
 make his feelings known to the object of his adoration. 
 While it appeared that every one else in the village 
 quickly discovered his preference for Millie, she 
 seemed totally unconscious of it apparently devot- 
 ing less thought and time to him than to any other of 
 the village boys. His offerings of fruits, flowers, and 
 confections. the latter acquired at considerable sacri- 
 fice on his part were always accepted, but in a 
 manner that failed to inspire him with the hope that 
 he was gaining any especial place in her good graces. 
 While he could see how popular she was, he could not 
 see how it happened that she was always so busy when- 
 ever he had anything special he wanted to tell her. 
 
 So it ran along until the annual Sunday school picnic, 
 
70 DOUGLAS 
 
 which was held in a grove located some two miles 
 from the village on an artificial lake caused by the 
 overflow of the water from the canal, which was a 
 feature of that section. Several of the boys of Douglas' 
 age and a bit older, chartered a small steam launch 
 for the day and made frequent trips from the village 
 to the grove. 
 
 As the boat approached the landing-place on one of 
 these trips, a group of girls among them Millie 
 gathered on the little dock awaiting the arrival of the 
 launch. Seeing the girls thus expectant, two of the 
 boys thought it a fine opportunity to "show off," as 
 the saying goes, and in an attempt to make a flying 
 leap from the boat to the dock, they gave the launch 
 such a shock that Douglas, standing in the bow ready 
 to make the boat fast to a snubbing post, was thrown 
 into the water. 
 
 It is doubtful if the water were deep enough to have 
 drowned a good-sized boy, even though there had been 
 no help at hand ; but to the girls on the dock it looked 
 like a terrible accident, and, with the exception of Millie 
 they set up a shriek which quickly drew a crowd to 
 the shore. Millie, however, with the most presence 
 of mind of all who witnessed the accident, ran to 
 Douglas' assistance, and with the help of a long fishing 
 pole, which had been left on the dock by some stray 
 fisherman, succeeded in pulling the lad to the shore. 
 Then, dripping as he was, she proudly took him by 
 the arm and escorted him to a nearby farm-house 
 where he was soon arrayed in a suit of dry garments, 
 the apparel of one of the farmer's boys. 
 
 From this time on Douglas had no cause to complain 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 71 
 
 of Millie's attitude towards him. For many months 
 they were professed sweethearts and in this pleasant 
 companionship Douglas forgot the danger of the future 
 in the joy of the present. 
 
 The following spring Millie fell a victim to an epi- 
 demic which ravaged the village and turned many a 
 home of happiness into one of sorrow. Both Millie 
 and Douglas were stricken Millie first and each 
 day until he became bound by delirium, his foremost 
 waking thoughts were for her. 
 
 Then came days when all to him was blank. 
 There were hushed voices and ceaseless watches, to all 
 of which he was unconscious; but when at last 
 the crisis had passed and he came to himself, his first 
 question was about Millie. For days his question was 
 evaded, until finally it could be kept from him no 
 longer and then they told him that she was dead. 
 
 For hours thereafter he lay stunned, saying nothing 
 but with wide-open eyes gazing either at the ceiling or 
 the bits of the sky he could see through the trees. It 
 was the first time that he had come face to face with 
 death and in the loss of his boyhood's sweetheart he 
 felt that death had proved itself stronger than life 
 stronger than love. Even in his weakened condition 
 he had a feeling of anger that there could be any power 
 which could so deprive him of happiness, and he 
 wondered for the first time in his life if the power 
 which had done this really could be God. 
 
 This experience brought to him one consolation. 
 He felt sure that at least one had passed from earth 
 who was good enough to go to heaven. He had no 
 doubt as to where Millie was; but would he ever again 
 
72 DOUGLAS 
 
 be able to see her? That was the question. In his 
 weakened condition, he did not seem to himself as 
 wicked as when he was up and living the more active 
 life. Perhaps he wasn't so bad after all. Maybe, 
 some day, he would be able to go to heaven. There 
 also rang in his ears the words of a song then much in 
 vogue, and in the words of that song, Millie seemed to 
 him like "the little white angel," who 
 
 "Stood ever beside the portal 
 
 "Sorrowing all the day, 
 "And she said to the stately warden 
 
 "He of the golden bar ; 
 "O Angel, sweet Angel, I pray you 
 
 "Let the beautiful gates ajar 
 "Only a little I pray you. 
 
 "Let the beautiful gates ajar." 
 
 As in the song, the prayer of the little child angel 
 prevailed for the sake of "the sad-eyed mother," so 
 Douglas hoped that maybe Millie might induce the 
 warden to leave the gates ajar for him; and he sang 
 over and over again to himself the words: 
 
 "Then turned was the key in the portal, 
 
 "Fell ringing the golden bar 
 "And held in the child angel's fingers 
 
 "Stood the gates forever ajar." 
 
 When Douglas was able to be up and around, some 
 one suggested to him that he should visit the place 
 where they had laid Millie, but he would not. 
 "She isn't there," he said. "She is in heaven." 
 Of this there was not the slightest doubt in his mind, 
 and is there any one who dare deny that the Millie 
 
A TOUCH OF THE FEMININE 73 
 
 whom Douglas knew the good, the beautiful, the 
 pure which she manifested was and is forever in 
 that realm of perfect harmony, which human eye hath 
 not seen and which is the eternal abode of all them 
 that love good. 
 
 Why is it, some one may ask, that in telling this 
 story of Douglas, thoughts of Millie Coy and Hester 
 Gordon should be so closely allied ? I cannot tell. I 
 only know that they are. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FAITH OF AHAB 
 
 TIME spent in travel passes so quickly and events 
 follow each other in such rapid succession, that it 
 seems impossible to keep track of them in their 
 proper order. Therefore I shall not try. It is suffi- 
 cient for the purpose of this story to know that we are 
 now on board an ocean steamship not one of the 
 ocean greyhounds of the regular line but a slow- 
 going vessel, bound for the Mediterranean. 
 
 The passengers on the Carthagenia so she is 
 named are composed largely of excursionists bound 
 for a three-months' tour of the Orient, including the 
 Holy Land. As may be expected, therefore, Bible 
 students are as thick on board as flies around the 
 proverbial molasses barrel. 
 
 Among this crowd of pilgrims, Douglas and Ahab 
 were, right from the start, in their element. I could 
 never sit down for a nice, quiet smoke and chat with 
 either one of them that something in the Bible did 
 not come up for discussion. They would tackle any- 
 thing from Genesis to Revelation, especially the 
 prophecies and the gospels. 
 
 Neither of them, however, was particularly inter- 
 ested in the history of the Holy Land They did not 
 seem to consider that anything more wonderful had 
 
 74 
 
THE FAITH OF AHAB 75 
 
 happened there, than in any other place where the 
 problems of life are to be worked out. Ahab was 
 strong on the prophets and Douglas on the gospels. 
 They occasionally referred to the doings of the 
 Children of Israel, but simply as a matter of ancient 
 history, which was worth just as much as a lesson 
 as the history of any other by-gone nation. The 
 faith of the Israelites, however, was one thing which 
 impressed Ahab. Beyond that, both he and Douglas 
 referred to them as a lot of has-beens much as a 
 bunch of newspaper men might discuss the achieve- 
 ments of Greeley or Dana as all right for their time, 
 but not of any value now. 
 
 "It is no wonder," I declared after listening for 
 some minutes to one of these discussions, as we were 
 sailing along over the blue waters of the Atlantic one 
 starlight night, "that you fellows live in constant 
 dread of some terrible future." 
 
 "What do you mean?" queried Douglas. 
 
 "Why, if I were living continually on the ragged 
 edge of eternity, as you seem to be, unable to deter- 
 mine in your own mind who or what the power is that 
 rules the universe, I, too, would be afraid to live and 
 more afraid to die." 
 
 "I have no fear of either the present or the future," 
 said Ahab emphatically. "I discuss these matters 
 simply as a topic of conversation; nothing more. I 
 believe that God is good and that in the end every 
 thing will be found good. I believe that man is 
 saved with an everlasting salvation, as the scriptures 
 declare. It is not reasonable to believe that God 
 created all things only for the sake of destroying them." 
 
76 DOUGLAS 
 
 "That's simply your opinion," replied Douglas. 
 "You have no proof." 
 
 "My proof is within me," exclaimed Ahab. "I 
 feel that I am immortal. But you you who believe 
 that Jesus, whom you name the Christ, arose from 
 the dead certainly you should have no fear for the 
 future. If one man were able to raise himself from 
 the dead, all should be " 
 
 "Provided they knew how," interrupted Douglas. 
 
 "Why should you need to know how, provided you 
 have faith," insisted Ahab. "Moses didn't know 
 how the Children of Israel were going to be saved 
 from the Red Sea; he did not care. It was enough 
 for him to know that God could save them some way. 
 When the time came, there was the dry path. Why 
 not pray and do as Moses did ?"* 
 
 "That's different." 
 
 "Why? Didn't death at the hands of the Egyp- 
 tians seem just as bad as any other death and it 
 was right at hand ? " 
 
 "Yes; but Moses had been pulled out of so many 
 tight places and seen so many wonders, he was ready 
 to believe anything." 
 
 *Mos5Es' PRAYER AT THE RED SEA. Thou art not ignorant, O Lord, that 
 it is beyond human strength and human contrivance to avoid the diffi- 
 culties we are now under; but it must be thy work altogether to procure 
 deliverance to this army which has left Egypt at thy appointment. We 
 despair of any other assistance or contrivance, and have recourse only to 
 that hope we have in thee: and if there be any method that can promise 
 us an escape by thy providence, we look up to thee for it. And let it corne 
 quickly and manifest thy power to us; and do thou raise up this people 
 unto good courage and hope of deliverance, who are deeply sunk into a 
 desolate state of mind. We are in a helpless place, but still it is a place 
 that thou possesses!; still the sea is thine, the mountains that enclose us 
 are thine; so that these mountains will open themselves if thou com- 
 mandest them and the sea, also, if thou commandest it, will become dry 
 land. Nay, we might escape by a flight through the air if thou shouldst 
 so determine we should have that way of salvation. Flavins Josephus, 
 
 Book II, Chap. XVI. 
 
THE FAITH OF AHAB 77 
 
 Ahab shook his head. "That isn't what I am talk- 
 ing about. You men from the western world seem 
 unable to sustain a logical argument. You are 
 always going off at a tangent." 
 
 "Well, what do you want me to admit?" asked 
 Douglas testily. 
 
 "Simply that there is a power an omnipotent power 
 whom we call God who always has taken care of 
 those who had faith in Him and who always will 
 and we do not need to concern ourselves further. 
 This Power made man immortal and is able to and 
 will protect him. This is the whole of the science of 
 being, out of which you make so much mystery." 
 
 "Prove it," exclaimed Douglas. 
 
 "The proof is within me," again replied Ahab. 
 
 "Well, it is not in me." 
 
 "Because you refuse to recognize it; but Moses 
 saw; Esaias saw; Jeremiah saw; Daniel saw; even 
 your teacher, Jesus, saw." 
 
 "Yes," interrupted Douglas, "and proved what he 
 saw whatever that was. If you see the same thing, 
 why don't you prove it?" 
 
 Ahab arose to his feet exclaiming with a shrug of 
 his shoulders: "How foolish!" and strolled away. 
 
 "You had him there," said a bewhiskered old chap 
 with a slouch hat. "If all these things are true, why 
 don't somebody prove them." 
 
 Douglas looked at the speaker quizzically through 
 his eyeglasses. 
 
 "You evidently don't believe in anything you can't 
 see," he said. 
 
 "That's me," chuckled the old man. "That's why 
 
78 DOUGLAS 
 
 I'm going around the world. I'm tired of taking 
 other people's word for anything. I'm going to see 
 it for myself." 
 
 "Then I don't suppose you believe in a hereafter?" 
 
 "Can't say that I do. But if there is one, I'll be 
 there and I won't be alone. I don't see any use 
 worrying about it; do you ?" 
 
 The look on Douglas' face changed from one of 
 interest to one of nervous fear. "I'm afraid I do," 
 he said huskily. 
 
 The old man looked at him in surprise for an 
 instant and then blurted out: 
 
 "It's a wonder to me you ain't afraid to go sailin'. 
 It's mighty dangerous on the water. Ships go down 
 every once in a while." 
 
 "Yes," snapped Douglas, "and the earth quakes 
 every once in a while and trains run off the track and 
 tornadoes blow whole towns away, but we keep right 
 on amongst them. Why? Because we can't help 
 it because we are going to hang on as long as we 
 can, no matter how scared we are. We'd all rather 
 take a chance of being blown up and mutilated or 
 made a cripple for life, than to take a voluntary 
 chance beyond the grave except once in a while, 
 when some poor mortal loses his mind and shuffles 
 off." 
 
 The old man regarded him with a look of mingled 
 astonishment and amusement. 
 
 "Do you think every man who commits suicide is 
 crazy?" 
 
 "No doubt of it." 
 
 "I agree with you. Suicide is worse than folly. 
 
THE FAITH OF AHAB 79 
 
 As you say it is madness, for there's nothing so bad 
 it can't be worse. Now take yourself for instance " 
 
 His speech was cut short by a sudden jar that threw 
 him to the deck and which was followed by a shriek 
 from scores of voices. Then there was silence, while 
 the passengers looked into each others' blanched faces. 
 
 I have always prided myself that I am not a coward. 
 Some of the things I have done would bear out this 
 opinion; but I am free to admit that for the moment 
 there came to me a sickening sense of fear. 
 
 Instinctively I looked at Douglas. He seemed on 
 the verge of collapse. His blanched face was under- 
 going a most remarkable change a change that 
 revealed the mental process going on within him and 
 reminded me of the countenance of a condemned man 
 to whom I had heard the sheriff read the death 
 warrant. His eyes became glassy and he licked his 
 parched lips in a manner absolutely mechanical. 
 
 I forgot my own fear in the greater fear he was 
 manifesting. I felt I must do something to save his 
 manhood. Because, as the saying goes, "the ruling 
 passion is strong in death," I exclaimed in sheer 
 desperation : 
 
 "It may be a big story. It's up to us to cover it." 
 
 For a moment he regarded me curiously and then 
 his senses seemed to return and he exclaimed : 
 
 "Right! You do the officers. I'll take care of the 
 passengers," and he turned hastily to where the old 
 man, who a moment before was so fearless, was now 
 scrambling to his feet with a look of terror on his 
 face. 
 
 It was very evident that a panic was imminent 
 
80 DOUGLAS 
 
 unless something was done. None of the officers had 
 yet appeared aft, and so with the coolest voice he could 
 muster Douglas exclaimed: 
 
 "It must be an accident to the machinery. We 
 surely could have struck nothing out here." 
 
 The explanation seemed reasonable and many were 
 reassured; but just then, the old man, looking into 
 the sea, saw something which frightened him and he 
 let out an unearthly shriek. 
 
 "It's a collision," he yelled. "It's a collision. 
 We've struck another boat." 
 
 There were more shrieks and some women fainted. 
 
 "Nonsense," I shouted. "It's more likely that it 
 was a whale." 
 
 The suggestion was most absurd, but it changed 
 the thought. 
 
 Just then an officer appeared. 
 
 "Some accident to the machinery, I suppose," 
 said Douglas as the passengers crowded toward him. 
 
 The officer was quick to take the suggestion. 
 
 "I think so," he replied, "but an examination is 
 being made." 
 
 Then as he saw the blanched faces about him he 
 continued : 
 
 "There is absolutely no danger. Our bulkheads 
 and watertight compartments are perfect." 
 
 Thus assured, in many parts of the ship the 
 passengers waited quietly, though anxiously, for 
 further news. How long it was coming I should hate 
 to say. It doubtless seemed longer than it really 
 was. During the time we discussed our location. 
 
THE FAITH OF AHAB 81 
 
 "We were 39 45' north and 20 10' west at noon 
 today," said one. 
 
 "Since which time we have sailed about 130 miles 
 southeast," declared Douglas. "We are about 300 
 miles from the coast of Portugal, and right in the 
 track of the P. & O. steamships." 
 
 "You have been over this route before?" asked one. 
 
 "Several times. It is absolutely the open sea." 
 
 This seemed to appease those who heard him, till 
 the news began to get about that we had struck a 
 sunken derelict and that the forward bulkhead was 
 stove in to a point of danger. While it was not 
 believed the vessel would sink, it was thought best to 
 man and fill the lifeboats with the women and children, 
 although it was decided not to lower them unless 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 This seemed plausible to me, who had never sailed 
 on anything bigger than the Hudson river, and I was 
 perfectly satisfied to see the boats slowly filled as 
 ordered; but as we talked with our companions, I 
 could see Douglas had a different idea. 
 
 "If it were no worse than that," he said in a low 
 voice, "they wouldn't take all this trouble. We are 
 in grave danger. We are mighty close to eternity." 
 
 "If you believe it, you don't show it," I replied, 
 regarding him closely. 
 
 "I feel it," he declared with a shudder. "But 
 somehow or other I feel as though I were in a dream. 
 This doesn't seem to be me at all, and I feel a good 
 deal more afraid of being thought a coward by these 
 people than of anything else." 
 
82 DOUGLAS 
 
 If he could have put my feelings into words 
 he could not have expressed them any more 
 clearly. 
 
 Not so our bewhiskered and agnostic acquaintance 
 of a few minutes past. Seeing the boats fill up one 
 by one with the women and children and perceiving 
 that there were not nearly enough to hold all the 
 passengers, he became wild with terror; and when 
 some two hours later the ship was found to be gradu- 
 ally sinking and the life boats were lowered into the 
 water, he made a frantic rush and tried to throw 
 himself into one of them. He was only prevented 
 from upsetting the boat, by being forcibly detained. 
 
 His condition was so pitiable that I turned to Ahab, 
 who was pacing calmly back and forth, and re- 
 marked : 
 
 "I trust that when the time comes, I shall die like a 
 man." 
 
 "If we have faith in God," declared Ahab, "we 
 shall none of us die." 
 
 I had not intended that Douglas should hear my 
 remark, but that he did I could plainly see by the way 
 he hastily turned his face to conceal his looks. At 
 Ahab's words, however, he turned quickly back 
 exclaiming: 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that God is able to save us from the water 
 just as He saved the Children of Israel from the 
 Egyptians. He can not only make us a path to the 
 land, but He can, as Moses declared, even take us 
 through the air." 
 
 "Do you believe that?" 
 
THE FAITH OF AHAB 83 
 
 "Certainly. I do not say that is how He will do it, 
 but like Moses I am praying declaring that God 
 can save us. It is for Him to furnish the way." 
 
 "I wish I had your faith," said Douglas. "All I 
 have is a little hope that in some way we may be 
 saved by a passing ship, or by the life rafts. That is 
 the only reason," he continued in a low voice, "that 
 I don't act just as that old man did. It is terrible! 
 Terrible!" and he wiped great beads of perspiration 
 from his brow. 
 
 Looking within myself, I knew I was in much the 
 same condition of mind. It just seemed as though 
 I couldn't reconcile myself to the thought of death; 
 but still I was outwardly calm. Yet suffering as I 
 was, I had a sense that my suffering was as nothing 
 to that of Douglas. 
 
 The hours that passed were the longest I ever 
 experienced. There was absolutely nothing to do 
 but wait. Of course I prayed; but that anything 
 I could pray would cause God to change his mind, 
 seemed to me so absolutely absurd that I can see 
 that my faith was not even as large as a grain of 
 mustard seed. 
 
 However, something did happen. After settling 
 gradually for more than two feet, the Carthagenia 
 became stationary. Why, no one has ever yet 
 explained. It simply did; that was all. 
 
 As I have thought over the occurrence many times 
 since, I have wondered just how much the faith of Ahab 
 Kedar Kahn had to do with the solution of the mystery. 
 If the Bible is true and Ahab's faith was anything like 
 what his words expressed, why is it not reasonable to 
 
84 DOUGLAS 
 
 suppose that this was the cause? I can see it in no 
 other light. 
 
 For hours we lay there awaiting the sun, and I am 
 sure it was never longer rising. When it did rise, it 
 disclosed within a few miles two liners one headed 
 in each direction and we were soon aboard the 
 one bound for Gibraltar, with the Carthagenia in tow. 
 
 "I hope I may never have to go through the experi- 
 ence again," said Douglas, as we sat apart under the 
 awning stretched over the upper deck of the rescue 
 ship. 
 
 "You are likely to as long as you sail the seas," 
 I replied. 
 
 "I am likely to even when I do not sail the seas, 
 as you put it." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "The sea is not the only place where death may 
 stare you in the face." 
 
 "I thought you referred to the experience of 
 shipwreck." 
 
 "No, I mean the experience of standing for hours, 
 awaiting death for that is what it would have 
 amounted to had the Carthagenia sunk." 
 
 "It was terrible," I declared, as I closed my eyes 
 to shut out the sight of the water. "But why should 
 it have been ? Unconsciously, as you say, we face 
 death every hour and yet we never think of it." 
 
 Douglas looked at me as though he would read my 
 innermost thoughts. Then he slowly turned away 
 his eyes and a shudder passed over his slight frame. 
 
 "You mean you never think of it," he said. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 
 
 THREE months after our meeting with Ahab Kahn 
 found us pleasantly located at Abdulazem, a suburb 
 of Teheran, and connected with the Persian capital 
 by a railroad six miles in length. We were given our 
 choice of living here, or at Teheran, and chose Abdula- 
 zem as under less restraint to the conventionalities of 
 official life. 
 
 Our quarters, though comfortable, were not elabor- 
 ate. We had a house to ourselves on the edge of 
 town, from which we could see Mt. Demavend rearing 
 its snow-capped head eighteen thousand feet above 
 the level of the sea and overlooking the waters of the 
 Caspian, which stretched away to the northward. 
 The house itself was of the prevailing type of archi- 
 tecture if it may be dignified by the name in 
 the rear of which was a garden of so excellent a 
 character that it will be evident to any one acquainted 
 with Persia that we had quite a pretentious abode. 
 
 The one thing in which the Persian delights is a 
 garden. Every house has one of some sort or another 
 and some of them are mighty poor affairs. Ours, 
 however, was elaborate, even to the extent of having 
 a little stream of water, over which a foot-bridge of 
 ornate construction had been built. The garden was 
 
 85 
 
86 DOUGLAS 
 
 always well kept and, taken altogether, was a thing of 
 beauty. 
 
 Ahab had fulfilled his agreement with us to the 
 letter and we were provided for, both as to the size 
 and personnel of our household and in regard to our 
 finances, in a manner which placed us above worry for 
 at least a year. 
 
 To the man of limited means, who up to his thirtieth 
 year has been dependent upon a salary, to be thus 
 provided for is a matter of no small moment. It 
 means the ability to work along lines of his own 
 choosing with perfect freedom. We both felt the 
 liberty thus granted us, I more than Douglas, I 
 expect, and we plunged into our work with a zest 
 only possible to those whose minds are freed from 
 the bread and butter incubus. 
 
 Douglas, to be sure, was obliged to work largely 
 along commercial and political lines, but I was able 
 to devote myself to the picturesque as well as the 
 practical, knowing that readers of the magazine with 
 which I had made my arrangements would be equally 
 pleased with both. 
 
 If Douglas was doing any studying of the ancient 
 religions, he was doing it in the way of research, with 
 which his time during the day was largely consumed, 
 and did not consider that it would be of enough interest 
 to me to mention it. Our spare moments, ever since 
 our arrival, had been so taken up with novel sights 
 and unusual experiences that metaphysics had been 
 relegated to the background. 
 
 But our work was the main thing, and how we did 
 work! Harder than I had ever worked in all my life 
 
WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 87 
 
 before; but working for one's self is quite a different 
 thing from working for some one else. The latter is 
 a grind. The former a pleasure. 
 
 "Then why haven't you been working for yourself 
 all these years ? " asked Douglas when I made the 
 foregoing statement to him. 
 
 "Because I had to have a job in order to live." 
 
 "You mean you thought you did?" 
 
 "Which amounts to the same thing," I laughed. 
 
 "Right, in so far as this matter is concerned; but 
 I am sure you could have made quite as good a living 
 and been working along congenial lines just as well 
 as to have been doing the work you have, had it not 
 been that you were afraid you could not find a market 
 for your copy. Come, now; isn't that so ?" 
 
 "Well, yes; I expect it is." 
 
 He burst into a loud laugh as he exclaimed : "And 
 still you say you have no fear." 
 
 The surprised look on my face evidently pleased 
 as well as amused him, for he continued, without 
 giving me a chance to reply: 
 
 "You never thought of it in that light before; did 
 you?" 
 
 I confessed that I never had. 
 
 "You need not be ashamed to own up," he laughed. 
 "The great majority of men who are working on 
 salaries are in identically the same condition. That 
 accounts for so many incompetents." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 "Men, through fear of starvation, accept positions 
 for which they are absolutely unfitted. The one 
 thought of the young man today is to get a job, not 
 
88 DOUGLAS 
 
 because he is so terribly anxious to work as because of 
 this fear fear of want. Impelled by this fear, men 
 take the very first job that offers, no matter how little 
 qualified they are to fill it, or how little taste they have 
 for it. They perform their work in a perfunctory 
 manner and finally end up failures. If they could 
 only get rid of this fear, they would be able to branch 
 out for themselves in congenial lines, where they 
 would make a success." 
 
 "That certainly looks reasonable." 
 
 "It isn't my idea," he said. "I forget who sug- 
 gested it to me. John Bright, I think." 
 
 "How are men to get rid of this fear?" I asked. 
 
 "Don't ask me," he replied emphatically. 
 
 "You got rid of yours," I suggested. 
 
 "I never had any along that particular line. That, 
 I expect, is why I branched out for myself. My fear 
 is of something else. There must, however, be some 
 way to rid ourselves of all of them, if we knew how." 
 
 "Didn't some one say somewhere that 'perfect 
 love casteth out fear ? ' " I asked. 
 
 "Yes; it's in the Bible. But who knows what 
 perfect love is ? I don't," and he turned to his work 
 with an energy that showed his determination to 
 forget, if he could not overcome his fears. 
 
 In my score or more years of newspaper experience 
 I have seen a lot of hustlers; but I have never seen 
 any one turn out copy like Douglas. In an hour he 
 would put into script the researches of a week. He 
 wrote a hand as legible as type and almost as fine. 
 It was certainly a joy to watch him, and every once 
 in a while when Ahab would come out to see us, he 
 
WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 89 
 
 would steal silently into Douglas' den and watch him 
 with open-eyed admiration. 
 
 At first I used to wonder at this feverish speed, as, 
 during his leisure hours, I wondered at the amount 
 of stimulous liquor he imbibed. I found the cause of 
 his nervous energy, when I learned of the events of 
 his boyhood as narrated in a previous chapter. 
 The cause of the drink habit was revealed to me 
 when I learned something of his early business and 
 journalistic career. I know of no better place to 
 insert this information than right here and I think 
 it is only justice to Douglas that it should be told, in 
 order that the reason for a few, at least, of his idio- 
 syncrasies may become known. 
 
 It appears that when Douglas' father died, the first 
 job he found was in a country store sleeping in a 
 room over the store and taking his meals at the village 
 tavern. It was an unhealthy life for any one and 
 especially so for Douglas; but it was the only thing 
 offered and he took it. 
 
 It had been a drowsy, dreamy day one of those 
 summer days so common in country villages when 
 the farmers are all at work, and the village is deserted 
 save for the few who live by trade. In the store 
 one of those big concerns which handle everything 
 from a needle to a threshing machine, with groceries 
 and crockery on one side and dry goods on the other 
 it was cool and pleasant. In the distance could be 
 heard the buzz of a noisy planing mill, broken 
 occasionally by the clang of a blacksmith's hammer 
 upon the anvil as he shod a couple of farm horses in 
 the smithy around the corner. The head clerk and 
 
90 DOUGLAS 
 
 the virtual head of the business a gray-whiskered 
 man who had been in the store for years was busy 
 making up a new invoice of calico; the bookkeeper 
 and another clerk were at work checking up accounts; 
 still another clerk was trying to sell a village house- 
 wife a pair of nankeen pants for her six-year old son, 
 and Douglas sat on one of the revolving stools, of 
 which there were four in the store, studying out a 
 chart which had just been hung up in the window by 
 a man who was to lecture in the town hall the succeed- 
 ing night. 
 
 The chart was a curiosity in its way and Douglas 
 much admired the ingenuity of the man who designed 
 it. It represented the figure of the man composed of 
 brass, iron and other metals and ingredients seen by 
 the prophet Daniel in his vision. The figure was 
 dissected, or more properly speaking, dismembered, 
 and was to be used for the purpose of showing just 
 when the world was coming to an end. Douglas 
 could plainly see that the Medes and Persians had 
 gone; that Babylon, Jerusalem and Rome had had 
 their day and as New York wasn't as wicked in those 
 days as it has since become, it was very plain to 
 Douglas that the world might just as well come to an 
 end within the next few months as not. In fact he 
 wished it would hurry up and come. He was tired 
 of the ceaseless uncertainty. He'd a good deal 
 rather the end would come and be done with it. He 
 was now old enough to reason and he could see there 
 was no earthly possibility of knowing where he came 
 from and where he was going. 
 
 Still, anxious as he was to have it all over, every 
 
WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 91 
 
 time he thought of the future possibility his blood 
 seemed to chill and there was a sinking feeling at the 
 pit of his stomach. 
 
 He arose and looked out of the door. A haze had 
 spread itself over everything, dimming the sun, and 
 the atmosphere outside was hot and sultry. At first, 
 Douglas thought a storm was coming up; but after a 
 few minutes he concluded that wasn't it. Then his 
 mind reverted back to Daniel and the prophecy. 
 Remembering that the end was to come in a time and 
 times and half a time, he looked again at the chart on 
 which was printed in big type 1290 days from some 
 time, which he knew he didn't know anything about, 
 and wondered if maybe this wasn't the day. 
 
 He began to get a little uneasy and went in and 
 brushed the flies off the counter, straightened up the 
 wrapping paper and closed the cheese safe which 
 some one had left open. Then, as he turned back to 
 the door, there appeared across the street a familiar 
 figure. It was Uncle Jerry Grote, an aged farmer 
 who also ran a cider mill a couple of miles south of 
 town. In one hand he carried a big covered bucket, 
 which would hold twenty-five pounds of sugar, and 
 in the other a molasses jug. Uncle Jerry was some 
 sort of a distant relative of Douglas' step-mother and 
 Douglas was glad to see him. 
 
 "Good afternoon, Uncle Jerry," he called as soon 
 as the old man came within speaking distance. "How 
 did you manage to get away from the haying?" 
 
 "The mowing machine broke and I had to come 
 in to get it fixed. What's straight A sugar worth 
 today, boy?" 
 
92 DOUGLAS 
 
 "Eleven cents," replied Douglas taking the bucket 
 and the jug from the old man's hand. "It's a little 
 high but we can sell you good Porto Rico molasses for 
 seventy cents, and that's cheap." Then as he lifted 
 the jug: "What you got in the jug, Uncle Jerry?" 
 
 "There's a leetle cider. I just open'd a fresh 
 barrel for the harvest hands this morning and as it 
 was onusually good I thought you boys up here 
 at the store might like a leetle. Can't you empty it 
 into another jug, or a pitcher, or sumthin' ? " 
 
 "I should say so," replied Douglas. "I've got a 
 big, brown pitcher out in the back room that'll just 
 do. I guess it won't last long," and he started towards 
 the back room. 
 
 "I wouldn't drink too much on't," said Uncle 
 Jerry, following along behind. "It's what I call 
 refined cider barrelled up with a couple o' pounds 
 of old fashioned red cherries. It's pretty snappy." 
 
 "I guess it won't hurt any of us," laughed Douglas. 
 "None of us are drinkers here but Jimmy," indicating 
 the bookkeeper. "He sometimes gets a little too 
 much." 
 
 Getting down the big pitcher, Douglas proceeded 
 to pour out the cider; and when the pitcher was full 
 there was still some in the jug. 
 
 "Guess I'll have to drink this," he said, and 
 putting the jug to his lips he drained it. 
 
 'Tis pretty snappy sure enough," he said as he 
 set the jug under a little cistern pump in one corner 
 of the room and proceeded to rinse it out. "Don*t 
 reckon it'll go to my head, do you, Uncle Jerry?" 
 
 "Shouldn't be surprised; but 'twon't last long." 
 
WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 93 
 
 "Well," laughed Douglas, "so long as it doesn't 
 make me unsteady I guess I can stand it." 
 
 Then after a couple of minutes during which time 
 he had drawn the molasses and poured it into the jug: 
 "It certainly wakes you up and takes away the blues." 
 
 "Oh, yes," declared Uncle Jerry as they returned 
 to the front room. "It cheers you up; but be careful 
 it don't cheer you too often. If you do, it'll take 
 sumthin' stronger'n cider after a while. I make it a 
 rule never to drink more'n a glass twice a day." 
 
 So far as advice could go Uncle Jerry's words were 
 doubtless good; but as is always the case, actions are 
 more powerful than words. The damage had been 
 done. The jug of cider which Uncle Jerry had 
 brought and put to the boy's lips was more potent for 
 evil than his words were for good. Douglas had 
 discovered a way to drive away the blues, and not 
 knowing that wine is a mocker, he began to turn to 
 the snappy cider whenever assailed by one of these 
 attacks of fear, which is commonly designated by 
 the apparently harmless name of the blues. 
 
 Blue is a good color, but it is not the color of 
 sunshine; and an overdose of blue is not to be remedied 
 by the simple addition of red, which turns the blue into 
 a deep purple, whose effect is even worse than blue. 
 
 It was while in a state of exhilaration brought about 
 by one of these resorts to the cider jug, that Douglas 
 was attracted to the life of a physician, whose success 
 as a surgeon had made him a prominent figure, not 
 only in the village but throughout the country. He 
 was a handsome man, a bachelor, and very popular 
 with every one. 
 
94 DOUGLAS 
 
 "That," thought Douglas to himself, "is the sort 
 of a life I should like to lead. I believe I'll be a 
 doctor. They make plenty of money, do a lot of 
 good and are looked up to by everybody. Yes, 
 I am going to be a doctor." 
 
 As a result of this decision Douglas returned to the 
 high school that fall, studied hard and in the spring 
 passed a successful examination and was admitted to 
 one of the well known colleges. But from the very 
 first day his career was checkered. Although possessed 
 of only the most limited means, he was a wild student. 
 He was mixed up in all the deviltry in which college 
 boys so delight and on top of it all his cider habit, 
 which had developed into wine bibbing, proved a 
 great detriment. He finished his college course 
 worse off in many respects than when he entered. 
 True, he had acquired a certain amount of culture 
 and familiarity with his own and other languages 
 which in later years stood him in good stead; but the 
 general effect was bad. 
 
 Before his college course was finished, Douglas 
 had discovered that he was not fitted for the study of 
 medicine. The dissecting room was absolutely be- 
 yond his physical qualifications. It had been bad 
 enough as a boy in high school to witness the simple 
 experiments with the organs of animals. As for 
 witnessing the dissection of a human body, he simply 
 could not stand it. Not only did he shrink from the 
 gruesome sight, but it brought more plainly to his 
 mind the thought and fear of death. He felt sure 
 he would never be able to assist, much less conduct a 
 surgical case although later in life he often found 
 
WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 95 
 
 himself aiding the wounded and suffering, with never 
 a thought of the mangled and mutilated flesh. 
 
 Deciding that the practice of surgery was, there- 
 fore, out of the question, Douglas turned to the drug 
 business and his twenty-second birthday found him 
 compounding prescriptions and handing out patent 
 medicines in a western town which had developed 
 from a lone prairie to a hustling little city of three 
 thousand inhabitants during the four years that 
 Douglas had been in college. 
 
 This life suited him first rate. The country was 
 new. The people breezy and full of energy and the 
 work was fairly congenial; but the drugs were too 
 convenient especially the bottle labeled spiritus 
 frumenti. From wine bibbing he went to tippling, 
 finding that he could get quicker results with distilled 
 liquor than with fermented. 
 
 It was not until some years later that Douglas dis- 
 covered that it was not liquor that he was drinking 
 anyway that it was simply intoxication. It was 
 not the cause he was after, but the effect; and the 
 time came, as it must come to every man who depends 
 upon ardent spirits for his stimulant, when he learned 
 that the real stimulant was not to be found in spirits, 
 but Spirit, which exhilarates not intoxicates. 
 
 Not yet having learned the source of real enjoy- 
 ment, it was not long until Douglas again became 
 dissatisfied. His fits of despondency became more 
 frequent and the fear and uncertainty of the future 
 again began to haunt him. He at length determined 
 to seek a life of greater excitement. With his experi- 
 ence as a druggist he felt certain of finding employ- 
 
96 DOUGLAS 
 
 ment, and throwing up his position he betook himself 
 to a great city. Here, for the first time in his life, 
 he was thrown absolutely upon his own resources and 
 soon found these resources much less than he had 
 thought. But he had one great asset upon which he 
 had never before relied, and which in fact was such 
 a part of him, that he never realized that he had it. 
 
 This valuable asset was his confidence in himself. 
 
 It never for one moment entered Douglas' mind 
 that he was not able to do anything any one else 
 could do. Had any one offered him a position as 
 the president of a bank or a railroad, he would have 
 accepted it with perfect assurance that he could 
 successfully perform the duties of the position. 
 Thus it was that, being unable to secure a position as 
 a drug clerk, he applied for a position on a news- 
 paper, which one of the young men at the hotel where 
 he was staying told him was vacant. He was given 
 an assignment and although he had to look into the 
 dictionary to see how to make a paragraph mark, 
 he covered the assignment to the satisfaction of the 
 city editor and was given a job. 
 
 Here it was that another of Douglas' characteristics 
 made its value felt namely his habit of observation. 
 He saw everything that was going on about him. 
 He noted the signs on the stores and the height of 
 the buildings. He could tell you on which side of 
 the street you would find the biggest crowd at certain 
 hours of the day. He could tell you the name of the 
 undertaker by the character of the funeral. There 
 was never a fire, no matter in what part of the city, 
 
WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 97 
 
 that he could not tell you what drug store to call up 
 for information. He never read a news item that he 
 could not tell you a month later just where to find it. 
 He could almost tell the name of your laundry by the 
 gloss on your collar. This helped to make him 
 resourceful and he speedily developed into the crack 
 reporter on the paper. 
 
 In those days pretty nearly every newspaper man 
 was a drinker of more or less proficiency, so the habit 
 which started with the snappy cider, developed with 
 the wine and became full-fledged with cognac arid 
 whiskey, did not for a time interfere with his quondam 
 literary work. In fact, it was sometimes said of him 
 that he wrote his most graphic stories when more than 
 half intoxicated. 
 
 I have been thus explicit in the details of Douglas' 
 early career that you may have a deeper insight into 
 his character. He lived absolutely on the surface. 
 He rarely if ever went to the bottom of anything. 
 Like all men with a religious tendency I use the 
 word in its academic sense he was unusually 
 temperamental and as intuitive as a woman. 
 
 Having now found what seemed to him a life most 
 congenial and which, because of its kaleidoscopic 
 character, was always varied and interesting and 
 took his mind off himself he determined to put 
 aside his doubts and his fears and set about enjoying 
 the new life to the fullest. How better, he thought, 
 could he enjoy it than by seeing the world and at 
 the same time run away from himself. How indeed ? 
 But if any man thinks he can run away from himself, 
 
98 DOUGLAS 
 
 or dispose of any problem of life without solving it, 
 all he need do to disprove it, is to follow Douglas' 
 career for the next few years. 
 
 It would take much less time to tell where he had 
 not been than where he had. He had been with 
 Kitchener in Egypt and Roberts in Africa. He had 
 followed the rush for gold from Nome to the Klondike 
 and raced across the Cherokee strip in the days when 
 the government did not conduct land lotteries. He 
 followed Dewey to Manila and chased Aguinaldo with 
 Funston. He went everywhere that there was a 
 chance for trouble and incidentally a story. Every- 
 thing and everybody was copy to Douglas, and if ever 
 there were a man who lived up to the late Joseph 
 McCullogh's definition of a newspaper man one 
 who finds out where things will break loose next and 
 gets there Douglas was that one. 
 
 Wherever he went he also studied the religion of 
 the people in the hope of finding a solution of the 
 mystery of life, which should free him from his ever- 
 present fear of death and the future but in vain. 
 
 Small wonder, then, that when he drifted into the 
 Herald office on the night following the Mt. Pelee 
 disaster, he should have had just the story we wanted, 
 or that he was unable to answer to his own satisfaction 
 the question: 
 
 "Where should I be now, had I suddenly been 
 snuffed out as were the thousands at St. Pierre?" 
 
 I was thinking of this as we two and Ahab were 
 dining in our comfortable and breezy dining room 
 overlooking our garden one evening in June. There 
 had been some little talk of trouble on the Baluchistan 
 
WHY DOUGLAS DRANK 99 
 
 frontier and Douglas had been giving us some of his 
 experiences in Egypt, in the meantime drinking freely 
 of the native wine, which is always to be had by those 
 bibulously inclined. I was wishing he would not 
 drink, but I disliked to say anything about it before 
 Ahab, because I knew that while the early Persians 
 were wine drinkers, the modern Persian Moslem 
 by faith is not. 
 
 Ahab must have detected my thoughts, for he 
 suddenly took the matter into his own hands by 
 asking : 
 
 "Why do men put that into their stomachs which 
 steals away their brains ? " 
 
 "Perhaps those who put such stuff into their 
 stomachs have no brains to be stolen, "laughed Douglas. 
 
 "One would naturally think so," was Ahab's 
 rejoinder; "but unfortunately we find it otherwise. 
 But why acquire anything which we know is bad?" 
 
 "How can anything be bad," parried Douglas, 
 "which produces such good results as this excellent 
 Xeres?" and he quaffed another goblet. 
 
 "Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make 
 mad," quoth Ahab. 
 
 Douglas laughed loudly. "Those were the gods 
 of mythology, who were more evil than good." 
 
 The answer was easily a challenge, and Ahab fell 
 into the snare. 
 
 "Doesn't the Christian God send evil upon man- 
 kind ?" he asked. 
 
 "If I should answer that question as I have been 
 tai-ght, I should say yes; but there are a lot of people 
 who don't believe it." 
 
100 DOUGLAS 
 
 "Well, I don't care who sends it," I interrupted. 
 "Any man who drinks alcoholic liquor is a plain, every- 
 day idiot. It does him no good. If it causes him to 
 forget one minute, it brings worse fear upon him the 
 next. Any man who has sense enough to discuss the 
 goodness of God ought to have sense enough not to 
 drink." 
 
 I spoke emphatically, for I meant it. The words 
 seemed to arouse Douglas and he turned on me 
 fiercely. 
 
 "You think so," he exclaimed, "because you don't 
 seem to have sense enough to know that you are living 
 in danger of eternal damnation." 
 
 "Maybe not," I retorted; "but I've sense enough 
 to know if I did believe a thing like that, I'd try and 
 be as decent as I could and not make my condition 
 worse by getting drunk. Why do you always want to 
 think about such things?" 
 
 "Why do I want to? I don't," he replied, "but I 
 don't seem able to think about anything else.'* 
 
 "Well, I'll give you something else," said Ahab 
 rising, "for I must bid you goodbye. I do not know 
 when I shall see you again as I am going away on an 
 important mission; but I want to say that I am more 
 than satisfied with the way the work is progressing 
 and am going to turn you over to Zarullah Kahn." 
 
 "Who is Zarullah Kahn ? " queried Douglas. 
 
 "The Shah's personal representative who will edit 
 your book." 
 
 "A new editor," laughed Douglas, rising from the 
 table. "Well, that is something to think about for 
 sure." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A DESERT EXPERIENCE 
 
 FOR four days we had been marching over a desert 
 of glistening sand. We had left Teheran, Douglas 
 and I, with a good-sized caravan on August 14th and it 
 was now the 2ith. I remember the date well, as it 
 was seven months to a day since we had come to 
 Persia. They had been months of hard work for both 
 of us and Douglas had made such headway on his 
 book that Zarullah Kahn, the Shah's press agent, if so 
 he may be called, had suggested that he make a trip to 
 Kerman, the ancient capital of Caramania at one 
 time a satrap of Alexander the Great. 
 
 Kerman is located at almost the southern end of 
 Persia and a journey thither from Teheran is no small 
 undertaking. Our caravan consisted of some thirty 
 servants, guards, guides, and attendants, under the 
 direction of Hassim Kahn. Hassim, Douglas and I 
 rode strong Russian chargers, but the others rode 
 donkeys and dromedaries, of the latter of which there 
 were three. We must have had at least fifty donkeys. 
 There was also with us an Arab boy, AH by name. 
 
 Ali was not one of the company who had come with 
 us from Teheran, and as the method of his joining us 
 was unusual, I shall have to tell you about it. 
 
 It was because of Ali's presence that our journey 
 101 
 
102 DOUGLAS 
 
 across the desert developed into something beside a 
 pleasure trip. 
 
 It was on the third day after leaving Koom, the first 
 place of any size south of Teheran. We had passed 
 Kashan on our left and had come, toward night, upon 
 a small settlement, of whose name we were ignorant. 
 It was nearly dark when we arrived and we went into 
 camp at once on the edge of the village near a little 
 stream of excellent water. After supper Douglas and 
 I strolled over toward the village, where we soon were 
 attracted by a group of men gathered about a fire. 
 
 Approaching, we discovered in their midst an Arab 
 youth of tawny complexion, who no sooner spied us 
 than he sprang out of the crowd and began to sing 
 such a plaintive melody that we stopped to hear it 
 through. It was so sweet and sad that I stood almost 
 spellbound by its enchantment. 
 
 "Did you ever hear anything like it?" I exclaimed. 
 
 "Once," replied Douglas, as the youth finished his 
 song and came toward us, exclaiming: 
 
 "Alms, for the love of Allah. Alms!" 
 
 We both threw him a coin. 
 
 "Where do you live ?" asked Douglas, more to detain 
 him than because of any real interest in his place of 
 abode. 
 
 "Dasht-i-Kavir," was the reply. 
 
 "What does he say?" queried Douglas of the men 
 standing about. 
 
 "He says he lives out on the desert." 
 
 "Whereabouts?" 
 
 "Toward the mountains," and the speaker moved 
 his head toward the Khorod peaks that had loomed 
 
A DESERT EXPERIENCE 103 
 
 blue in the distance all day and toward which we were 
 journeying. 
 
 "Are there others out there who can sing like that ?" 
 
 The lad smiled a winning smile as he replied: 
 
 "Yes; my sister. My voice is as the thrush hers 
 is as the bulbul, which sings only at night." 
 
 Douglas looked at me quizzically as he said with a 
 laugh: 
 
 "We seem to have fallen upon a flower from the 
 garden of Lalla Rookh." 
 
 "The first touch of the Persia of romance that we 
 have seen," I replied. 
 
 "I should like to know more about him," mused 
 Douglas, "I wonder if we can lure him over to camp." 
 
 "I have no doubt that the promise of a dish of pillou 
 would be all the lure needed." 
 
 My surmise proved correct and when Hafiz, our 
 cook, placed the savory dish before him a few minutes 
 later, we found that the boy could eat quite as well as 
 he could sing. He ate as though he were half starved, 
 and feeling sure that he must have been able to gain 
 quite a sum with such a voice, we questioned him. 
 
 "What do you do with the money given you?" I 
 asked. He looked at me with a startled expression as 
 he replied: "They do not give me much." 
 
 "Surely," I insisted, "you get enough so that you 
 do not need to go hungry." 
 
 "But that is for my sister." 
 
 "Why does your sister need money ? " asked Douglas, 
 well aware that girls in the Orient, whether Persian or 
 Arab, are not supposed to have anything to do with 
 family finances. 
 
104 DOUGLAS 
 
 Again the lad appeared startled, but made no reply. 
 
 "Can't you answer?" asked Hassim sternly. 
 
 "Don't be harsh with him," said Douglas. "It 
 isn't important, but he interests me." 
 
 "I shall put him into my next magazine story," I 
 laughed, "provided he doesn't run away before day- 
 light, so I can't get a snapshot of him." 
 
 The boy kept his eyes on Douglas, quite as inter- 
 ested in him as Douglas was in the boy. 
 
 "I have it," I exclaimed with a laugh, "There is a 
 bond between you that's stronger than curiosity; it's 
 in the blood. You are both nomads." 
 
 Douglas smiled as he laid his hand on the boy's 
 shoulder. "Tell me," he said, and there came into 
 his voice the first touch of real tenderness I had ever 
 noticed, "for what does your sister need so much 
 money ? " 
 
 "To set her free." 
 
 "To set her free?" exclaimed Douglas with a start. 
 "Is she in prison?" 
 
 The lad shook his head. 
 
 "Worse," he replied. 
 
 "How?" persisted Douglas. 
 
 "She is in the hands of our enemies. O Sahib!" 
 and the boy fell on his knees at Douglas' side, "You 
 are a great Kahn. You are able to save her. You 
 can help me if you will." 
 
 Douglas took the boy by the arm and lifted him up. 
 
 "There, there," he said, "be a man. Do not bow 
 your knee to any one. Now then," as Ali straightened 
 himself and looked Douglas fearlessly in the face, 
 "tell me all about it." 
 
A DESERT EXPERIENCE 105 
 
 After a moment's hesitation, in which he regarded 
 us both intently, the lad began in that same plaintive 
 voice that had so attracted us the recital of a story 
 that sounded like a page from some epic poem. It 
 must, I am sure, have been memorized, as the boy 
 could not have composed it as he went along. There 
 was that in the words, as well as the rhythmic measure 
 in which they were recited, that took me back in 
 thought to the long-forgotten days of the wandering 
 troubadour. 
 
 The tale could be condensed into a few short para- 
 graphs, but instead, I shall give it in Ali's words as 
 nearly as I can that perchance the reader may gather 
 something of the atmosphere which it exhaled. Rais- 
 ing his eyes to the faraway hills, he began: 
 
 "An Emir of the desert, was my sire an Emir 
 great, with followers brave and strong and I his 
 son. O'er the hot sands with sword and spear he rode, 
 unmindful of the heat or wild simoon; nor ever turned 
 his back on man or beast, when honor or the prophet 
 bade him on; nor ever harmed a friend, or one whose 
 power he held not equal to his own. 
 
 "Beside my father and myself, a sister is fairest 
 of all who in the desert dwell; with face seraphic, and 
 a soul as pure as angels, and a voice so sweet, that 
 hearing once, the world is e'en forgot, while, by her 
 notes enraptured, mortals stand. 
 
 "Across the sands, back where the mountains blue 
 rise from the plain and tower toward the sky, our foe- 
 man dwelt a renegade, a Kurd, with heart as black 
 as that foul bird, which o'er the desert soars and waits 
 with greedy eye the death of some poor beast, who, 
 
106 DOUGLAS 
 
 faint for lack of drink, staggers and falls, never to rise 
 again. Ghoola Kahn his name, and where he came, 
 nor peace nor safety was. 
 
 "Alas! Alas!" and Ali clenched his hands, "that 
 men should be so base so sin-defiled, that purity 
 and beauty are but words to lure them on to deeds of 
 shame, instead of gifts from God to win men's hearts 
 and point the way to brighter realms where all is joy 
 and love. But so it seems, and Ghoola, having learned 
 of Zelda, fair the pride of all our tribe, our fairest 
 flower made public oath that she his bride should 
 be and share his bandit home. 
 
 "When to my worthy sire this oath was brought, he 
 laughed, Ho! Ho! and calling Zelda asked, with jovial 
 mien, if she had mind to go and share the fortunes of 
 the robber clan holding the oath of such a man a 
 jest. 
 
 "How little recked he of the fearful depth of infamy 
 to which this Ghoola Kahn had mind to go; or of the 
 treachery that lurked within our band, or of the fate 
 which Allah from on high had e'en decreed and brought 
 to pass. Within the space of one new moon, my sire 
 by treachery was slain, our flocks and herds destroyed, 
 and Zelda and myself the bandits' captives made. 
 
 "But why prolong the tale? Why tell of all our 
 sorrow and our pain? It is enough that we were 
 captives ta'en and straightway hurried to the bandit's 
 lair, where he had mind to carry out his oath and make 
 our Zelda fair his desert bride. 
 
 "Not so, however, had it been decreed; and ere his 
 purpose he 'gainst us had wrought, as haughty Lucifer, 
 who, from Paradise on high, by will of mighty Allah 
 
A DESERT EXPERIENCE 107 
 
 was cast down, so in the midst of his unrighteous- 
 ness, fell Ghoola Kahn, stricken by heaven. 
 
 "Kismet! It was enough, and o'er his lifeless form, 
 with many a blow, a battle fierce was fought by rival 
 chiefs for Ghoola's place and power. Ilderim won, 
 a chief whose greed of gold is greater far than all else 
 on this earth. To him its clink is sweeter than the 
 laugh of houris or all else men love. For gold he would 
 give up his soul, and so, for gold, he offered to me 
 Zelda's life. A year I had to raise the sum he named, 
 when, if I fail, my sister will be sold and I and I " 
 
 Unable to continue, Ali buried his face in his hands 
 and wept. 
 
 The effect of such a tale thus told can better be 
 imagined than expressed. Despite the fact that we 
 were two hard-headed and, I was about to say, hard- 
 hearted, newspaper men, we yielded to the subtle in- 
 fluence of the recital and our environment. This 
 ragged Arab became to both of us a prince in disguise. 
 As we looked upon his silent grief, we forgot that the 
 tale we had just heard was but the everyday occur- 
 rence of a semi-civilized people a tale which num- 
 bered its counterpart by the score in the history of the 
 North American Indian; forgot that we were not 
 knights errant leading a war-like crusade against a 
 host, but guests of the ruler of the land in which these 
 events are common; forgot that it was just an ordi- 
 narily good newspaper story, and then and there 
 promised, by all that was good, not only Ali, but our- 
 selves, that we would rescue this flower of the 
 desert. 
 
 It was a wild and foolish thing to do, but in Persia 
 
108 DOUGLAS 
 
 one may do foolish things and not be surprised and 
 this was only the beginning. 
 
 Just how we proposed to rescue the fair Zelda 
 neither of us had the slightest idea. Of course, it was 
 plain from the ending of Ali's tale that the thing that 
 was worrying him was that the year was about up and 
 he didn't have the requisite ransom, nor anywhere near 
 it. We were not in a position to pay it for him, nor 
 would it ever have occurred to us to have done so if 
 we could. The paying of ransom is altogether un- 
 American; so we at once set about divining some way 
 to effect the rescue with lead, steel or stratagem rather 
 than with gold. 
 
 From the description given us by AH, the bandit 
 band made its headquarters in the mountains some- 
 where between our present camping place and Yezd, 
 some days' journey south. We could just as well 
 march nearer the mountains as to follow the customary 
 trail for that is practically all a highway in Persia 
 is and this would bring us into what might be 
 termed Ilderim's territory. Although Hassim told us 
 it was a dangerous thing to do, we did it any way. 
 Thus it was, that the afternoon of August 24th found 
 us, after four days of desert travel, winding our way 
 slowly along a sort of natural road caused by the 
 peculiarity of the desert formations many miles out 
 of the way of caravan or post travel between Teheran 
 and the ancient capital. 
 
 To avoid the dust, Douglas and I always rode some 
 little distance in advance of the caravan with Hassim 
 at our side. He was a living arsenal, while Douglas 
 and I, except for the automatic Colt's revolvers we had 
 
A DESERT EXPERIENCE 109 
 
 been advised to wear, carried only light Winchesters 
 slung in cases from our saddle bows. I often wond- 
 ered as I looked at Hassim what would happen in case 
 he should desire to unlimber his artillery, for it seemed 
 to me the engagement would be over long before he 
 would be able to get into action. 
 
 Looking back over my shoulder, I could see most 
 of our caravan strung along for half a mile or more, the 
 dromedaries leading and the donkeys trailing along 
 behind. Ali had taken up his position with the donkey 
 drivers, although Douglas had insisted that as a son of 
 an Emir, and a wearer of the green turban, he should 
 ride in front with us. 
 
 Hassim had been telling us of some of the wonder- 
 ful adventures of the early mythological heroes of 
 ancient Persia; of Hushing who discovered fire and 
 was the inaugurator of fire worship which is still 
 practised in Persia to a considerable degree. Hushing, 
 it appears, while on a journey, was attacked by a fear- 
 ful beast, the like of which had never been seen before. 
 Having no weapon with which to slay so fierce a foe, 
 Hushing seized a great stone and hurled it at the beast. 
 His aim was untrue so that instead of striking the 
 beast, the stone glanced across a huge rock, striking 
 therefrom sparks of fire. These falling into the dry 
 grass ignited a flame which spread rapidly and con- 
 sumed all about, even the beast. So grateful was 
 Hushing for his deliverance, that he instituted the 
 worship of fire, which seemed the mightiest of all 
 powers. 
 
 "Then it is not really the fire that is worshipped," 
 said Douglas, "but what it stands for." 
 
110 DOUGLAS 
 
 A reply was never given. Instead a fusillade of 
 shots was heard, and turning, we beheld a band of a 
 dozen or more horsemen circling about our caravan, 
 attempting, it seemed to me, to stampede the donkeys. 
 Our half dozen guards were returning the fire, the 
 picture reminding me greatly of a celebrated painting 
 of desert activity. 
 
 Neither Douglas nor I are fighters. I want to im- 
 press that upon every one. We might, under stress, 
 have followed Roosevelt up San Juan hill in fact 
 Douglas did, coward though he claimed to be in 
 order to be able to write the story ; but he would much 
 rather have remained in camp. It was only the news- 
 paper instinct that tempted him to the other course 
 and that same instinct now led us to turn about and 
 charge down upon the attacking horsemen. We did 
 not want to be scooped by Hassim Kahn, nor were 
 we although he unlimbered and got into action in 
 a surprisingly short time. 
 
 Putting spurs to our horses we were within firing 
 distance almost before we knew it, and cutting loose 
 with our automatics we created such a diversion that 
 the marauders turned and fled evidently judging 
 our strength by our noise, rather than by our numbers. 
 I question if they had ever heard the fire of an auto- 
 matic before, and it must have surprised them. 
 
 Upon arriving at the caravan we found that the only 
 damage done had been the wounding of one of the 
 dromedaries, a bullet having passed directly through 
 both cheeks; but we found AH in a state of the most 
 intense excitement a condition wholly unusual. 
 
 Among the attacking band he had recognized 
 
A DESERT EXPERIENCE 111 
 
 Ilderim, his sister's captor, so that this was undoubt- 
 edly the outfit we were seeking. 
 
 Immediately the information was imparted to us, a 
 council of war was called. We evidently had arrived 
 in the enemy's country, and he was nearer than we 
 supposed. The first step, therefore, was to select a 
 suitable spot for an encampment and either open 
 negotiations with Ilderim and threaten him with the 
 displeasure of the Shah, or, by strategy, to rescue 
 Zelda from his hands. The idea of attacking the 
 band in its mountain fastness we knew to be out of the 
 question. 
 
 In our perplexity, Ali offered the solution and 
 proved himself a true son of the desert, both in bravery 
 and craftiness. He suggested that the caravan pro- 
 ceed on its way for several miles, as though nothing 
 unusual had happened, leaving him secreted among 
 the rocks which lined the natural roadway. There 
 was little doubt that the bandits would follow us, even 
 though our automatics might prevent another attack 
 except under the most favorable circumstances. Ali 
 would then try and locate the camping place without 
 being seen and find out what chance there was of rescu- 
 ing his sister. 
 
 The plan looked good from a newspaperman's 
 standpoint, and so it was decided upon. 
 
 Rearranging our caravan, with the six guards in 
 the rear and ourselves at the head to give spies, whom 
 we felt certain were watching us, the impression that 
 we were taking the quickest and safest plan for escap- 
 ing, we again took up our march, leaving Ali secreted 
 as we had planned. 
 
112 DOUGLAS 
 
 During the next hour and half we made about five 
 miles, and along about an hour before sundown we 
 pitched our camp in the open desert, at least a mile 
 from the nearest foothills, where it was impossible for 
 any one to approach without crossing the open space. 
 
 There was a new moon, so we knew the first part of 
 the night would be light enough to see. After the 
 moon should set, we placed our dependence upon a 
 couple of unhappy dogs which belonged to an Arabian 
 muleteer. 
 
 Before leaving the States, Douglas and I had each 
 supplied ourselves with powerful electric flashlights 
 which we carried in our pockets. He had found them 
 most useful in traveling and we had put them into our 
 kits when we left Teheran. These, also, we felt would 
 be useful in our watch. 
 
 Our opinion of Hassim had been considerably bet- 
 tered by his action of the afternoon and so when he set 
 watches, we felt quite safe. However, we decided 
 that one of us should remain on guard all night and so 
 we did; but all of our precautions proved unnecessary, 
 for there was not the slightest effort to disturb us; but 
 neither did Ali make his appearance, although we had 
 expected his return to camp by daylight. 
 
 His failure to appear completely upset our plans. 
 If we did not resume our march at daylight, the bandits 
 naturally would infer that we were waiting for some- 
 one. If we did proceed, we should get out of touch 
 with Ali. 
 
 "I'm afraid something has happened to him," said 
 Douglas, "and I don't feel like going too far away 
 from what seems to be Ilderim's territory," 
 
A DESERT EXPERIENCE 113 
 
 At this juncture Hassim came to the rescue. 
 
 "Let us start as though resuming our journey," he 
 advised. "We can easily perceive if we are followed 
 and if not, let us lose ourselves behind yonder hill, 
 where, instead of continuing our way, we can halt. 
 If we wish, we will even be able to double back on our 
 tracks." 
 
 The advice seemed good and we broke camp. 
 
 The hill, toward which we took our way, seemed 
 some two miles distant. From our camping place it 
 looked nearly conical and had the appearance of hav- 
 ing been built by human hands rather than nature. 
 As we approached, we perceived that on the other side 
 of it the entire plain descended abruptly so abruptly 
 in fact, that when we reached the spot we found it so 
 precipitous as to make the descent exceedingly diffi- 
 cult. A broad ledge, however, extended around the 
 side of the hill, leading downward, and along this we 
 wended our way, Hassim and a guard leading and 
 Douglas and I bringing up the rear. 
 
 As we wound our way still further about the hill 
 the ledge descended still more abruptly, until, coming 
 around a short turn, it led directly down into a little 
 basin, the bottom of which was a level field of possibly 
 twenty-five acres, covered with a wealth of verdure. 
 Through the center of the field ran a small stream, 
 whose source, we learned later, was a bubbling spring. 
 
 It was a most wonderful oasis, and as the scene 
 burst upon us an exclamation of surprise and delight 
 came from all lips, while the thirsty animals set off at 
 a sharp trot toward the stream, from which they were 
 speedily drinking their fill. 
 
114 DOUGLAS 
 
 While the animals were slaking their thirst, we 
 gazed about us in perfect wonder. It seemed like 
 some enchanted spot, especially as nowhere was there 
 any sign of animal life, nor was there any indication 
 that the place ever had been inhabited. 
 
 The field was so abruptly marked by the sandy slopes 
 of surrounding hills that, as in the case of the largest 
 hill, the basin appeared artificial. Along the edge 
 of the stream, which, as we could see, lost itself in a 
 sink-hole under one hill, grew several clusters of trees, 
 under the shade of one of which we were resting. 
 They were laden with golden apricots and pomegran- 
 ates, while in the sandy patches which dotted the outer 
 edges of the little plain, the gleam of scarlet straw- 
 berries could be seen. Flowers of numerous varieties 
 grew in profusion, and as I gazed about me there 
 came to my mind the beautiful words of Moore: 
 
 "Who has not heard of the vale of Cashmere, 
 With its roses the brightest the earth ever gave?" 
 
 "Well, what do you think of it ?" asked Douglas. 
 
 "It must be the lost garden of Eden," I replied, 
 completely under the spell of its unexpected beauty. 
 
 "Strange that it isn't inhabited," he laughed. "I 
 don't see any cherubim with flaming swords guarding 
 the entrances." 
 
 "No," was my rejoinder, "but I shouldn't be sur- 
 prised to see them appear at any time." 
 
 The words were hardly out of my mouth, ere there 
 came clearly, though faintly, to our ears the sound of 
 singing so low, weird, and sweet, that it did not 
 seem possible that it should have come from any human 
 throat. 
 
A DESERT EXPERIENCE 115 
 
 Instinctively every voice was hushed and the 
 Moslems fell upon their faces. 
 
 For only a few moments did the sound continue 
 and then it died away in a little quavering note which 
 it seemed I should recognize, but which, for the life of 
 me, I could not. 
 
 While I searched my memory, Douglas exclaimed: 
 "It's Ali." 
 
 "Of course," I replied. "Strange I couldn't 
 place it." 
 
 We turned our eyes in every direction, expecting io 
 see him appear over the hilltop, or from behind some 
 bush, or tree. 
 
 "It is an angel," murmured Hassim, "and this is 
 the garden of Allah. Let us go." 
 
 "Not on your life," exclaimed Douglas. "Allah 
 or no Allah, I'm going to know where that song came 
 from." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE GARDEN OF JOY 
 
 FOR a man who claims to be a coward, the words 
 of Douglas were about as foolish as could have been 
 uttered under the circumstances. They were hardly 
 spoken ere the entire band, including Hassim, turned 
 upon him as though he had committed a sacrilege, 
 and what they might have done on the impulse of the 
 moment, I do not know; but ere they had taken a 
 dozen steps toward him, again the song was heard, 
 louder and clearer, as though drawing nearer. Again 
 all the Moslems prostrated themselves on the earth 
 and there they remained until the song again died 
 away in one long, clear note. 
 
 A.S it ended Douglas turned his horse from the 
 stream and started to ride toward the hill from which 
 the voice seemed to have come; but Hassim interposed 
 to prevent. 
 
 Divining his purpose, Douglas asked : 
 
 "What objection can there be to solving the 
 mystery?" 
 
 "It cannot be solved," replied Hassim in an awed 
 voice. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Can't you see," he asked in the same awed tone, 
 "that this is not a real oasis ?" 
 
 116 
 
THE GARDEN OF JOY 117 
 
 We looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "Not a real oasis!" exclaimed Douglas, "Then 
 what is it?" 
 
 "I cannot answer, but it must be the work of 
 enchantment." 
 
 We regarded him with the utmost surprise, while 
 the other members of the caravan gathered near to 
 catch the words. 
 
 "Can't you see," he continued, "that if it had 
 always been here it would be inhabited; that there 
 would be a dwelling or dwellings and that the fertile 
 field would be under cultivation? Surely, if it were 
 not enchanted, our feet would not have been the first 
 to press its soil." 
 
 "I don't know what you mean by enchantment," 
 declared Douglas in an annoyed tone, "but surely 
 the water is real water or the horses would not have 
 drunk it. This grass and these trees are real and 
 before we leave I expect to pluck an abundance of 
 this fruit." 
 
 "It must not be," said Hassim. "We must get out 
 of here at once, or something dire will surely follow." 
 
 "All right," replied Douglas testily, "if you want 
 to go, why go you must; but I am not going to leave 
 this place until I see the singer of that song and get 
 some word of Ali. I have promised and I shall keep 
 my promise." 
 
 Again came the mysterious music and again the 
 Moslems prostrated themselves. 
 
 "It is the third time." exclaimed Hassim and his 
 swarthy face was ashy with fear, "I shall at once lead 
 the caravan on its way." 
 
118 DOUGLAS 
 
 Then to the muleteers, "Come! Turn your beasts 
 toward the desert and let us go ere Allah strike us 
 down for entering this place." 
 
 For a moment we said nothing, but as the caravan 
 slowly gathered itself in order and started back 
 around the ledge, turning to Hassim, Douglas said : 
 
 "You were instructed to convey us to Kerman. 
 If you go without us, let the responsibility fall upon 
 your own head; but I demand that you leave us 
 sufficient provisions to last until we can reach the 
 nearest village, after we have fulfilled our promise to 
 Ali or at least made some effort to do so." 
 
 Without a word Hassim rode forward and turned 
 aside one of the donkeys, on which was strapped a 
 large pack of provisions. 
 
 "Here," he exclaimed as he drove the little beast 
 back, "Here is sufficient food to last you a week. I 
 shall proceed at once to Yezd. There I shall await 
 your arrival three days. If you do not arrive by that 
 time I shall know you are dead." 
 
 He put spurs to his horse and galloped after the 
 caravan, which was just passing out of sight around 
 the bend in the roadway, while once more that weird 
 song sounded in the little vale. 
 
 "Well," I exclaimed, as Hassim Kahn also dis- 
 appeared around the bend, "we seem to be in a nice 
 mess." 
 
 Douglas gave me a surprised and questioning look 
 as he exclaimed: 
 
 "You didn't want to go, too, did you ?" 
 
 "Not without Ali," I exclaimed, for by this time I 
 had become certain that the singer was Ali and that 
 
THE GARDEN OF JOY 119 
 
 the song was some sort of a signal, although for the 
 life of me I could not determine what it could be. 
 
 "I'm glad to get rid of them so easily," said 
 Douglas, "for there is really something mysterious 
 about this place. Why is it not inhabited ? Surely, 
 as Hassim said, ours cannot be the first eyes to have 
 looked upon it." 
 
 "And when AH gets ready to show himself, I expect 
 he can tell us something about it." 
 
 "I have come to the conclusion that it is not Ali," 
 said Douglas. 
 
 "No?" and I looked at him expectantly. 
 
 "No, I believe it is Zelda's voice. Did not Ali 
 say that his voice was as the thrush, while hers was 
 like the nightingale." 
 
 "How could she get here and why should she be 
 singing behind a rock, or wherever she is hidden?" 
 
 "Doesn't it occur to you that her song may have a 
 meaning?" 
 
 "I had thought of that when I believed it was Ali. 
 What do you suppose it means ? " 
 
 "I cannot tell, but I am sure it is a sacred song. 
 When we solve the mystery of the song, I think we 
 shall be able also to solve the mystery of the singer," 
 and Douglas' eyes took on a faraway look as though 
 trying to recall some long-forgotten scene. 
 
 "It would seem easier to solve the mystery of the 
 singer," I suggested, "However, let's unload the 
 donkey in some shady nook and then see what we can 
 find out. I do not think there is any reason why we 
 should not overtake the caravan at Yezd." 
 
 Suiting the action to the word, I drove the little 
 
120 DOUGLAS 
 
 beast toward a somewhat larger clump of trees 
 nearer the mouth of the stream, while Douglas rode 
 slowly around the edge of the field, where the rise of 
 the hill became quite abrupt. As I reached the spot 
 I had selected and was throwing the pack from the 
 donkey, I saw for the first time that the stream dis- 
 appeared, as I have previously stated, into a sink- 
 hole, or, more properly speaking, a small aperture 
 like the mouth of a cave, which led under the hill to 
 the northeast of the plain. 
 
 Having relieved the donkey of its burden and 
 hobbled it so it could not run away, I leisurely rode 
 down stream, intending to meet Douglas where the 
 water disappeared under the hill. At the same time 
 I kept my eyes on the hillside from which the singer's 
 voice had seemed to come, expecting to see some one, 
 when suddenly the song burst forth again, apparently 
 right at my side. 
 
 That it was no trick of my imagination was proved 
 by the manner in which my horse pricked up his ears. 
 He gave a little start, just as though some had spoken 
 to him from behind. I turned my head quickly in 
 every direction, but there was no one in sight save 
 Douglas, who was riding along slowly, with his eyes 
 fixed upon the little cavern, into which the stream 
 disappeared. 
 
 "Well," I thought to myself, "this certainly is a 
 mysterious place," and for the first time since we had 
 entered it, I began to have an uncanny feeling and 
 half wished I were out of the adventure. However, 
 as the singing again ceased I called out to Douglas : 
 
 "What do you make of it?" 
 
THE GARDEN OF JOY 121 
 
 The effect of my shout was most startling. From 
 all sides came back the echo of my voice in a con- 
 fused babel of sound. My horse stopped still and 
 looked about in perplexity. He seemed half inclined 
 to bolt, and I was half a mind to let him, when I 
 noticed Douglas put spurs to his horse and dash 
 toward the little cavern I haw mentioned. Feeling 
 sure that he had made a discovery of some kind I 
 followed his example and we were soon at the stream's 
 mouth. 
 
 Now, this is not a mystery story, nor am I writing it 
 save for the purpose of showing you what kind of 
 a man Douglas was, and the various emotions which 
 seemed to impel him above and over all being his 
 sense of fear, which ever and anon took possession of 
 him and showed in his face to such a degree as to be 
 absolutely pitiable. 
 
 True, these 1 periods were usually of such short dura- 
 tion as sometimes to cause a chance acquaintance to 
 think he had been mistaken : but to me, who have seen 
 it so often, there is no doubt as to its cause. 
 
 This was the expression most in evidence on 
 Douglas' face as we turned and looked into each 
 other's eyes, after one hasty glance into the cavern. 
 
 To my mind, there was absolutely no occasion for 
 fear, and to encounter such a look under such circum- 
 stances was so unexpected that for the first time in 
 our acquaintance I referred directly to it. 
 
 "What are you afraid of?" I asked. 
 
 For just an instant he bent upon me such an intense 
 look a look whose meaning and intent I could not 
 fathom that I did not know but he meant to attack me. 
 
122 DOUGLAS 
 
 "Who said I was afraid ?" he snapped. 
 
 "Nobody! You just look it, that's all. What is 
 there to be afraid of ?" 
 
 Like the passing of a cloud his mood changed and 
 he replied with a laugh: 
 
 "Nothing! But where do you suppose it leads to ? " 
 and he pointed to a spiral stairway, only a few steps 
 of which could be seen. 
 
 "Give it up," I replied. "It looks like a mighty 
 uncertain proposition." 
 
 "Uncertain it certainly is," and there came into his 
 eyes a faraway look which explained to me perfectly 
 his fear of a moment previous. It was the fear of 
 uncertainty. It just seemed to be born in him. 
 While there was no question as to his determination to 
 fathom the mystery, the suggestion of uncertainty 
 had for the moment unnerved him. 
 
 Interested as I was in the matter in hand, I found 
 myself wondering what would really be his feelings 
 when the time came in which he should realize as 
 every mortal man must that all hope had fled and 
 he must surely die. Why such a thought should 
 have passed through my mind, sitting there astride 
 my horse and with a big story staring me in the face, 
 I know not; but it did. 
 
 I was aroused from my meditation by another burst 
 of song. This time there was no doubt whence it 
 came. The reason we had not located it sooner was 
 due to the peculiar formation of the hills, which were 
 veritable sounding boards. 
 
 As we listened, Douglas broke into laughter so 
 hearty that there was no mistaking that something 
 
THE GARDEN OF JOY 123 
 
 ludicrous had flashed across his mind. Seeing my 
 puzzled expression, he exclaimed: 
 
 "His master's voice!" 
 
 No other explanation of his hilarity was necessary. 
 There we stood listening, just like the fox terrier in 
 the advertisement. The cavern was the phonograph 
 and all that was needed to complete the picture was a 
 huge trumpet suspended in the aperture. 
 
 As the singing ceased Douglas sprang from his 
 horse, all indecision having been laid aside. 
 
 "The sooner we get to the bottom of this," he said, 
 "the sooner we can join the caravan. I didn't come 
 to Persia on any such assignment, but you certainly 
 will have a yarn worth printing." 
 
 "What had we better do with our horses ?" I asked 
 as I also dismounted. 
 
 "There isn't but one thing we can do," he replied. 
 "Hobble them so we can catch them easily and take 
 a chance on it. I'm sure they'll not leave this grass 
 and water, and if there are visitors while we are gone, 
 why, so much the worse for us. 
 
 "But I don't believe," he continued as we took off 
 the saddles, "that we shall be disturbed. The 
 dwellers of the desert for some reason evidently give 
 the place a wide berth. That's why I cannot account 
 for the voice." 
 
 "You feel certain it is Zelda?" 
 
 "Yes; but who is Zelda? We know only what AH 
 has told us. Where did she learn that song ?" 
 
 "Wherever AH learned it, I suppose." 
 
 "Oh, no! He learned it from her. Do you re- 
 member the first time we heard AH sing, that you 
 
124 DOUGLAS 
 
 asked me if I had ever heard anything like it before 
 and I replied, 'Yes, once?" 
 
 "I believe I do, but I had forgotten it. Where was 
 it?" 
 
 "In the Transvaal during the Boer war. It was 
 at the siege of Maf eking. There had been nothing 
 doing for two or three days and with a couple of 
 natives I had left the intrenchments and gone up into 
 the mountains for a little smaller game. We pitched 
 our camp in the bush at the foot of a huge rock, against 
 which we built our fire. 
 
 "It was possibly a couple of hours after dark, and 
 just about as we were ready to turn in, that there 
 came to our ears the sound of strange music music 
 much like that we have been hearing today. The 
 natives immediately bowed themselves to the ground, 
 and I must confess that it was not to be wondered at. 
 I almost felt like doing likewise. The song was 
 repeated three times, each time seeming to die away 
 in the distance. Then, at the top of a peak just above 
 our heads, there shot up for a moment a shaft of fire 
 and then all was darkness. 
 
 "In the morning I explored the locality, but could 
 find nothing; and while we remained in the neighbor- 
 hood for several days and camped each night in the 
 same spot, we did not hear it again, nor were any of us 
 able to determine who or what it was. Since then I 
 have thought much upon the matter and had already 
 come to the conclusion that it was the religious song 
 of some wanderer from another land. Now I am 
 more than ever convinced. Even were it not for my 
 interest in Ali and his sister, I still would be anxious 
 
THE GARDEN OF JOY 125 
 
 to solve this mystery. That is why I am glad Hassim 
 took himself and his followers away." 
 
 Douglas' story put an entirely new phase upon the 
 adventure and, to my mind, while it possibly increased 
 the sense of personal danger, it likewise increased my 
 interest. 
 
 Secreting our saddles and rifles as best we could, 
 and with our automatics in one hand and our electric 
 flashlights in the other, we made ready to enter the 
 cavern, Douglas leading the way. 
 
 "Why," some one may ask, "if Douglas were so 
 full of fear, should he lead the way?" I can only 
 answer that he did. 
 
 Since I have been studying this question of fear, 
 I have talked with a large number of old soldiers. 
 Many have told me that they never went into a 
 battle that they were not possessed with an almost 
 irresistible impulse to run away. Some have told me 
 that they were so frightened that their legs almost 
 gave way under them; but the fear of being called a 
 coward was still greater and acted as a stimulus to 
 urge them forward. It was simply the greater fear 
 overcoming the lesser. 
 
 I do not say this was the case with Douglas. I 
 simply offer it as a possible solution of some of his 
 acts. 
 
 On entering the cavern, the arch was so low that we 
 were obliged to sit down with our feet hanging over 
 the top step just as when a child you used to 
 descend the garret stairs. Of course as we descended 
 a couple of steps, we were able to stand upright and 
 thus continue the descent. 
 
126 DOUGLAS 
 
 "There is no need of more than one light," said 
 Douglas, after we had gone down some steps, "and 
 we had better husband our electricity." 
 
 Accordingly I removed my thumb from the button 
 of my light, and we descended by the glare of Douglas' 
 spark. 
 
 While the stairway appeared to be of stone, we soon 
 perceived that it was hewn out of the hard sand. 
 The steps were about thirty inches wide just wide 
 enough to permit one person to descend at a time. 
 I had counted twenty-six of these, when Douglas 
 who was some three steps in advance exclaimed: 
 
 "Here's the bottom." 
 
 I descended a step lower and we peered ahead 
 into the gloom. 
 
 "What do you make of it?" I asked. 
 
 "Only a narrow passageway, leading to nobody 
 knows where." 
 
 "Suppose I go ahead," I suggested. "I'm taller 
 and can see better." 
 
 He stepped to one side and I crowded past. 
 
 "We don't seem to be getting anywhere," I said 
 after a couple of minutes. 
 
 Then we stopped and peered ahead again. 
 
 "It surely is a ticklish kind of place," he ad- 
 mitted. "But it must lead somewhere. It wasn't 
 dug just for amusement." 
 
 We walked along a couple of minutes longer and 
 then the passageway came to an end, just as though 
 whoever had started to dig the tunnel had been forced 
 to stop. It was not a flat wall nor a door that con- 
 
THE GARDEN OF JOY 127 
 
 fronted us, but an irregular wall, showing plainly the 
 prints of shovels. 
 
 I stood to one side as well as I was able, to give 
 Douglas room to examine it. 
 
 "What do you make of it?" I asked. 
 
 "Looks as though whoever had been at work had 
 become tired," he replied. 
 
 "Exactly," I declared. "Simply a blind passage- 
 way." 
 
 "There must be an opening out of this some way," 
 said Douglas. "It's probably in the side and we've 
 overlooked it in the dark. We'll go back and examine 
 the side walls as we go." 
 
 Slowly we retraced our steps, flashing our lights along 
 the walls, but there was clearly no opening. The 
 passageway was dug right through what appeared to 
 be the same glistening soil as that which comprised the 
 sandy desert, and there was no indication of a door 
 or a lateral tunnel. 
 
 "Strange we don't get any light from the stairway," 
 remarked Douglas after we had gone back fully as 
 far as we had entered. "We must be close to the 
 stairs." 
 
 "That's what I was thinking. I'll be glad to see 
 the sun again." 
 
 When, after a couple of minutes, the stairs did not 
 appear, * we involuntarily quickened our footsteps 
 and unmindful of the fact that we were supposed to 
 be examining the sides of the wall, we finally broke 
 into a run, filled with a nameless dread of something 
 we knew not what; the same fear that must come 
 
128 DOUGLAS 
 
 to a man who should suddenly awake to find himself 
 buried alive; but the stairs did not appear. There 
 was now no doubt that we had fully retraced the 
 distance we had come into the passage and we both 
 knew it as we sped on toward what ? 
 
 It is a wonder to me that we did not both perish of 
 fright then and there. Indeed, it seemed to me that 
 I should, and I can well imagine how Douglas must 
 have felt, when again came the singing. 
 
 We stopped short in our tracks and gazed into 
 each other's blanched faces. Our nerveless thumbs 
 forgot to press the buttons and we found ourselves in 
 utter darkness. 
 
 Then came a flash and the place was lighted by a 
 sudden glare and we beheld a large room filled with 
 what appeared to be a congregation of devout wor- 
 shippers 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ZELDA 
 
 IP you can imagine how you would feel to awaken 
 suddenly and find yourself in the midst of a large com- 
 pany, clad only in your pajamas, perhaps you can 
 imagine our sensation at finding ourselves in the pres- 
 ence of such an assemblage. Not that we were in- 
 sufficiently clad, physically, but mentally we were 
 absolutely naked. The experience of the past few 
 minutes had stripped us of every raiment of our wit 
 and self-possession, and we simply stood stupefied. 
 
 But we did not stand long, for in another instant we 
 were again plunged into complete darkness. 
 
 It might seem that this last change would have been 
 worse than the first. Such, however, was not the case. 
 It was rather as though some one had taken compas- 
 sion on our unclad condition and wrapped us in a 
 blanket; and in that moment our wits returned. 
 Grasping our Colts more firmly, we pressed the buttons 
 on our electric lights and peered in the direction of the 
 worshippers; but we peered in vain. Our lights 
 simply showed us the same sandy and glistening walls. 
 
 This time we did not content ourselves with looking. 
 We struck the walls with the barrels of our Colts and 
 the mystery was solved. 
 
 The wall on one side, instead of being formed of 
 129 
 
130 DOUGLAS 
 
 sand, was simply a painted screen, plentifully sprinkled 
 with sand to give it the same glistening effect. So 
 dense was the darkness behind it however, that even 
 with the lights from both our sparkers concentrated 
 on one spot, we were unable to penetrate it sufficiently 
 to see what was behind it. 
 
 "Well, this is a rum go," ejaculated Douglas, as he 
 stood peering into the darkness. 
 
 "What do you make of it?" I asked. 
 
 "It reminds me of a D. K. E> initiation." 
 
 "Only this is the real thing," I replied. 
 
 "I wish there was some way of breaking into what- 
 ever it is. I never could stand suspense," and again 
 Douglas tapped on the screen with his Colt. 
 
 His wish was answered speedily. Even as he spoke, 
 the screen began to rise, and to the accompaniment of 
 the same weird singing, the room slowly became light 
 and we found ourselves in a lofty chamber, through 
 the roof of which the sunlight filtered in a diffused 
 glow, which gave the impression of firelight. It was a 
 stage effect of such perfect ingenuity that we waited 
 expectantly for the actors to appear, never considering 
 that we were the performers and that those we had 
 seen through the screen were the audience. 
 
 We were soon made aware of it, however, when at 
 each side of us appeared a priest, garbed in a flowing 
 red robe. Taking us each by the arm they slowly 
 urged us toward an altar which looked much like a 
 forge and upon which a fire was smouldering. There 
 seemed no disposition to harm us; in fact, we could 
 feel that we were being treated with unusual deference. 
 
 Seeing no reason for resisting, we allowed ourselves 
 
ZELDA 131 
 
 to be urged forward, Douglas cautioning me in a low 
 tone not to let go my electric light or my firearm. 
 When we were directly in front of the altar, the con- 
 gregation, for such it appeared, slowly moved for- 
 ward, the room was suddenly darkened, the light on 
 the altar flared up as though fed by a blow pipe and, 
 led by the voice we had now so frequently heard, the 
 entire assemblage burst into song 
 
 I have given these details simply to help make the 
 picture complete in the minds of the reader, for as I 
 now look back upon the scene, weird and unusual 
 though it was, there is but one feature in the picture 
 that holds my attention, even as it did then the face 
 of the singer. 
 
 I am not a romancer nor a playwright. I am a 
 chronicler of facts. I have always prided myself that 
 I could condense the biggest news story that ever came 
 into the office into a stick; but had I the ability to 
 write against space as Douglas has, I could write a 
 couple of columns about the beauty of that face and 
 still not do it justice. 
 
 It was such beauty as I have never seen before 
 or since. It was Haidee, Nourmahal, Juliet, and 
 Sapho combined and beautified a hundredfold. It 
 was the beauty of the Greek, the Persian, and the 
 Italian blended and perfected. It was to the eye 
 what the music we had heard was to the ear; and had 
 I died that minute for daring to look upon it, I should 
 have felt the price was none too dear 
 
 To describe the face feature by feature were im- 
 possible. As well might one attempt to describe the 
 beauty of the pure thought which came to the Virgin 
 
132 DOUGLAS 
 
 mother, when, in her clear consciousness was conceived 
 the spiritual idea which came in the flesh to take away 
 the sins of the world. Unable to speak, I stood spell- 
 bound while Douglas uttered the one word : 
 
 "Zelda!" 
 
 So moved were we by her beauty that, when the fire 
 died down, we both, as by a single impulse, thrust 
 forward our electric lights and flashed them in her 
 face. 
 
 If she had appeared beautiful under the glow of the 
 roseate fire, she was even more so under the colorless 
 electricity. It lent a transparency to her skin that 
 gave it the appearance of old ivory. So marked was 
 the effect that a cry of surprise and pleasure burst 
 from every lip, and furnished Douglas the idea that 
 resulted in the ultimate rescue, not only of Zelda, but 
 ourselves. 
 
 "Shut off your light, quick," he said to me under 
 his breath, himself suiting the action to the word. 
 Then after a minute, "Now, both together, and now 
 for good." 
 
 "Great," I exclaimed, as we successfully carried out 
 the idea. 
 
 "Now save your light," Douglas whispered, "and 
 don't let them see how it works if you can help it. It's 
 up to them to furnish light from now on." 
 
 While his advice was good, I could hardly follow it 
 for my desire to look upon that face again. I was 
 afraid that before the light returned it would be gone; 
 nor was I mistaken. For when, as before, the rays of 
 the sun made themselves felt, Zelda had disap- 
 peared. 
 
ZELDA 133 
 
 "What do you suppose they have done with her?" I 
 asked Douglas. 
 
 "Oh, frisked her away somewhere. But keep your 
 eyes open." 
 
 We had no time to say more, as there now emerged 
 from behind the altar one whom I had not before 
 noticed. He was a man in the prime of life and in ap- 
 pearance a typical Persian, although there was about 
 him an air that bespoke Bedouin or Arabian blood. 
 His face was thin and oval and his eyes sparkled in 
 the subdued light like those of a rat. Craftiness was 
 marked plainly in every line of his countenance and 
 his lithe form bespoke agility and strength. All this 
 I noticed at a glance as he advanced toward us with an 
 air at once deferential and commanding, and I was not 
 at all surprised at the deep tone of his voice, when in 
 the purest Persian, he addressed us. 
 
 "Brothers, sons of Ahura Mazda, and strangers in 
 Iran," he said, "I bid you welcome to our midst. For 
 long days we have awaited and expected your coming, 
 knowing not when, nor how you would appear, but 
 ever believing that the words of prophecy would be 
 fulfilled. The message you bring has been eagerly 
 desired the message that should make more pure 
 our worship, even as our great divinity, the Fire, 
 purifies all it embraces. 
 
 " For long years we have felt how weak we are. We 
 have seen the fiery tracks of the Omnipotent One as 
 he dashed through the sky, and heard the thunder of 
 his voice as he strove with the enemy and dashed to 
 earth the impotent water, making it the servant of 
 earth and all mankind. We have bowed us in the 
 
134 DOUGLAS 
 
 dust, when in the distant north we have seen the luster 
 of the Omnipotent One's crown and we have listened 
 in wonder to one who, years ago, came as a voice in 
 the wilderness, telling how the fire tracks had come 
 down from heaven to do man's bidding. He it was 
 who prophesied that some day strangers would come 
 to bear to us the message of the purer worship the 
 worship of a fire that burns without fuel, even as 
 Ahura Mazda the Sun on high." 
 
 He ceased speaking and with folded arms awaited 
 our reply, while from the rear the other worshippers 
 pressed eagerly forward with straining eyes. 
 
 Understanding only a little of what he had said, I 
 asked Douglas, who silenced me with a gesture as he 
 replied : 
 
 "Brothers and worshippers of the fire, you have 
 rightly surmised. We have come from a far-off land 
 across the great sea which flows to the west, borne 
 hither by the power of the Omnipotent One, which in 
 other lands than this is the great, motive power. For 
 days we have marched over the trackless desert, 
 guided only by our desire to reach this spot. Arriving 
 in the vale above, we were drawn hither by the music 
 of our sacred song. 
 
 "Our message is an important one. It cannot be 
 delivered until the hour has come. Therefore, 
 brothers, let the singer again appear, and by the pure 
 light which we bear from the Omnipotent One, let us 
 for this time finish our devotions and for three days 
 resume our daily vocations. Then shall the message 
 be delivered. In the meantime we will dwell with you, 
 
ZELDA 135 
 
 or we will make our abode in the vale above. Let the 
 light fade and the singer appear." 
 
 Slowly the light disappeared. 
 
 "Now," said Douglas to me, "flash your light and 
 do as I do." 
 
 I did as I was bid, and as our flashlights penetrated 
 the darkness, Zelda again appeared and advanced 
 toward us. 
 
 "Stand," commanded Douglas and he flashed his 
 light directly in her eyes. 
 
 She obeyed, and after an instant's pause sang with 
 even greater sweetness than before the weird song, the 
 while her eyes rested upon Douglas as though she 
 would devour him with her gaze. 
 
 As the song ended and before we shut off our cur- 
 rents, Douglas motioned the girl to his side. 
 
 "Stand there," he said pointing to a spot between 
 us. Then to me in English, "If she attempts to move, 
 hold her arm. I will hold the other." 
 
 But we had no occasion to hold her, for as the lights 
 went out, the whole place was flooded with bright sun- 
 shine, admitted through the roof. 
 
 In the sunlight, the character of the room in which 
 we were standing was revealed and a poor enough 
 place it was. It was simply a big cellar, dug in the 
 hills and roofed over. In the roof, at even intervals, 
 were huge panes of tinted glass, through which the 
 light was admitted during the ceremonies. At other 
 times the light was admitted through openings in the 
 roof, which were covered with shutters. The stairway, 
 by which we had descended, was dug into one corner 
 
136 DOUGLAS 
 
 of the room and the passageway was a crooked one, 
 partitioned off by a wire screen. 
 
 It was all very simple, but very mystifying. It had 
 been made, as Zelda later told us, by a stranger who 
 had joined the band many years before, the object 
 being to protect the place by mystery, rather than 
 force. I shall always believe that he must have been 
 a stage carpenter. Any way, the job was well done. 
 
 As the light streamed in through the roof, the chief 
 advanced with outstretched hand. 
 
 "The brothers are welcome," he said in the ordinary 
 Persian dialect which I could understand. "We are 
 glad to greet them." 
 
 "And we are glad to greet Ilderim," replied Douglas. 
 "We have come far to meet him. His fame as a 
 leader has gone abroad." 
 
 The man's eyes twinkled craftily as he replied. 
 
 "My brother does me much honor. Ilderim has 
 visited the shore of the great sea and has seen the 
 dazzling light that shines at night from the masts of 
 the great ships. He knows the light as he knows the 
 lightning. He would know its secret." 
 
 "And so he shall! But first," continued Douglas, 
 "we must see the other singer." 
 
 "The other singer," and Ilderim's eyes opened in 
 real surprise, "There is no other singer." 
 
 Douglas' face grew stern as he replied, "Do not lie 
 to us, Ilderim. It will do no good. There is another 
 singer, a boy." 
 
 "My brother," exclaimed Zelda, who up to this 
 time had not spoken, and although she uttered but two 
 words, the sweetness of her voice was as AH had said. 
 
ZELDA 137 
 
 Seeing the black look on Douglas' face and being 
 startled by Zelda's exclamation, the rest of the com- 
 pany pressed forward, whereupon Ilderim turned upon 
 them fiercely, exclaiming: 
 
 "Begone! Get about your business!" 
 
 Without a word the entire band, numbering prob- 
 ably four score, turned and filed slowly out of a door 
 which,! afterwards learned, led into a passage through 
 the hills, facing the plain over which we had ridden on 
 the previous day. 
 
 As the last of the band passed out of hearing, Ilderim 
 took a step nearer Zelda, exclaiming in a threatening 
 voice: 
 
 "Why did you not tell me your brother was also a 
 singer of the sacred song?" 
 
 "You never asked me," she replied defiantly. 
 
 Ilderim stamped his foot with rage and raised his 
 hand as though to strike her, but Douglas interposed, 
 flashing his light directly in Ilderim's face in a manner 
 that almost blinded him. His hand dropped to his 
 eyes, and his manner changed to one of positive terror. 
 
 "What have you done with the other singer ?" again 
 demanded Douglas, as he recognized his power over 
 the man. 
 
 "He has gone away on a mission," Ilderim re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Then send for him," commanded Douglas, "for 
 not until he returns can we deliver the message. In 
 the meantime, this singer must remain where we can 
 see and converse with her." 
 
 "But, my brother," began Ilderim. 
 
 "There must be no but if you would learn the secret 
 
138 DOUGLAS 
 
 of the dazzling fire if you would also be able to 
 throw a shaft of light across the desert at night." 
 
 Ilderim gazed upon him bewildered. 
 
 "Can it be?" 
 
 "It can; and who then would be able to withstand 
 you ? Who could hide from your piercing eye ? No 
 caravan could escape you, and gold would flow into 
 your hands like water." 
 
 Ilderim's crafty eyes searched Douglas' face, but the 
 latter had nothing to conceal along this line. It was 
 an undoubted fact that with a searchlight, Ilderim 
 would be a robber without a peer. 
 
 "The other singer shall be found," he said at length. 
 "I will start couriers out at once. In the meantime 
 you shall be my guests and dwell in the garden of joy. 
 Remain here until I return. Zelda shall bear you 
 company." 
 
 For some minutes after Ilderim left we said nothing, 
 thinking his departure might be simply a trick to trap 
 us into saying or doing something that might put us 
 more completely in his power; but seeing no indication 
 of it we finally asked Zelda if she had received any 
 recent word from Ali. 
 
 "None," she replied, "since he went away many 
 moons ago." 
 
 "You did not know, then, that he was in the caravan 
 which was attacked yesterday?" 
 
 "Zelda did not know that one was attacked. Zelda 
 was busy in the temple." 
 
 "Are you always busy in the temple?" asked 
 Douglas. 
 
 "Nearly always." 
 
ZELDA 139 
 
 "What do you do?" 
 
 "Zelda keeps the fire, and sings the sacred song of 
 Ahura Mazda." 
 
 "Who is Ahura Mazda?" I asked Douglas. "Do 
 you know anything about this fire worship?" 
 
 "Only that it is the religion taught by Zoroaster 
 and that Ahura Mazda is the name he gives the 
 Creator, which he believed to be the sun. All life, as 
 he taught, comes from the sun. Where we go after 
 life is extinct, does not concern the fire worshipper." 
 
 "Of course the altar fire is only the symbol?" 
 
 "Naturally. You heard the Persian tale of how 
 Hushing brought fire. You also remember that 
 Prometheus had a terrible time for bringing fire to 
 men. In all ages, fire has been looked upon as more 
 or less of a divine power. I hope, now that we have 
 become acquainted with these fire worshippers, to 
 learn more of what they really do believe." 
 
 "Perhaps they can solve the great mystery for you," 
 I laughed. "Perhaps they will tell you that the Mt. 
 Pelee eruption was simply the vengeance of fire for the 
 wickedness of the dwellers beside the volcano." 
 
 "Which would be no more than the Bible tells about 
 the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah." Then 
 after a pause: "Honestly, Warren, is it any wonder 
 that those of us who believe the Bible are afraid to die ?" 
 
 "I can't say that it is?" 
 
 Douglas burst into a laugh. 
 
 "There you go again. For heaven's sake say yes 
 or no." 
 
 I had to laugh, myself, and Zelda, seeing our humor, 
 smiled. 
 
140 DOUGLAS 
 
 I have seen many smiles, but never one like hers, and 
 I felt to myself that if she would smile on me, or even 
 at me, very often, it would not be long until I should be 
 her slave. 
 
 As I now look back after these years, I can see that 
 on my part it was a case of love at first sight. It was 
 not so with Zelda. In fact I am sure that I was nothing 
 to her and that 'her whole thought was for Douglas. 
 Why, I do not know. I flatter myself that I am quite 
 as good-looking as he, and I certainly had, even then, 
 some traits that were better than his; but women are 
 strange creatures. However, this is not my story. It 
 is the story of Douglas. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION 
 
 THE sun was sinking slowly behind the hills as 
 Douglas and I sat smoking in front of a little tent 
 which Ilderim had erected for us in the shade of a tree 
 in the oasis, which we now recognized as the garden 
 of the Parsee temple. There was a soft footfall 
 behind us and Zelda appeared from the other side of 
 the tent and seated herself on the grass beside us. 
 
 Of all the native women it was my chance to see 
 in Persia, Zelda was the only one I ever saw without 
 a veil. The others were wrapped and swathed like 
 mummies, with a veil just big enough to peep through 
 tied over their eyes. Even the bargi the native 
 woman whom Ilderim assigned to wait upon Zelda, 
 was muffled out of sight. Veiling is not, however, a 
 religious demand, as some think. It is simply a decree 
 of fashion, whose devotees outnumber ten to one the 
 worshippers at any other shrine. 
 
 In so far as Zelda is concerned, I am inclined to 
 think that when she was first captured, her veil was 
 taken from her as a mark of servitude. By the time 
 she had become the feature of the fire worship and 
 could have resumed it had she wanted to, she had 
 discovered it was a nuisance and discarded it alto- 
 gether. Still, it may have been her native vanity, 
 
 141 
 
142 DOUGLAS 
 
 for I have learned that she fully realized how beautiful 
 she was. 
 
 During the twenty-four hours we had known her, 
 we had been able to tell her much of how we happened 
 to be there and the purpose of our visit. We had not, 
 however, told her that we were not the great priests 
 that she thought us and so she continued to look upon 
 us as far above ordinary mortals. At least she did 
 upon Douglas. I am not sure that she gave me a 
 thought. 
 
 Her joy at receiving word from Ali was great, but 
 not so great as I had expected except that she 
 seemed overjoyed at the prospect of escape. She 
 did, however, express much fear for the safety of the 
 lad; but we had assured her that he would be all 
 right. So great was her faith in us that she appeared 
 perfectly satisfied. 
 
 We had seen Ilderim but once since our first meet- 
 ing. That was on the following morning, when he 
 came into the temple where we had spent the night, 
 and volunteered to show us a good spot to camp and 
 had provided us a small tent. He had said little 
 beyond the statement that couriers had been sent to 
 scour the country for Ali and that he was sure he 
 would soon be found. 
 
 Zelda had followed us and watched our movements 
 from the shade of an apricot tree while we pitched our 
 camp. Two or three times since, she had approached 
 and spoken a few words, after which she would sit 
 and quietly watch us. Thus it was that we were not 
 surprised to see her now. 
 
 "Do you think it would do to ask her any questions 
 
THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION 143 
 
 about this vale," I remarked to Douglas, as she sat 
 there with her eyes alternately upon the sky and 
 Douglas. 
 
 "I see no objections." 
 
 "Why do they call this the Garden of Joy?" I 
 asked in the best Persian I could muster. 
 
 "That's a foolish question," Douglas declared, 
 "Any one can see that. The thing we want to know 
 is, why it isn't inhabited and cultivated." 
 
 "Huh," I ejaculated, considerably nettled. "That's 
 easy, too. Every Persian thinks he must have a 
 garden, but none of them want to work. I'll bet this 
 place has a story. You ask her if it hasn't. She'll 
 answer you, but she seems afraid of me." 
 
 He did, and in a musical voice she told the following 
 tale a tale which I think is told, or at least a 
 similar one, by Sa'di, the Persian bard, in his Gulistan, 
 or Rose Garden: 
 
 "In the days when the world was young and love 
 was all, this great desert was a sea and this vale and 
 all the mountains surrounding it were a beautiful 
 island ruled by a lovely princess. So fair was she, 
 that all who saw her must fall in love with her, and 
 so it happened that a poor singer a singer like me 
 saw and fell in love with the lovely princess. 
 
 "Under the law, no one but a prince of noble blood 
 could wed the princess, so the poor singer knew that 
 his love was hopeless " and Zelda heaved a deep 
 sigh. "Indeed, it was forbidden that one of humble 
 birth should even dare love a princess, and so his 
 family and friends besought him to lay aside his folly 
 and seek love and happiness elsewhere; but he would 
 
144 DOUGLAS 
 
 not. Then, in an effort to save him, they had word 
 sent to the princess that the youth was insane and not 
 responsible for his actions. 
 
 "The princess, however, at once guessed the cause 
 of his insanity and although she had many suitors, 
 became possessed with a desire to meet him. There- 
 fore, when he was pointed out to her one day, sitting 
 in this grove, she rode her horse toward him and 
 addressed him. 
 
 "Seeing her approach he was stricken dumb with 
 joy and was unable to reply. Then she spoke to him 
 again saying, 'I, too, am a singer. Why do you not 
 speak to me?' 
 
 "With such encouragement the youth found his 
 tongue sufficiently to say: 'With thee present it is 
 not strange that I am unable to speak, but that I am 
 able even to remain alive.' Then, casting upon her 
 one look of love and tenderness, he fell dead at her 
 feet from very joy. 
 
 "Ever since that time this vale has been called 
 the Garden of Joy; but because of the sad fate of the 
 hapless youth no one has ever cared to dwell herein. 
 When the sea dried up and the mountains were no 
 longer clothed with green, this spot remained fresh 
 and fair like the love of the young singer, which died 
 not nor withered, although it was so great that it 
 consumed him like a purifying fire. Such is true 
 love. It must e'en consume those upon whom it 
 seizes," and again Zelda sighed. 
 
 "That's a very pretty tale," Douglas exclaimed, 
 "but it cannot be true, because joy and love do not 
 kill. It is only grief and fear that kill especially fear." 
 
THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION 145 
 
 "Fear of what?" I asked. 
 
 "Fear of everything. I thought I'd made that 
 point plain to you long ago. Fear, not of the thing 
 itself, perhaps, but of the uncertain result of every 
 act and condition from the day you are old enough 
 to sense your existence. It is fear that kills, Zelda," 
 addressing her for the first time. 
 
 She drew nearer and looked earnestly into his face. 
 "Yes," she exclaimed after a minute, "but love begets 
 fear fear for the loved one; fear about the loved 
 one; fear," and she shivered with a sudden chill, 
 "of losing the loved one." 
 
 "By George, the girl is right,"! exclaimed. "Love 
 does beget fear. I hadn't thought of that before." 
 
 "Then think of it again," replied Douglas with a 
 touch of fierceness, "and you'll see it isn't so, any 
 more than that good begets evil, and light begets 
 darkness." 
 
 I did think of it again and the more I thought, the 
 more convinced I became that Douglas was right. 
 
 "But how do you explain it?" I asked. "It's plain 
 to see what the girl means, and still you seem right, 
 too. How do you explain it ? " 
 
 "I don't explain it. I simply feel it, that's all. 
 Not being able to explain it, I still fear. It is not 
 love we fear any more than it is light. It is dark- 
 ness.'* 
 
 "But light does beget darkness," said Zelda 
 timidly. 
 
 "How?" I asked. 
 
 "By going away?" she replied. 
 
 Douglas laughed. "That's philosophy for you," 
 
146 DOUGLAS 
 
 he exclaimed. "And by the same reasoning love 
 creates fear by going away?" 
 
 "Yes," and the girl clasped her hands to her breast. 
 
 "Don't you ever believe it, little girl," replied 
 Douglas tenderly, "because when love goes away the 
 fear will cease and in its place will come anger 
 
 "And despair," she interrupted. 
 
 "This is a nice sensible conversation for two men 
 and a girl," I laughed. 
 
 "Especially when none of us knows anything about 
 it," replied Douglas. "I wish that rascal cf a Hassim 
 Kahn had left me a donkey whose pack contained a 
 few bottles of cognac. That's the best remedy for 
 the blues that I know of." 
 
 "You are more inconsistent than the girl," I 
 declared with a little sense of anger. 
 
 "How's that," and Douglas regarded me with mild 
 surprise. 
 
 "You want to use evil to cure evil." 
 
 "Similia similibus curantur," quoth Douglas with 
 a laugh. 
 
 "I'd rather be blue than drunk," I retorted. 
 
 "That's because you've never been blue," he 
 laughed. 
 
 "I thought you were going to say because I had 
 never been drunk." 
 
 "Have you?" 
 
 "Enough so that I never want to go through the 
 experience again." 
 
 "Well," declared Douglas as he arose, and stretched 
 himself, "if we haven't cognac there must be plenty 
 of wine about somewhere. The Parsee is a wine 
 
THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION 147 
 
 drinker, the Moslem is not." To Zelda: "Has 
 Ilderim any wine ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Could I have some?" 
 
 Zelda arose from her place on the grass and fairly 
 bounded away, calling back as she ran, "Zelda will 
 bring some." 
 
 "There is a willing slave," I remarked. "What is 
 there about you she should fall in love with " 
 
 "Any more than about you?" interrupted Douglas 
 with a laugh. 
 
 "Well, yes, if you want to finish it that way. How- 
 ever, that is not what I was about to say." 
 
 "If I were not so modest I might say it is my 
 winning way," he laughed again. "Being modest, 
 however, I shall be compelled to say that you are 
 mistaken about her being in love at all. She is 
 simply the victim of religious sentiment." 
 
 "Bosh! She fell in love with you the minute she 
 laid eyes on you and if you had the least appreciation 
 of the beautiful, you would be just as far gone as she is.'* 
 
 "Are you?" 
 
 "Well, yes, if you want to know. She's the most 
 beautiful thing I ever saw. But," and I shrugged my 
 shoulders, " 'what care I how fair she be, so she be 
 not fair for me.' " 
 
 " Sensible man," laughed Douglas. " But, honestly, 
 I am afraid to fall in love with any woman." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because of the uncertainty. Next to the state 
 beyond the grave, I consider marriage the most 
 uncertain." 
 
148 DOUGLAS 
 
 "At least," I replied, "love would be a far better 
 form of intoxication than wine. But there comes 
 Zelda with a jar. If you have a mind, you may 
 indulge in both," and plunging my hands into my 
 pockets I strode away in a most uncomfortable frame 
 of mind. 
 
 A large cherry tree, under which we had piled our 
 accoutrements, spread its branches invitingly some 
 distance away. Under this I threw myself and 
 watched the moon gradually grow brighter and 
 brighter as the darkness fell. Through the silence of 
 the gathering twilight I could hear the murmur of 
 voices as Zelda and Douglas conversed in the liquid 
 language of Iran and I must confess that my thoughts 
 were anything but pleasant. A few minutes later 
 the voices ceased and I caught the sound of a little 
 sigh and a sob. 
 
 I could remain quiet no longer. 
 
 "It's a shame," I thought, "that the poor girl should 
 waste her affections on a man who does not give her a 
 single thought above what he would give any woman 
 he might chance to meet. Better for her an hundred- 
 fold that she be left to the life she is leading. 
 Every hour she lingers in his presence and every 
 kindly act he may do in carrying out his promise to 
 her brother will but increase her passion. I'll break 
 up the tete-a-tete," and I started toward the tent. 
 
 As I was about to emerge from the shadow of the 
 tree under which I had been reclining, my ear caught 
 the sound of the now familiar sacred song, in a voice 
 which I immediately recognized as Ali's. Raising my 
 eyes to the hill that rose abruptly back of our tent, 
 
THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION 149 
 
 I caught sight of the figure of the lad silhouetted against 
 the sky in the moonlight. He was standing motion- 
 less, with his body bent forward in a listening attitude. 
 
 The others must have heard his voice at the same 
 time, for as I stepped forward, he was answered by 
 Zelda, whom I could see standing at the side of the 
 tent, looking upward. 
 
 As he caught the sound of the answering note, All 
 took a step forward and peered down into the vale. 
 He must have seen the tent and figures beside it, for 
 he hastily started forward as though to descend, when 
 there was a shot and the boy pitched forward, the 
 momentum causing his body to roll part way down 
 the hillside. 
 
 Halted by the song and Zelda's answer, I was still 
 within the shadow when the shot was fired; but upon 
 seeing AH fall I sprang forward and started on a run 
 toward the tent. At the same instant I saw Zelda 
 start up the hillside, but she was caught and flung 
 back by Douglas, who rushed forward, picked up 
 the inanimate body and carried it quickly to the tent. 
 
 By this time I was at his side. 
 
 "Carry him to the shadow of the cherry tree," I 
 commanded, "and do it quick." 
 
 Without a word, Douglas obeyed, Zelda keeping 
 close to his side. Entering the tent, I seized our 
 weapons and ammunition belts and quickly followed 
 them. 
 
 Once beneath the shadow of the tree Douglas laid 
 Ali on the grass and by the light from my flashlight 
 examined his wound. The shot evidently had been 
 fired from the foot of the hill outside, for the bullet 
 
150 DOUGLAS 
 
 had entered just under the right shoulder blade, had 
 deflected, and come out above the collar bone in front. 
 It was a serious but not necessarily a fatal wound. 
 
 The main thing about the incident was that we 
 were being guarded and that any attempt on our 
 part to leave the vale would, doubtless, precipitate 
 trouble. 
 
 We waited several minutes to observe whether the 
 sentry would attempt to ascertain the result of his 
 shot; but seeing no one, Zelda, at her own request, 
 went down into the temple and soon returned with 
 bandages and some sort of lotion which she poured 
 into the wound, and bound it up with a skill that 
 bespoke her desert training. 
 
 After a couple of hours, finding that those on the 
 outside apparently were going to take no account of 
 the shot, we carried the lad back into the tent and 
 sent Zelda away for the night. 
 
 "How do you think we're going to get out of this 
 mess?" I asked Douglas after we had smoked our 
 pipes in silence for some minutes. 
 
 "The only way I can think of is to cut and run for 
 it," was his reply. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "Tomorrow night, if Ali is able to be carried." 
 
 "Then you are going to try and carry both of them 
 away?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "And get shot for your pains." 
 
 "Do you know," replied Douglas meditatively, 
 taking a few puffs at his pipe, "I seem to be imbibing 
 the Mohammedan belief of Kismet. If it is fate that 
 
THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION 151 
 
 we are to leave our bones on the sands of Persia, leave 
 them we shall. If not, why there is no use of worry- 
 ing." 
 
 "I've been trying to preach that to you for the last 
 year!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "And besides," he continued, paying no attention 
 to my interruption, "I couldn't stand it to remain here 
 inactive long. The uncertainty of the situation gets 
 on my nerves." 
 
 "Well," I replied, "I guess you'll have enough to 
 occupy your mind tomorrow." 
 
 "How's that." 
 
 "I expect we shall receive a visit from Ilderim. If 
 he doesn't find the dead body of Ali, he'll ask some 
 ugly questions." 
 
 For some moments Douglas made no reply. Then 
 he said slowly, "That suggestion gives me an idea. 
 It may help and it may not. We must cremate Ali 
 on a funeral pyre. Not really," as he saw my look 
 of wonderment, "but we must appear to." 
 
 Then he unfolded his plan. 
 
 As a result, when the morning dawned we already 
 had erected a great heap of brush and wood against 
 the dead trunk of an old tree which stood as a sentinel 
 near the top of the hill. At the bottom and on the 
 eastern side we put a quantity of dry grass, and in the 
 midst a small amount of powder, which we dug out 
 of our Winchester cartridges. 
 
 To provide for a body, we had taken a small 
 decayed log, of which there were any number lying 
 about, and wrapped it carefully in a couple of shirts. 
 On top we placed Ali's fez and stood it up beside 
 
152 DOUGLAS 
 
 the dead tree in such a manner that it would fall 
 forward into the fire as soon as the supporting brush 
 had burned a little. As for Ali, who seemed right 
 strong, we buried him in our tent under our sad- 
 dles. 
 
 We were still engaged in our task of heaping up the 
 wood and brush when Ilderim came up the stairs. 
 
 Seeing us thus engaged he came forward, but we 
 waved him back. 
 
 "Stand there, Ilderim," commanded Douglas, 
 "until we purify this place of the blood that has been 
 shed herein." 
 
 Without a word he obeyed and stood silently while 
 we finished our work. 
 
 Then I drew back a little way and fell on my knees, 
 while Douglas, taking his eye-glasses from his nose, 
 knelt beside the pyre with arms uplifted. For several 
 minutes he remained thus, until he could focus his 
 glass upon the little spot of powder in the midst of 
 the dry grass. Then suddenly, as though sent from 
 heaven, the fire appeared and the flames rapidly 
 spread to the brush. 
 
 As the fire leaped and crackled, Douglas began to 
 sing the sacred song that seemed such a part of the 
 fire worshipper's service and bowed himself to the 
 earth, while I continued to stand with hands upraised 
 until the shirt-wrapped log fell forward into the fire, 
 when I, too, began to sing. 
 
 Had it not been for the seriousness of our situation, 
 I should have laughed aloud. I managed, however, 
 to carry out my part of the program and so we knelt 
 until the entire pyre had been consumed. Then we 
 
THE WEAKNESS OF SUPERSTITION 153 
 
 arose and approached Ilderim, who had stood all the 
 time eyeing us craftily. 
 
 "What is it you have done?" he asked as we came 
 near. 
 
 "We have destroyed the unclean thing," replied 
 Douglas. "Tonight when the sun has set we shall 
 finish our work. Till then we must be left alone. 
 But listen and obey, if you would not lose the gift 
 which we have come to bring. As daylight fades, 
 send hither Zelda, the singer. Do you, if you wish to 
 witness the complete destruction of yon charred body, 
 be at the head of the temple stairs as darkness falls 
 and let the people be gathered in the temple be- 
 neath." 
 
 With a deep bow the chief withdrew without speak- 
 ing a word. 
 
 "I don't think he believes a word of what you have 
 said," I declared when Ilderim was out of earshot. 
 
 "And I don't care whether he does, if he'll let us 
 alone till after dark. Then I'll show him a real 
 Sherlock Holmes trick." 
 
 The remainder of the day was spent in perfecting 
 our plans. When we watered our horses that after- 
 noon, we left them in the shade nearest the exit from 
 the vale. As soon as the first twilight appeared, I 
 wrapped AH in a blanket and carried him out of the 
 rear of the tent and placed him under the same tree. 
 Then we took our stand beside the still smouldering 
 stump. The moon would not rise for an hour and 
 by that time we hoped to be miles away. 
 
 A few minutes later, Zelda appeared. We called 
 her to our side and bade her sing. Shortly after, we 
 
154 DOUGLAS 
 
 could perceive, through the gathering darkness, that 
 Ilderim was at his post. 
 
 As Zelda's song died away, we flashed our electric 
 lights. By the light of one, we bound a string tightly 
 about the press button of the other, so that they 
 would continue to shine. Next we fastened them to 
 the charred log in such a manner that the two brilliant 
 lights shone straight into Ilderim's eyes, after which 
 we glided stealthily to where our horses were standing. 
 
 Being the larger and stronger, I had volunteered to 
 carry AH. Douglas raised him to my arms and then 
 quickly mounting his own horse, with Zelda clinging 
 on behind, he led the way silently out of the Garden 
 of Joy, the soft turf and sand giving forth no sound 
 to betray our departure. 
 
 Looking backward, as we turned the winding path, 
 I could see Ilderim in the glare of the electric lights, 
 standing motionless at the entrance to the temple. 
 
 "Chained by superstition," I muttered; while 
 Douglas, as he topped the hill, called back in a low 
 voice : 
 
 "And now to run for it." 
 
 Putting spurs to our horses we sped away in the 
 darkness. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 A DAUGHTER OP THE DESERT 
 
 FOR nearly an hour after leaving the oasis we rode 
 silently and rapidly forward, following as nearly as we 
 were able the direction we supposed our caravan had 
 taken. Beyond this, neither Douglas nor I had the 
 slightest knowledge. There was no highway, only a 
 trackless desert, of whose very extent we were almost 
 totally ignorant, although in a general way we knew it 
 was some eighty miles to Yezd. We were not so 
 foolish, however, as to suppose we could make that 
 distance, burdened as we were, without food and water 
 for ourselves and horses, especially water. The best 
 we could do was to cover as much ground as possible 
 before we were obliged to halt. 
 
 At the end of an hour the moon arose, and as it 
 gradually illumined the desert we were able to get 
 some idea of the plain over which we were riding. It 
 was undulating and considerably broken, and as far as 
 we could see absolutely uninhabited. In the yellow 
 and illusive light, no outlook could have been more 
 desolate. 
 
 "Talk about your uncertainties," I remarked to 
 Douglas as we drew our horses down to a walk after a 
 gallop of several miles; "this is the limit. We neither 
 
 155 
 
156 DOUGLAS 
 
 know where we are nor whither we are going. If you 
 can stand this, you can stand anything." 
 
 Douglas laughed. "This is no uncertainty," he 
 replied," "We know we are in a mess and we are try- 
 ing to get out of it. The uncertainty vanished the 
 minute we left the Garden of Joy. How is AH?" 
 
 "Holding his own. But I do not know how much 
 longer I shall be able to support him." 
 
 "Suppose we stop and change. The girl sits so 
 lightly that at times I almost forget her." 
 
 Under similar circumstances I doubt if there is 
 another man in the world who could have honestly 
 made such a statement yet such was Douglas. I 
 was perfectly willing to make the change and Douglas 
 dismounted to relieve me of my burden ; but even as he 
 attempted to lift the body from the saddle, the boy 
 swooned. Tenderly Douglas laid him on the sand, 
 while Zelda rolled up the shawl she wore, and laid it 
 under his head. 
 
 A few swallows from our thermo bottle soon r estored 
 him to consciousness, but he evidently was tired out 
 and unable to ride farther. 
 
 "This is unexpected," declared Douglas. "I 
 thought surely with his constitution, he would be able 
 to go farther than this. I don't know what to do." 
 
 I could offer no suggestion and so we stood silently 
 for several moments. 
 
 "Poor little chap," said Douglas, as he looked down 
 compassionately upon him. "It would have been 
 better for him had he gone with the rest of the 
 tribe." 
 
 AH must have caught something of the thought from 
 
A DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT 157 
 
 Douglas' tone, for looking up, he murmured faintly: 
 
 "Think no more of Ali, Sahib, He has caused you 
 trouble enough. Leave him to his fate." 
 
 "Not on your life," declared Douglas emphatically. 
 " We are four chums and we will sink or swim together. 
 Eh, Warren?" 
 
 "To the end," I declared. "We'll find a way out; 
 never fear." 
 
 Something in the tone of my voice rather than what 
 I said must have aroused Zelda, for she gave me a 
 look out of those wondrous eyes the first she had 
 deigned to bestow upon me that filled me with a 
 determination to get her and her brother out of their 
 trouble, or to go the limit. 
 
 There must have been that in my eyes which reflected 
 my thoughts, for suddenly the girl seemed to have 
 been touched by the same spirit. Her form straight- 
 ened and there came into her face an expression that 
 I had not before encountered. Absorbed in her as I 
 was, the change, to me, seemed to come as a great wave 
 of courage and in a moment the helpless fugitive be- 
 came the Emir's daughter. Her hour of freedom had 
 brought back all that goes with a nomad life and look- 
 ing at me, rather than Douglas, she exclaimed: 
 
 "Sahib, let Zelda speak ! She is a child of the desert 
 and she knows its every mood. The strangers from 
 across the sea are wise. They bring the fire from the 
 air; but they know not the voices of the desert which 
 speak to Zelda in every passing breeze and in every 
 grain of sparkling sand. Its spell is upon her now. 
 She feels its voices calling. 'Away! Away! Over 
 there,' she hears them say, 'is safety!' If the strangers 
 
158 DOUGLAS 
 
 will trust Zelda she will bring them to it. Will they 
 doit?" 
 
 "Will we do it ?" I exclaimed. "We will trust the 
 daughter of the great Emir with our lives." 
 
 "What would you have us do?" queried Douglas. 
 
 "Give Zelda the strongest charger and she will ride. 
 Her weight upon his back is like a thistledown. 
 Something she will find. Before the moon has passed 
 the center of the sky she will return." 
 
 Douglas looked at the girl and then at me. "Is it 
 wise, do you think?" he asked. 
 
 Zelda's eyes flashed. "Is the Sahib afraid?" 
 
 "Only that you will get into trouble," I replied. 
 
 Her attitude changed and her voice became almost 
 tender. "When Zelda was in trouble you did not 
 fear. Now it is Zelda's turn. But there is no danger." 
 
 "You are sure," and I regarded her earnestly. 
 
 "Zelda fears naught but treachery, and the desert is 
 the Arabian girl's friend." 
 
 "May it prove so tonight," I said fervently. 
 
 "Yes," said Douglas, "and may God help you. 
 No one else can." 
 
 Without more words she stepped around to where the 
 horses were sniffing at the sand. With the adroitness 
 of a fancier she ran her hand over their chests and 
 loins, and listened to their breathing. Then she 
 loosed the girth on the horse I had ridden and threw 
 the saddle to the ground. 
 
 The animal, and he was a fine specimen, seemed to 
 sense what she was about to do. He turned his head 
 and gave a gentle little neigh. She put her arm about 
 his neck and for as much as half a minute laid her 
 
A DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT 159 
 
 cheek against his head, seemingly talking to him. 
 Then she turned hastily and placing one hand on the 
 animal's back and with the other grasping his mane, 
 she stood looking over her shoulder, with one foot 
 raised for a lift. 
 
 It was a picture I shall never forget should I live to 
 be a thousand years old. 
 
 Her lips parted in a smile as she caught my look of 
 admiration and then, with a little imperious nod of her 
 head, she turned her face to the horse saying sharply: 
 
 "Ready." 
 
 I gave her a hand and in another instant she was 
 mounted and speeding away in the moonlight, calling 
 back to us, as she flung a hasty glance over her shoul- 
 der, to make the other horse lie down. 
 
 For several minutes she continued in the same di- 
 rection we had been riding, when we noted that she 
 pulled up sharply for possibly half a minute. Then, 
 putting her horse to a gallop, she circled away to the 
 right and was quickly out of sight. 
 
 "Her advice about the horse is good," remarked 
 Douglas, as we turned our eyes back from where she 
 had disappeared. "I expect we do loom up pretty 
 big in the moonlight." 
 
 Forcing our remaining horse to his knees, we pushed 
 him over on his side and threw ourselves down on the 
 sand beside him, while we speculated in low tones as 
 to what Zelda might have in mind. We would have 
 questioned AH, but he was too weak to permit of ques- 
 tioning, and so, after some vain surmises, we sat 
 quietly smoking, the silence of the desert broken only 
 by the spasmodic breathing of the Arabian lad. 
 
160 DOUGLAS 
 
 I suppose I must have dozed off to sleep, for when - 
 aroused by a sharp dig in the ribs by Douglas I 
 opened my eyes, the moon was well toward the zenith. 
 
 "Look yonder," said my companion in a low voice. 
 "What do you make of it ?" and he pointed toward the 
 northern horizon. 
 
 I raised myself on my elbow and gazed steadfastly 
 in the direction indicated. 
 
 "Looks like a horseman, to me." 
 
 "Do you think it can be Zelda," he asked. 
 
 I strained my eyes, but the rider was too far away to 
 tell whether it was a man or a woman. 
 
 "What do you think?" I finally asked. 
 
 "If she had not disappeared in the opposite direc- 
 tion, I should say it was." 
 
 "Well, whoever it is," I declared after watching a 
 minute, "is not coming this way." Then my eyes 
 traveled along the horizon: "Hello! There's an- 
 other," and I pointed a bit further south. 
 
 "Right!" exclaimed Douglas, "and there is still 
 another at its left and another." 
 
 Right he certainly was, and inside of another two 
 minutes half a dozen figures came into sight strung 
 out along the sky line. 
 
 Then it flashed upon us what it meant. It was 
 Ilderim's band sweeping the desert for us. Our only 
 chance lay in keeping out of sight, which, it seemed, 
 ought to be reasonably easy unless some horseman 
 rode directly over us; but even as we watched, a second 
 line of riders appeared, placed at like intervals, but 
 alternating with the first. 
 
 "It's a regular drag-net," I exclaimed. 
 
A DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT 161 
 
 "More like a fine tooth comb," laughed Douglas. 
 "But I'm glad to see them. I was rapidly developing 
 a fit of the blues." 
 
 "You are likely to develop a fit of an entirely differ- 
 ent color before you get out of this," I declared. 
 "If you are really as much afraid of the hereafter as 
 you say you are, you ought to be in a complete 
 collapse about now." 
 
 "You're a nice cheerful chum, aren't you?" he 
 replied, and there was that in his voice which made 
 me wish I had not spoken. "However, if the end 
 comes it will probably come in the midst of consider- 
 able excitement, and maybe we won't mind." 
 
 "I'm perfectly willing to delay it as long as possible," 
 I retorted. "What do you think is the best thing 
 to do?" 
 
 "Keep perfectly quiet." Then after a moment. 
 "I wish that moon would go under a cloud." 
 
 By this time the horsemen were drawing so near that 
 we could estimate their number. We could count 
 twenty of them strung out over the desert, all of them 
 north of us but two. From the manner of their riding 
 we judged there might be a dozen more. With only 
 two on our direct course, there was still a good chance 
 that we would be overlooked, when suddenly our 
 horse, which I at least had forgotten, scrambled to his 
 feet and uttered a shrill neigh. 
 
 If a bugle had sounded, the horsemen could not 
 have come to a more sudden halt. Then, from near the 
 center of the line, a solitary horseman dashed forth and 
 inside of another two minutes the entire band was 
 circling about our resting place like a band of Apaches. 
 
162 DOUGLAS 
 
 I pulled my Winchester up beside me and made up 
 my mind to sell my life as dearly as possible. In fact, 
 I was just taking aim at the one who seemed to me to 
 be Ilderim, when Douglas laid his hand on my arm. 
 
 "Do it only as a last resort," he said. "As long 
 as they keep on circling, let 'em circle." 
 
 "But the circle keeps getting smaller," I replied. 
 "Unless we warn them away, they will close in on us 
 before we know it." 
 
 My prediction was quickly proven true. The circle 
 became smaller and smaller, and I was again on the 
 point of firing, when there came a flash, a bullet sang 
 over our heads and with a snort of pain, our horse 
 sprang forward and dashed away across the plain. 
 At the same instant, the horsemen drew rapidly away, 
 although they never stopped circling. 
 
 "They evidently don't intend we shall escape," I 
 remarked. 
 
 "No, I have thought all the time that what they 
 wanted was to capture us." 
 
 Then to AH who rose to a sitting posture, "What is 
 the matter?" 
 
 "I thought I heard a shot." 
 
 "You must have dreamed it. Here," holding the 
 thermo bottle to the lad's lips, "Have a drink and go 
 back to sleep. You'll need all your strength for a 
 long ride in the morning." 
 
 "You are sure there was no shot ?" insisted the boy 
 as he pushed the bottle away. "Where's Zelda?" 
 
 "She's all right and there isn't any one w r ithin 
 miles " 
 
 The balance of the speech was lost in the rattle of a 
 
A DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT 163 
 
 musketry fire, so evenly timed as almost to amount to 
 a volley. 
 
 We sprang to our feet with a shout of joy, just as a 
 second volley was fired. 
 
 Warned of our danger by the whistling bullets, we 
 again threw ourselves to the ground as our enemies, 
 after one return of the fire, turned to flee from the 
 oncoming force. 
 
 There were probably a dozen of our enemies between 
 us and the rescuers. These dashed directly toward 
 us with the evident intention of riding us down. Un- 
 consciously I buried my face in the ground, noting as I 
 closed my eyes that Douglas had thrown himself 
 down in such a manner as to protect Ali. Before I 
 could have counted ten, the riders were upon us. I 
 felt the sand thrown over me by the horses' hoofs, but 
 not one of them touched me and in less time than I can 
 tell it, the flying horsemen had passed. 
 
 "Saved," I cried, springing to my feet, just as our 
 rescuers dashed up, and Zelda flung herself from her 
 horse 
 
 "Where are the strangers ?" asked the leader of the 
 band, an aged Kahn with a flowing gray beard, as he 
 stopped a few feet away. 
 
 "Here," I replied, stepping forward. 
 
 "I thought there were two," he exclaimed as he 
 gave me the desert salute. 
 
 "So there are," I made reply, and I looked around 
 for Douglas, who I supposed was right behind me. 
 "Here" 
 
 A scream from Zelda interrupted me and I cast 
 my eyes to the ground where she had thrown her- 
 
164 DOUGLAS 
 
 self on her knees beside an apparently lifeless figure. 
 
 I caught my breath and my heart almost stood still. 
 
 "Has he at last gone to meet that God whom he so 
 greatly feared ?" I thought. 
 
 I kneeled quickly at his side and placed my hand on 
 his heart. It was beating, though feebly. 
 
 "Where is he hurt?" asked the Kahn leaping from 
 his horse and bending over us. 
 
 "I can find no blood," replied Zelda. 
 
 How I wished for one of those flashlights we had 
 left in the Garden of Joy. 
 
 The girl gently took his head on her lap and as she 
 turned the side of his face toward the moonlight, I 
 noted an abrasion just above his temple, which was 
 rapidly turning black. We examined it more closely 
 and after a minute discovered that it must have been 
 made by the hoof of one of the flying steeds. 
 
 "It is my fault," said AH feebly, hearing what we 
 were saying. "He was trying to cover me and didn't 
 hug the sand." 
 
 "What shall we do ?" I asked of the Kahn, for I was 
 absolutely without surgical knowledge. 
 
 The old man shook his head. 
 
 "I have at home a lotion," he said; "but that is 
 five leagues away. We might bind on some water 
 if we had any." 
 
 I produced the thermo bottle and Zelda tore a piece 
 from her skirt which she deftly bound about his 
 head as I wet it with the water. Once as I turned to 
 speak to the Kahn, I was sure I saw her touch his brow 
 with her lips. 
 
 "How long before he should come to?" I asked. 
 
A DAUGHTER OF THE DESERT 165 
 
 "It does not appear so serious," replied the Kahn. 
 "I see no reason why he should not become himself 
 by the time our horses are rested. 
 
 But he did not. Even when daylight came and the 
 company was ready to return to wherever it came from, 
 Douglas was still unconscious, although seemingly in 
 no pain. His breathing was regular, he had no fever, 
 but he seemed to have been plunged into an endless 
 sleep. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 
 
 IT was a week later, and Zelda and I were sitting 
 under the shade of a pomegranate tree in a fairly well 
 kept garden belonging to a house on the outskirts of 
 Yezd, which had been secured for us by Hassim Kahn. 
 Next to us was a porch, onto which opened two win- 
 dows. A long passageway could be seen between 
 them, leading to the street, while through the windows 
 were seen two snowy beds. On one of them lay 
 Douglas and on the other was Ali, propped up with 
 pilloAvs. An attendant stood beside Douglas waving 
 a long-handled fan. 
 
 We had arrived in Yezd only the night before. A 
 courier dispatched to Yezd by Abdallah Kahn the 
 leader of the little force of riders who had rescued us 
 from Ilderim's band had notified Hassim of our 
 approach. Having discovered that he had made a 
 bad blunder in deserting us, he was now anxious to do 
 everything in his power to remedy the evil he had 
 wrought. He had secured this dwelling and had at 
 once sent to meet us the best conveyance obtainable, 
 which had enabled us to bring Douglas in much more 
 comfortably. 
 
 I had called in the best physician in Yezd, a man of 
 considerable ability, who had received his medical 
 
 166 
 
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 167 
 
 education in Europe. He had furnished two trained 
 assistants and everything possible was being done to 
 restore Douglas to consciousness, but so far in vain. 
 At times, however, he would open his eyes and gaze 
 at those about him with a look that was pitiable. 
 
 As Zelda and I sat in the grateful shade, I was try- 
 ing to explain to her who we were and where we came 
 from. 
 
 It was the first chance I had had to talk with her 
 alone since Douglas was injured. During our ride in 
 from the desert, she had confined herself closely to Ali, 
 as I had confined myself to Douglas. True, she had 
 come every few hours to enquire about him, but it was 
 not until we had reached Yezd, and Hassim had pro- 
 cured us a suitable home and male and female attend- 
 ants, that I had been able to learn from her own lips 
 the story of her night's ride and how she had been able 
 to save us. 
 
 Her explanation had not been very clear, and I am 
 not at all sure she had any definite idea what she was 
 going to do when she left us that night. In a general 
 way she knew there were small bodies of rural guards 
 scattered all over that section and she trusted to her 
 intuition and her desert sense to locate one of them. 
 
 To tell the truth, I was not greatly interested in the 
 matter anyway. It was enough that she had succeeded ; 
 but I was interested in Zelda. 
 
 It was a strenuous ride for me that ride to Yezd, 
 and as a result, when I at last had seen Douglas and 
 Ali made comfortable, I had taken a bath, put on some 
 clean linen, thrown myself down on a divan I found on 
 the porch outside of Douglas' room, and gone to sleep. 
 
168 DOUGLAS 
 
 I do not believe I stirred until near daylight, 
 when I was awakened by a light shining in my eyes. 
 As I slowly came to myself, I heard a weird singing 
 and for a moment thought I was still in the Garden of 
 Joy. As I became more wide awake, the incidents of 
 the past few days flashed through my mind and I 
 sprang to my feet, only to discover that the light came 
 from a fire, which was burning brightly in a small 
 brazier a few yards from me, and that the figure stand- 
 ing over it was Zelda. She was singing the song of the 
 fire and apparently going through some form of 
 worship. 
 
 At first I started to interfere, but upon second 
 thought, I decided not to, and quietly laid down again, 
 still keeping my eyes upon her. In a few minutes she 
 finished her devotions and the fire having burned 
 down, she silently withdrew. 
 
 I did not see her again until the physician called the 
 next morning. Then she stood by while he dressed 
 Ali's wound and left some medicine for Douglas. Ali 
 was so much improved that the doctor predicted he 
 would be able to get about in a couple of days. He 
 made no predictions about Douglas. 
 
 "Will he get well?" Zelda asked the doctor as he 
 was leaving. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I think so," and then to me, "but I must 
 admit that the case puzzles me. There is apparently 
 no concussion of the brain and I cannot account for 
 his prolonged unconsciousness." 
 
 After he had left, Zelda and I had gone into the 
 garden where, as I have said, she told me about her 
 night ride 
 
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 169 
 
 "And what were you doing in the garden, last 
 night," I asked. 
 
 She regarded me curiously for a moment without 
 answering and drew a deep sigh. Mistaking the mean- 
 ing of the sigh, I exclaimed: 
 
 "I hope it isn't as bad as that!" 
 
 "Bad!" she exclaimed. "It is not bad at all. I 
 was praying for him." 
 
 "Him? You mean Douglas?" 
 
 She nodded her head. 
 
 "How?" I asked, my curiosity getting the better of 
 my good taste. 
 
 She looked at me in surprise. "What!" she ex- 
 claimed. "You do not know you a high priest of 
 Ahura Mazda?" 
 
 It was the first time that it had really come to me 
 how she had regarded us, in spite of what Douglas 
 had said. 
 
 "Maybe he was right," I thought, "and Zelda isn't 
 in love with him, only, as he said, moved by religious 
 sentiment." 
 
 I am free to confess that the thought gave me much 
 comfort and I hastened to explain. 
 
 "We are not high priests," I said; "We are two 
 very simple men Douglas and I." 
 
 "Then why did you come to the Garden of Joy?" 
 
 "Why, to rescue you." 
 
 "Only for that?" she asked incredulously. 
 
 "Only for that." 
 
 "But you had never seen me!" 
 
 "No, but because you were a woman, we had 
 promised." 
 
170 DOUGLAS 
 
 She regarded me silently for some minutes ere she 
 asked : 
 
 " Do men in your country do all that for a woman ? " 
 
 "More! Many men have laid down their lives for 
 women whom they have never known hardly seen, 
 simply because they were women. 
 
 "But tell me," I continued, "why did we find you 
 engaged in the fire worship you the daughter of an 
 Emir a descendant of the Prophet ? " 
 
 "It was my mother's religion. She was a Persian." 
 
 "And the song" 
 
 "My mother taught it to me." 
 
 "AH, too, I suppose." 
 
 "Ali's mother was not my mother. She was an 
 Arab, but I " and she drew her form up proudly, 
 "I am a Ghebar descended from the great Zoroaster. 
 My ancestors have worshipped the fire since the days 
 of Hushing. It creates. It purifies. It makes clean. 
 It will bring back life to to him." 
 
 "Can't you say Douglas," I asked just a little bit 
 jealous, I think, of the deference she paid his name. 
 
 "It comes not easily to the tongue," she said. 
 "But is he not a great high priest ?" 
 
 "No more than I." 
 
 "But the fire you carried in your hands. Was it 
 not brought down from heaven ?" 
 
 "Yes and no. It is in the air all about you. All 
 you have to do, is to know how to get it." 
 
 "Zelda does not see it. It must take a wise man." 
 
 "So it did a great many wise men; but it is very 
 simple when you know how. In my country it is used 
 
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 171 
 
 to light the house, run the carriage, and cook the 
 meals." 
 
 An almost enraptured expression spread itself over 
 Zelda's face as she exclaimed: "Great is Ahura 
 Mazda the great god the sun which gives life 
 and purifies all! How can you help worshipping 
 him?" 
 
 "We worship the One who made the sun in the 
 heavens," I explained. "The God who made all 
 things." 
 
 Then I stopped. I was a good one, wasn't I, to be 
 teaching anyone anything about God I who knew 
 less about Him than any one I had ever met even 
 than Douglas, who had learned about Him only to 
 fear Him. 
 
 Then for the first time in my life, I stopped to think 
 what I really did know about God. I was forced to 
 admit that I knew absolutely nothing. For the first 
 time, too, it began to dawn upon me why Douglas was 
 the victim of constant fear. 
 
 "There must be some sort of solution to this prob- 
 lem," I declared to myself, "but what is it?" 
 
 I was silent so long that when I at last came to my- 
 self I found Zelda watching me intently. 
 
 "Tell me more about your God," she said. 
 
 I shook my head. "I can't do it." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "I don't know anything to tell." 
 
 "Surely you must know the God whom you 
 worship." 
 
 "I am afraid," I said, "that the God you want to 
 
172 DOUGLAS 
 
 know about, isn't the one I have been worshipping." 
 
 "I want to know about whatever God you do wor- 
 ship you and he." 
 
 I took a hasty mental survey of myself and then 
 said slowly: 
 
 "The God about whom you really want to know 
 and whom we really ought to worship, is so far off to 
 most of my countrymen that about all we do is to fear 
 Him. The god whom Douglas and I have been wor- 
 shipping is an altogether different kind of god," I 
 said grimly, "and is known as Publicity. We seem 
 to have believed this the most potent of all powers we 
 know, if not absolutely omnipotent." 
 
 Zelda's expression indicated that she had not the 
 slightest idea of what I was talking about, and I 
 didn't blame her. I hardly knew myself, and I wished 
 Douglas were well enough to talk, although I doubted 
 if he could do much better. 
 
 "Ahura Mazda, the great purifier of all, brings 
 health to man," declared Zelda. "Does your God do 
 that?" 
 
 " Oh, yes," I said glibly. " The Bible tells of many 
 cases." 
 
 "Then why don't you pray to Him to make him 
 Douglas well?" 
 
 "Maybe He wants him to be sick," I replied. 
 
 "What! Does your God make people sick and 
 well, too?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed! When they are not good, He sends 
 sickness as a punishment." 
 
 "Why does He do that?" 
 
 I was sure I didn't know and I didn't know what to 
 
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 173 
 
 answer. I was getting mighty uncomfortable and was 
 about to suggest that I thought Douglas needed some- 
 thing, when the arrival of Hassim interrupted us. 
 
 "I'll tell you about our God some other time," I 
 said. 
 
 "From what you say," declared Zelda, "I don't think 
 I want to know Him." 
 
 Hassim came to say that Ahab had just arrived in 
 Yezd from Shiraz and the tomb of Cyrus with a small 
 party of diplomats and distinguished foreigners. 
 Learning of our presence in the city, he had ordered 
 that we be sent for; but upon learning of Douglas' 
 condition he had sent Hassim to express his sympathy 
 and to say that he would call as soon as his duties 
 would permit. 
 
 I was rejoiced to hear of his arrival and told Hassim 
 to bear him my greetings and tell him I was most 
 anxious to see him. Instead of hastening away with 
 the message, Hassim lingered. 
 
 "What is it?" I asked. 
 
 "O Sahib," he said prostrating himself, "if Ahab 
 Kedar Kahn learns the truth, it will mean my disgrace 
 perhaps my death." 
 
 "You deserve punishment," I declared, "but have 
 no fear. If it becomes necessary to speak of it, I shall 
 tell him we sent you away that we might have freedom 
 to do as we pleased." 
 
 He attempted to thank me, but I cut him short. 
 
 "I have no wish to injure you," I said, "but let it be 
 a lesson to you." 
 
 He bowed himself out with many protestations of 
 gratitude and I had no doubt I had made a staunch 
 
174 DOUGLAS 
 
 friend, for really Hassim was not a bad sort. He was 
 simply terrified by the mystery of the Garden of Joy 
 and I was becoming too well acquainted with the 
 besetting fears of mankind to set myself up as a judge 
 of any one. 
 
 Zelda had gone to Ali when Hassim entered, but as 
 I came in from the garden a few minutes later, I saw 
 her gliding from Douglas' bedside. I was surprised 
 that the knowledge gave me a little pang and I deter- 
 mined once and for all to put the girl out of my 
 thoughts, for although Douglas and I were about as 
 mismated a pair of chums as you could imagine, I 
 was fond of him even then, and I knew he was of me. 
 
 It was a couple of hours later that Ahab Kahn 
 arrived. That he was pained beyond measure at 
 Douglas' condition I could plainly see. He insisted 
 that I tell him of our adventure, which I did, just as I 
 have set it down here. 
 
 "It should not be!" he exclaimed, when I had 
 finished. "It should not be! He was on a mission 
 of kindness and humanity a mission of good and 
 it is unbelievable that God should have permitted such 
 a calamity." 
 
 "I don't think God had anything to do with it," I 
 declared. 
 
 "Of course not; but He could have prevented it. 
 Why didn't He? That is the one weak spot in all 
 theology. We know that God can protect his creatures. 
 Why doesn't He? Why does he let some of them 
 prey upon others ? " 
 
 "You can search me! I don't know But if there 
 is any truth in the old saying that the thing we fear is 
 
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 175 
 
 the thing we get, why Douglas simply got what was 
 coming to him and that is not saying that I am not 
 mighty sorry and am praying for his recovery." 
 
 "If you pray hard enough he will recover." 
 
 "Do you believe that?" 
 
 "I have seen it done." 
 
 "Can you do it?" 
 
 "I have never been quite certain, although at times 
 my prayers seemed to have prevailed I believe they 
 did." 
 
 "But why are not all prayers answered?" 
 
 "Lack of faith, I suppose," he replied. 
 
 "Douglas tell me he used to pray all the time but 
 that he never received any answer to his prayers and 
 so he neglected it. That's why he came to the con- 
 clusion that life and the future were an unsolved mys- 
 tery. The uncertainty of it all has made his life a 
 burden a burden of fear." 
 
 "It's simply the history of the children of Israel 
 over again," said Ahab, "as I told you that night on 
 the steamer. Everything is serene as long as it goes 
 just as we expect. Then the unforeseen comes along 
 and immediately we are filled with fear, lose our trust 
 ii the omniscience and omnipotence of God and 
 consequently our confidence in ourselves we who are 
 made in His image and likeness." 
 
 "But how can we have faith when we see Him allow- 
 ing all these dire disasters to happen?" 
 
 And again Ahab replied: 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 I looked from him to Douglas. "I can't see that it 
 makes much difference how you get at these things," 
 
176 DOUGLAS 
 
 I exclaimed. "You have faith to believe everything 
 will come out all right in the end, and on the strength 
 of that faith don't worry although you admit you 
 don't know anything about the future. Douglas ad- 
 mits that he doesn't know, therefore, has no faith and 
 leads a life of terror because of his fear. It doesn't 
 seem right, does it?" 
 
 He admitted that it did not. 
 
 "I don't know," I said, "but I am beginning to 
 think with Douglas that we are all governed by 
 fear." 
 
 "I have known a few people who were not," said 
 Ahab; "people who seem absolutely to take no thought 
 of anything but the good in life." 
 
 "I'd like to see some of them." 
 
 "I can show you a couple of them right here in 
 Yezd." 
 
 I looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "They must be different from the Persians whom I 
 have met," I exclaimed. 
 
 "They are not Persians. They are countrymen of 
 yours. They are among the party of distinguished 
 foreigners I am escorting to Teheran. 
 
 "It is from one of these, a lady, that I have learned 
 what little I really know about God. I thought after 
 a few talks with her that I knew it all, but I begin to see 
 that it is the study of a lifetime." 
 
 The announcement that there were Americans be- 
 side ourselves in Yezd gave me genuine pleasure. I 
 longed for the sight of an American face. If only an 
 American woman would come and see Douglas, I 
 thought, it might bring him back to himself. 
 
DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN 177 
 
 "Do you suppose this woman would come and see 
 Douglas?" I asked. 
 
 "You mean Mrs. Campbell?" 
 
 "I mean the woman you were talking about the 
 woman who has no fear. Is that her name?" 
 
 "Yes, and I am sure she looks as though she would 
 be right at home in such a place. I'll ask her. She 
 can teach you more about God in one hour than I 
 could teach you during all the rest of your sojourn in 
 Persia." 
 
 He turned to leave. 
 
 "Just tell her that we are two sick Americans," I 
 said, "who need the presence of an American woman." 
 
 "Two?" looking at me in surprise. 
 
 "Yes, two." 
 
 He regarded me sympathetically. 
 
 "Is it really true?" he asked. "You are sick?" 
 
 "Yes," I declared; "homesick." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DAWN 
 
 No woman's face ever looked as good to me as that 
 of Mrs. Campbell. I cannot paint her picture, but if 
 you wish to know how she looked to me, just think of 
 your mother as you knew her when a boy. 
 
 She entered the house under the guidance of Hassim 
 an hour later, so quietly as to hardly make her presence 
 known. She greeted me as though I were an old 
 friend almost as a brother. Into Douglas' room 
 she glided like a ray of sunshine, and the look of com- 
 passion on her face as she stood silently over him 
 almost brought the tears to my eyes. 
 
 "Poor boy," she said gently, as she laid her hand 
 upon his head; "Don't you know there is nothing to 
 fear." 
 
 Whether it was the sound of her voice, or the press- 
 ure of her hand upon his head that aroused him I 
 know not, but he opened his eyes ar J looked up at her 
 wonderingly. 
 
 "Do you want me to sit by you a little while?" she 
 asked. 
 
 His eyes followed her as she drew a chair nearer 
 and seated herself, but he made no reply. Then as she 
 laid her hand once more on his head, he drew a deep 
 
 178 
 
THE DAWN 179 
 
 sigh, and closed his eyes as though he had found 
 something he had long been seeking. 
 
 "There," she said as gently as though talking to a 
 child. " Go to sleep, knowing that 'the eternal God is 
 thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.'" 
 
 I regarded her with mingled admiration and sur- 
 prise. I wondered why she should say such thirgs at 
 all, and especially why she should say them to Douglas, 
 who seemed utterly unconscious of any words she 
 might utter. She must have caught my look of in- 
 quiry, for she smiled upon me as she said : 
 
 "Do you think he'd like to have me pray for him ?" 
 
 "I have no doubt of it. He's of quite a religious 
 turn of mind; but I think that's what's the matter with 
 him." 
 
 It was her turn to be surprised. "How so?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "He's learned so much about God that he's afraid 
 of Him." 
 
 "Afraid of God?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am. Afraid of what God may do to him 
 when he dies." 
 
 "Poor boy," she said again. "Still, you think he'd 
 like me to pray for him ?" 
 
 "I'm sure of it; especially if you'll pray God not to 
 let him die." 
 
 She made no reply, but instead closed her eyes, and 
 although she uttered no words, I am sure she was 
 praying. 
 
 So impressive was the silence, and so expressive her 
 face and attitude, that even I, irreligious and impassive 
 newspaper man that I was, seemed to feel an all per- 
 
180 DOUGLAS 
 
 vading presence that filled me with an inexplicable 
 desire for higher and better things. Through my 
 mind flashed the description of the Israelites' "holy of 
 holies," and I remembered thinking to myself, 
 "Surely this woman must have passed within." 
 
 I would not attempt to say how long she prayed. 
 To such an extent did my mind reach out, that it 
 might have been hours in so far as my personal sense 
 of things was concerned ! However long it was, I was 
 brought back to myself by the sound of her voice 
 speaking in gentle tones, and I noted at a glance that 
 Douglas was looking up into her face with the first 
 gleam of intelligence I had seen there for days. Then 
 and there I felt that Mrs. Campbell's prayer had been 
 answered and that the crisis was passed; nor was I 
 mistaken. 
 
 From that hour on Douglas showed marked im- 
 provement, and while his recovery was not rapid it 
 dated from that minute. Then and there, too, I am 
 convinced, began his rescue from the fear with which 
 he had so long been bound. However, that is not for 
 me to say. I am only relating things as I saw them 
 develop day by day. It may be that when you have 
 heard all the facts you will not agree with me. 
 
 No one can imagine the feeling of joy I experienced 
 when I caught in Douglas' eyes that first gleam of 
 returning consciousness. It was as though a great 
 load had been lifted from me, and I stepped quickly 
 to the side of the bed. 
 
 "Your prayer has been answered," I exclaimed. 
 "I can see it," and I took the hand which Douglas 
 feebly raised from the coverlet. 
 
THE DAWN 181 
 
 She looked up at me with a smile so sweet and an 
 expression so angelic that I cannot wonder it called 
 Douglas back from wherever he was wandering, and 
 said in a low voice: "The prayer of faith shall save 
 the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he 
 have committed sins they shall be forgiven him." 
 
 Douglas must have understood for he gave my 
 hand a slight pressure as he closed his eyes and again 
 slept. 
 
 "Will you come again ?" I asked, as Mrs. Campbell 
 arose to go. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I shall insist on staying a day or two, 
 until your friend is able to realize the truth. Douglas 
 did you call him?" 
 
 I nodded my head. 
 
 "It is a grand and heroic name," she said, "and I 
 am sure he is a grand and noble man." 
 
 "Indeed he is," I replied emphatically. "He re- 
 ceived his injury in protecting another. He is a 
 strange mixture." 
 
 She gave me such a questioning glance that I saw 
 she misunderstood me, and for fear she might think I 
 was criticising or misjudging him, I felt impelled to 
 tell her a little of what I have here set forth of the fear 
 that so haunted him. 
 
 "It is the same old story," she said sadly, "the fear 
 of ignorance ignorance of God, and necessarily 
 therefore, ignorance of man in God's image. How 
 can we expect man to claim his birthright if he doesn't 
 know what it is?" 
 
 "We can't," I replied, without the slightest idea of 
 what she was talking about. "Maybe you could help 
 
182 DOUGLAS 
 
 Dorglas some way," I added, my confidence in her 
 becoming greater with every word she uttered. 
 
 "I shall be glad to try," was her smiling rejoinder. 
 Then as she stopped a moment at the bedside, "You 
 can see how much better he is. Don't you think you 
 can trust him to God from now on, instead of the 
 doctor?" 
 
 "I can trust him to you," I replied. 
 
 She smiled an odd little smile, whose meaning I 
 could not even guess. "Very well," she said, "if you 
 prefer to look at it that way; but remember that with- 
 out God, none of us can do anything. With Him we 
 can do all." 
 
 After she had gone, I took the chair she had vacated 
 by the side of the bed and sat for a long time thinking. 
 Zelda entered and seeing that I was busy with my 
 thoughts said nothing, but seated herself silently on 
 the floor at the foot of the bed. 
 
 As I looked alternately from her to Douglas and my 
 thoughts turned likewise to Ahab and Mrs. Campbell 
 and even the Persian attendants, my thoughts ran 
 something like this: 
 
 "What kind of a Supreme Being must God be, that 
 there should be so many different ideas about Him, 
 and all seemingly gathered from the same source? 
 All run back to Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, 
 and all seem touched with the same central truth. 
 One person's idea, however, fills him with superstition, 
 another's with fear, while still another's inspires with 
 unlimited confidence. One idea makes of its believer 
 the weakest and most helpless of beings, while the 
 other gives power and ability. I don't understand it.' 
 
THE DAWN 183 
 
 Nor did I, and I was glad when the bargi came in 
 and announced that the noonday meal was prepared. 
 
 By the next morning Douglas was much better. 
 He recognized his surroundings and insisted on know- 
 ing how we came there. I told him all I thought 
 necessary, and he appeared satisfied, simply remarking, 
 
 "It was a close shave, wasn't it?" 
 
 "It certainly was, and you can thank Mrs. Campbell 
 that you are as well as you are." 
 
 "Mrs. Campbell!" he repeated. 
 
 "Yes, the woman I just told you prayed you back 
 to your senses." 
 
 "Do you really think she did?" 
 
 "There's no doubt of it," I declared confidently. 
 
 "Do you think she can pray me well?" 
 
 "Of course; why not?" 
 
 "Because if she can't," he declared, "I'd a great 
 deal rather not have regained my senses." 
 
 My face must have indicated that I understood, for 
 he said: 
 
 "Yes, I had passed the point where I was afraid." 
 
 "Who is that talking about being afraid?" asked 
 a soft voice and, turning, I saw Mrs. Campbell in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "Oh, good morning," I said, "Douglas will be glad 
 to see you. We were just talking about you." 
 
 "Yes?" and she approached the bed. "And you 
 dared mention me in the same breath with fear?" 
 
 "Not exactly," I replied, "my friend was just saying 
 that if he is not going to get well, he would rather have 
 died without regaining consciousness, as he had 
 reached a point where he was not afraid, meaning," I 
 
184 DOUGLAS 
 
 explained, "that he had lost his ability to think 
 therefore his sense of fear." 
 
 "His sense of fear. How truthfully you express it, 
 although unconsciously, I expect. ,That is all he could 
 have a sense of fear. He cannot really fear, be- 
 cause if man is the image and likeness of God " 
 
 "What?" I interrupted. "Cannot fear? Why, 
 Douglas is even afraid of God." 
 
 "No," she continued without noting my interrup- 
 tion, "can not fear, because if man is the image and 
 likeness of God, he can only have what God has, and 
 He has no fear of anything. But we'll not discuss 
 that now. The first thing is for your friend to recover 
 from this fear of sickness. And now would you mind 
 leaving us alone ? " 
 
 I went out into the garden where I was soon joined 
 by Zelda. 
 
 "Who is the feringhees woman?" she asked. 
 
 "A countrywoman." 
 
 "Is she a doctor?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "A witch?" 
 
 "Why, no, of course not. Why do you ask such 
 questions ? " 
 
 "She is helping him to get well." 
 
 "She is praying to God to make him well," I 
 explained. 
 
 "Zelda prayed to Ahura Mazda, the creator of all, 
 to make him your friend, well, but he did not. 
 How does any other God dare?" 
 
 "There is but one God," I replied.