“Peggy!” cried Brewster angrily. “This has gone far enough.”
“You should have spoken sooner, Monty,” she said quietly.
“What are you going to do, Margaret?” cried Mrs. Dan, her eyes wide with amazement.
“I am going to marry the Son of the Prophet,” she replied so decidedly that everyone gasped. A moment later she was surrounded by a group of excited women, and Captain Perry was calling the “jackies” forward in a voice of thunder.
Brewster pushed his way to her side, his face as white as death.
“This isn’t a joke, Peggy,” he cried. “Go below and I’ll get rid of the sheik.”
Just then the burly Algerian asserted himself. He did not like the way in which his adored one was being handled by the “white dogs,” and with two spearmen he rushed up to Brewster, jabbering angrily.
“Stand back, you idiot, or I’ll punch your head off,” said Brewster, with sudden emphasis.
It was not until this moment that Peggy realized that there might be a serious side to the little farce she and Mary had decided to play for the punishment of Brewster. Terror suddenly took the place of mirth, and she clung frantically to Monty’s arm. “I was joking, Monty, only joking,” she cried. “Oh, what have I done?”
“It’s my fault,” he exclaimed, “but I’ll take care of you, never fear.”
“Stand aside!” roared the sheik threateningly.
The situation was ominous. Frightened as they were the women could not flee, but stood as if petrified. Sailors eagerly swarmed to the deck.
“Get off this boat,” said Monty, ominously calm, to the interpreter, “or we’ll pitch you and your whole mob into the sea.”
“Keep cool! Keep cool!” cried “Subway” Smith quickly. He stepped between Brewster and the angry suitor, and that action alone prevented serious trouble. While he parleyed with the sheik Mrs. DeMille hurried Peggy to a safe place below deck, and they were followed by a flock of shivering women. Poor Peggy was almost in tears and the piteous glances she threw at Brewster when he stepped between her and the impetuous sheik, who had started to follow, struck deep into his heart and made him ready to fight to the death for her.
It took nearly an hour to convince the Algerian that Peggy had misunderstood him and that American women were not to be wooed after the African fashion. He finally departed with his entire train, thoroughly dissatisfied and in high dudgeon. At first he threatened to take her by force; then he agreed to give her another day in which to make up her mind to go with him peaceably, and again he concluded that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.
Brewster stood gloomily on the outside of the excited group glowering upon the ugly suitor. Cooler heads had relegated him to this place of security during the diplomatic contest. The sheik’s threats of vengeance were direful. He swore by somebody’s beard that he would bring ten thousand men to establish his claim by force. His intense desire to fight for her then and there was quelled by Captain Perry’s detachment of six lusty sailors, whose big bare fists were shaken vigorously under a few startled noses. It took all the fight out of the sheik and his train. Three retainers fell into the sea while trying to retreat as far as possible from danger.
Mohammed departed with the irate declaration that he would come another day and that the whole world would tremble at his approach. Disgusted with himself and afraid to meet the eyes of the other men, Brewster went below in search of Peggy. He took time to comfort the anxious women who crowded about him and then asked for Miss Gray. She was in her stateroom and would not come forth. When he knocked at the door a dismal, troubled voice from within told him to go away.
“Come out, Peggy; it’s all over,” he called.
“Please go away, Monty,” she said.
“What are you doing in there?” There was a long pause, and then came the pitiful little wail: “I am unpacking, please, sir.”
That night Brewster entertained on board the yacht, several resident French and English acquaintances being the guests of honor. The story of the day was told by Mrs. Dan DeMille, commissioned especially for the duty. She painted the scene so vividly that the guests laughed with joy over the discomfiture of the sheik. Peggy and Brewster found themselves looking sheepishly at one another now and then in the course of the recital. She purposely had avoided him during the evening, but she had gamely endured the raillery that came from the rest of the party. If she was a bit pale, it was not surprising. Now that it was over the whole affair appalled her more than she could have suspected. When several of the guests of the evening soberly announced that Mohammed was a dangerous man and even an object of worry to the government she felt a strange catch in her throat and her now mirthless eyes turned instinctively to Brewster, who, it seemed, was the sheik’s special object of aversion.
The next day she and Monty talked it over. The penitence of both was beautiful to behold. Each denied the other the privilege of assuming all the blame and both were so happy that Mohammed was little more than a preposition in their conversation so far as prominence was concerned. But all day long the harbor was full of fisher boats, and at nightfall they still were lolling about, sinister, restless, mysterious like purposeless buzzards. And the dark men on board were taking up no fish, neither were they minding the nets that lay dry and folded in the bottom of their boats.
Far into the night there was revelry on board the Flitter, more guests having come out from the city. The dark hours before the dawn of day had arrived before they put off for shore, but the fisher boats still were bobbing about in the black
