A Son of the Sahara   By: Louise Gerard

A SON OF THE SAHARA

BY

LOUISE GERARD

With Illustrations from the Photo Play "A FIRST NATIONAL ATTRACTION"

Produced by EDWIN CAREWE, Featuring BERT LYTELL AND CLAIRE WINDSOR

NEW YORK

THE MACAULAY COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1922,

BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

TO

MY FRIEND

DOROTHEA THORNTON CLARKE

WITHOUT WHOSE HELP AND CONSTANT ENCOURAGEMENT

NEITHER THIS NOR ANY OF MY BOOKS

WOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN

PREFACE

A beach of white sand, the whisper of palms answering the murmuring moonlit sea, the fragrance of orange blossoms, the perfume of roses and syringa, that is Grand Canary, a bit of Heaven dropped into the Atlantic; overlooked by writers and painters in general. Surely one can be pardoned a bit of praise and promise for this story, laid, as it is in part, in that magic island.

The Canaries properly belong to the African continent. That is best proven by their original inhabitants who were of pure Berber stock. The islands are the stepping stone between Europe and the Sahara. Mysterious Arabs and a continual stream of those silent men who come and go from the great desert tarry there for a while, giving color and romance to the big hotels.

The petty gossip, the real news of the Sahara "breaks" there. Weird, passionate tales; believable or not, they carry an undercurrent of reality that thrills.

From such a source came this story. Unaltered in fact, it is given to you, the life story of a man and a woman who turned their backs on worldly conventions that they might find happiness. If it is frank, forgive it. Life near the Equator is not a milk and water affair.

THE PUBLISHERS.

CONTENTS

PART I

PART II

PART III

ILLUSTRATIONS

With Annette limp across his saddle, Casim Ammeh sped away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

He had come to the harem to say farewell

For sale as a common slave at the Taureg auction block

"Let us both dance for you, so that you may judge between us"

PART I

A Son of the Sahara

CHAPTER I

In the days when France was pursuing a vigorous forward policy in Africa, a policy started by General Faidherbe and carried on by subsequent governors, one of the bravest among her pioneer soldiers was Colonel Raoul Le Breton.

He was a big, handsome man with a swarthy complexion, coal black hair and dark, fiery eyes, by nature impetuous and reckless. With a trio of white sergeants and a hundred Senegalese soldiers, he would attempt and accomplish things that no man with ten times his following would have attempted.

But there came a day when even his luck failed.

He left St. Louis, in Senegal, and went upwards to the north east, intending to pierce the heart of the Sahara. From that expedition, however, he never returned. The Government at St. Louis assumed that he and his little pioneer force had been wiped out by some hostile negro king or Arab chief. It was but one of the tragedies attached to extending a nation's territory.

When Raoul Le Breton went on that ill fated expedition, he did what no man should have done who attempts to explore the Back of Beyond with an indifferent force.

He took his wife with him.

There was some excuse for this piece of folly. He was newly married. He adored his wife, and she worshipped him, and refused to let him go unless she went also.

She was barely half his age; a girl just fresh from a convent school, whom he had met and married in Paris during his last leave.

Colonel Le Breton journeyed for weeks through an arid country, an almost trackless expanse of poor grass and stunted scrub, until he reached the edge of the Sahara.