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78   ABBOTT'S MONTHLY

wastes, going stolidly about their affairs; the turbaned men in the bazaars rubbing elbows with Latins of Southern Europe, all were of no less interest than the mosques, hoary with age, which we visited. One day while returning to our hotel, Jenny asked: "Father, are these people more devout than Christians-they seem so to me." I didn't answer her at the time. Doubtless she didn't expect it. But the humility of the Moslems at their hour of prayer made a deep impression on her mind. Often she would observe them at a distance, and for a time afterwards she was moody and dejected. I tried to persuade her to cease her visits to the different mosques. When the time came to prepare for my journey into the Sahara, I was too busy to accompany her on the little excursions about the outskirts of the town. But Jenny had a mind of her own. When incline to do so, she stole away from the hotel and went alone. In time she met the muezzin of the mosque Kaivit-bey. How it happened, is a question she never answered except with a tantalizing laugh. Together we had once visited this mosque, climbed its long spiral stair with carefulness, for we had never seen such narrow crescent-shaped steps. Afterwards, I observed the muezzin, once or twice, standing like a rugged statue on the high gallery of the minaret, his powerful, impelling voice calling his people to prayer. One evening he escorted Jenny to the hotel; she had spent the afternoon bargaining in the bazaars. I soon discovered that the muezzin, Abd-el Nadir, was a polished man. He had graduated from the Sarbonne, absorbing no small degree of its French culture; taught in the University of Constantinople; spent two years in the Turkish navy before returning to Morocco. When I had known him a month or more, he grew confidential. He was not a moor, but the orphaned son of a missionary sent out from Texas, and who was slain by desert tribesmen. The Moor family that adopted him, reared him in accordance with Moorish traditions. I think he always believes that this family was related to someone who was in the attack on his father's caravan. This knowledge of his background made it possible for me to understand why he took interest in an unbeliever. He began to visit us frequently; he was a student, humanity intrigued him, he claimed; meaning that men often hid their real natures from the world; he felt cheated. For that reason, maybe, he never grew tired listening to Jenny recalling some exciting incident of her childhood in Lawnville; or the color caste as we know it here. Sometimes he visited me while Jenny was away. At such times our conversation nearly always turned to religion. He was never controversial. He always listened attentively to the tenets of "Christianity." Reverend Pleasant sat for a time wrapped in the silence of his reveries; with his eyes fixed dreamily on the album, he seemed to wonder if he should go on with his narrative, if it could be accounted worthwhile to either of his visitors.

"I am a Christian missionary," he said, with deep emphasis, and in a tone almost challenging. "The story of Christ I impressed deep into the heart of Abd-el Nadir. By this time he and Jenny had reached an understanding; it was clear that they were in love with each other. I felt that if I must lose my daughter, I should try to win a Moslem to Christ. And I did! The victory was not an easy one. Sometimes I wonder if it was not his fierce love of Jenny which made him turn from his worship of Allah. Certainly he paid for doing so. You can imagine the sensation his defection created. Giving up his faith for the love of an unbeliever was in the eyes of his followers an apostasy only fittingly corrected by death; always it is the unbeliever who must accept Allah. His life was endangered by fanatics. He was forced into hiding. But every night he came to visit us; every night he sought explanation of some passage in the Bible which I had given him. Once he gave a hint of what was passing through his mind when he asked my views on that blessed commandment which says 'thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.' After a moment of reflection he said: 'All Christians do not love their neighbor; neither do some of them love on another; they break this commandment every day. We see it in the antagonism between the rich and the poor; and in the oppression of the weak by the strong.' I could not refute his words. I could only point out that such people were not true followers of the eternal Nazarene. When I was almost ready to leave Fez, he and Jenny decided to marry and make their home in Paris. They seemed very happy. The evenings found them mounted on fleet camels riding far beyond the villas that skirted the town; their minds at peace in the great silence of the beckoning desert. One of the villas outside of Fez was occupied by the rich, retired Doctor Burr. His villa one evening was bedecked with the splendor of his daughter's wedding to a young nobleman. The villa, which bordered on the route of the caravans that came up from Tabelbala in the Sahara by way of Marrakech, was thronged with many visitors and guests from the watering places along the Mediterranean. Returning to Fez, Jenny and her fiance fell in with an inbound caravan. When they were passing Doctor Burr's villa, a half-witted Arab boy in his employ unleashed two giant mastiffs. The dogs rushed out and attacked the two leading camels. The frightened beasts lunged blindly into the mounts of Jenny and a cameleer. In the confusion which caught the riders so unawares, Jenny was thrown from her mount and trampled by one of the camels. When the dogs were driven off, Abd-el Nadir carried Jenny to the villa and called for Doctor Burr. When he came, the distracted lover thinking to impress him that Jenny was his countrywoman, told him that she, too, was from Virginia; could he save her life. I shall never forget Abd-el Nadir's sad recital of his encounter with Doctor Burr. The doctor looked searchingly into Jenny's face, then drew back, livid with anger. 'Why bring her here? She may, or she may not be injured badly. It means nothing to me. Take her on to Fez.' 'But doctor,' implored her fiance, 'as a Christian can you do something to help her now?' The doctor drew back farther, his thin lips curled contemptuously. 'In my native land I never soiled my hands on such a creature. This is my daughter's wedding night, do you think I would spoil it for that? Get out! Take her off these grounds before I call my Arabs to throw you out,' he barked. The caravan had gone when Abd-el Nadir with the double burden on his camel hurried towards Fez. But Jenny mortally injured, died in his arms. For days afterwards he was as inconsolable as I. Yet, I had my work, and in it I



for JANUARY, 1931  79

drowned my grief. But Abd-el Nadir had the hate and contempt of his people to remind him of his defection from the faith of his adopted fathers.

BEFORE I departed from Fez he said he was going back to the sea. In the succeeding years we corresponded at long intervals. In the last letter he said it was written in the stars that fate would yet bring Doctor Burr into his power. The old missionary paused again, looking out on the velvet green of his lawn. David slipped into his pocket the photography of a woman who still had a place in his memory; while Jeremin pondered over the futility of men's hate. Reverend Pleasant looked again at the two seamen. "No doubt you know that Doctor Burr is still alive. He is a raving maniac, calling for his son at all hours of the night and day. He still believes he's aboard the El Fascid. And that his keeper is 'Standing Lee.'" Then he closed the album with a calm air of finality.

What Books Tell Us
(Continued from page 49)

distinction, Taylor Gordon is in a class by himself. No one will ever wish to take this away from him. We all like achievement when we meet it, no matter who is responsible for it.

But Mr. Gordon, no matter how great a Spiritual warbler he is, is not a writer. If, as has been suggested, he perpetrated this book by proxy, he could have improved much upon the person who must have been his "ghost writer."

"Born to Be," presumably an autobiography, is a rambling, incoherent sort of narrative. It opens with a scene in White Sulphur Springs, Mont., where Taylor Gordon was born, and travels leisurely through a series of escapades and affairs in which Mr. Gordon became involved before he finally broke into the world of music.

There can be said for "Born to Be" that it is well illustrated, Miguel Covarrubias, the Mexican caricaturist, outdid himself in describing the scenes which Mr. Gordon wrote. These drawings alone would make a book were they lifted from the other efforts to be funny and printed separately.

Jimmy O'Grady's Gal
(Continued from page 46)

"And, kid," the manager had said, "he's human just like anybody else. Hit 'im on the right spot, and out he goes! But of course if you're yellow-" That had settled it. Tanner wasn't yellow.

A sudden commotion at the back of the building crystallized Tanner's misery. Jimmy O'Grady was coming! "Here he comes! Here he comes!" went up the muffled murmur.

Up the aisle marched Jimmy, surrounded by a small army of cops and handlers. As he climbed gracefully through the ropes, a thunderous cheer went up. He gave Tanner a perfunctory handshake. Then striding majestically to the center of the ring, he clasped his white-bandaged hands above his head in regal greeting to the multitude. To Jean, pale and queerly tense, he gave a personal wave and reassuring smile.

Introductions. Final instructions by the referee. The lights flashed off, leaving only the brilliant blue-white cluster above the ring. Except for the faces of those in the ringside seats, the great crowd had become a velvet blur.

The bell! Jimmy flashed across the ring, and instantly a shower of jolting, tooth-rattling left jabs began to smack-smack-smack into Tanner's face. The blood welled saltily to his quickly torn lips. Up went his guard to protect his tortured face- WHACK!!!—to Tanner it seemed that the ring floor leaped into the air and smote him. He heard the sound of a heavy fall, and the world went misty.

AGES later, a confused roaring welled into his consciousness. Someone was shouting in his ear. The referee was slowly swinging his grey-sleeved arm and counting-shouting to make himself heard above the roar of the crowd. He was interpolating his count with a running fire of pithy remarks: "— three-come on Tanner, quit faking— four— what's the matter, quitting— five— get up Tanner, you're not hurt— six— c'mon, give these people a run for their money— seven— always heard you was yellow— eig—

—that last sentence seemed to act like a dash of cold water on Tanner. His mind flashed clear— and he realized

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