The Sheik

He was nineteen then, and when he was twenty-one my father had

the unpleasant task of carrying out Lady Glencaryll's dying wishes. He

wrote to Lord Glencaryll asking him to come to Paris on business

connected with his late wife, and, during the course of a very painful

interview, put the whole facts before him. With the letter that the

poor girl had written to her husband, with the wedding-ring and the

locket, together with the sketch that my father had made of her, the

proofs of the genuineness of the whole affair were conclusive.

Glencaryll broke down completely. He admitted that his wife had every

justification for leaving him, he spared himself nothing. He referred

quite frankly to the curse of which he had been the slave and which had

made him irresponsible for his actions when he was under its influence.

He had never known himself what had happened that terrible night, but

the tragedy of his wife's disappearance had cured him. He had made

every effort to find her and it was many years before he gave up all

hope. He mourned her bitterly, and worshipped her memory. It was

impossible not to pity him, for he had expiated his fault with agony

that few men can have experienced. The thought that he had a son and

that son her child almost overwhelmed him. He had ardently desired an

heir, and, thinking himself childless, the fact that his title and his

old name, of which he was very proud, would die with him had been a

great grief.

His happiness in the knowledge of Ahmed's existence was

pathetic, he was consumed with impatience for his son's arrival.

Nothing had been said to Ahmed in case Lord Glencaryll should prove

difficult to convince and thereby complicate matters, but his ready

acceptance of the affair and his eagerness to see his son made further

delay unnecessary, and my father sent for Ahmed. The old Sheik let him

go in ignorance of what was coming. He had always dreaded the time when

his adopted son would have to be told of his real parentage, fearful of

losing him, jealous of sharing his affection and resenting anybody's

claim to him over his own. And so, with the only instance he ever gave

of want of moral courage, he sent Ahmed to Paris with no explanation,

and left to my father the task of breaking to him the news. I shall

never forget that day. It had been arranged that Ahmed should be told

first and that afterwards father and son should meet. Ahmed arrived in

the morning in time for dejeuner, and afterwards we went to my

father's study, and there he told him the whole story as gently and as

carefully as he could. Ahmed was standing by the window. He never said

a word the whole time my father was speaking, and when he finished he

stood quite still for a few moments, his face almost grey under the

deep tan, his eyes fixed passionately on my father's--and then his

fiendish temper broke out suddenly. It was a terrible scene. He cursed

his father in a steady stream of mingled Arabic and French blasphemy

that made one's blood run cold. He cursed all English people

impartially. He cursed my father because he had dared to send him to

England.