Sarah of the Sahara: A Romance of Nomads Land

“Allah! Allah! Bishmillah. El Traprock, Dhub ak Moplah!... Wullahy! Wullahy!”

Long, long after their echoes have died away the cries of my desert men ring on my ears. Still do I see myself as, in a cloud of dust, at the head of my band of picked nomads, my burnous floating above me so that I looked like a covered wagon, with the drumming thunder of a hundred hoofs and the wild yells of my followers, I swept like a cyclone to the rescue of one of the fairest creatures of my favorite sex.

O Sarah! my desert mate, whom I have hymned in terms of pomegranates, peacock’s-eyes and alabaster columns, lovely lady for whom I trained my tongue to the notes of the nightingale and my fingers to the intricacies of the lute, elusive creature, startled doe that ever fled before my bent bow and keen-edged arrows only to be struck down at last by agonizing love, light of my spirit, breath of my soul, warmth of my body, why, O all-of-these-and-much-more, did’st thou flee from El Sheik Traprock, Dhub of the Moplah Tribe?... Wullahy!

Alas! She may not answer, my fair bride of the silences, for she has been plucked from me, she has passed beyond my ken. Let me then speak for her, my sweet bird, my tower of gold-and-ivory, my tall building agleam with rubies, my ... but first let me descend from the heaven of her memory and cease from singing of the musical Moplahs.

In other words let me get back to earth and, in regular language, try to describe her as I first saw her.