Evening Star Newspaper, March 16, 1930, Page 101

say and not succeeding, relieved when his wife told him: “What good are men in time of trouble? Be to leave the room, O my master!” He obeyed; while Khaizaran took the girl in her arms. “I know,” she interrupted when Kothra be- gan to explain. “It is because of your lover, eh?” Grufily she spoke. Yet there was her motherly embrace, her caressing hand smooth- ing the girl's forchead. “The Lord alone know- eth' what you see in him—with him nothing but a swashbuckling mercenary—or what he sees in you—with you nothing but a child of tinkers and vagabonds! Ah, such is ever the way of love—right or wrong, straight or crook- ed, but finding its goal as a river finds the ocean. Gone away, has he? What of it? He “He will not return. Ali Hassan is right.” “Ali Hassan is a big fool, as you are a small fool. One of these days you will see your cap- tain again, looming dark and brave against the sky. " “Ali Hassan says . . ."” “Pah!” interrupted Khaizaran. “It is high time that some one talked sense to this same All Hassan.” She rose, the lean, gray-haired woman. Hey eyes flashed. “I shall talk to him! I myself!” She went straight to the young chief’s house and faced him squarely. “I was never the one to mince words,” she “I know it.” came the ironic rejoinder. “So does your; husband. “Good.® Therefore, speaking about this “Who is king about her?” “I am. She does not love you. Why not let her go?” “How dare you?” he roared, flushing with rage. “I am the chief!” “I put you across my knees before you be- came chief, after the death of your mother— may her soul enjoy paradise! It was I took care of you, and a scrawny and most disgusting brat you were! Yes, many a time I took the slipper to you and, by Allah, I am still strong enough to do it today! Chieftainship? Pride? A rotten fig for both! What right have you to be proud, O great buffalo?” “WHO has a better right than I? Old is 3 my clan! The tree is not more old than we, nor yet the steppe, nor yet . . .” “Nor yet my nose!” she cut in. “Empty words! The drum which booms most loudly is fllled with wind! Show me your pride! Prove it to me!” “Prove?” he stammered. “How?” “There is only one way. By being generous.” “Eh?” he demanded. “Forget your hate! There is the captain— and the girl. They love each other. Grant . On she raced in a mad, frothing, lashing Jumble of words, cursing, imploring, again curs- ing, again imploring, until suddenly, in a sort of frenzied resignation, Ali Hassan exclaimed: “Yes, yes, yes! I shall do whatever you wish! Only—be quiet, O mother of a leaky tongue!” “You give oath?” “Have I not given oath? I ride today.” “Ride?” she echoed, astonished. “To Samarkand, to find out what has hap- pened to this precious captain and bring him back. To bring him back by force if, belike, he has forgotten Kothra and is kissing other wom- en’s lips. By the prophet,” he added boastingly, “4f a measure of generosity it must be, let it be filled to the brim and no stinting.” That same afternoon he was off for Samar- kand through the snow-clad steppe, astride his swiftest dromedary. A grand town he found it. Great mosques swelling like the tolling of bells beneath a vaulted, steel-gray sky. Granite bastions chant- ing the epic of the Grand Khans of High Tar- tary. Narrow tangles of crowded, coiling alleys. Rich bazaars where men of all Central Asia bartered and cheated and laughed. Inns where, since Winter had closed the steppe trails, the caravan traders squatted at their ease, eating, drinking, swapping gossip—and it was in one of these inns that Ali Hassan asked where he could find Mehmet Yar . “In gaol,” replied a Kirgiz cameler. “What has he done?” demanded the chief. ‘The Kirgiz did not know. But palace servant did, and he related how one night, months earlier, a hirra-bashee, prowling through the streets, had seen Mehmet Yar entering his brother’s house. ‘These hirra-bashees were the Grand Khan's confidential messengers and spies. Their duties were varied. To name just a few: If a refrac- tory viceroy of an outer province had to be ad- monished, mildly or otherwise; if a present or a threat had to be delivered to a foreign prince- ling; if a merchant, grown too rich or too greedy, had to be persuaded that the state treasury needed a substantial cash donation; if a discreet dagger had to pierce a traitor's heart, there was always a hirra-bashee to dc, unquestioningly, his master’s bidding. Keen men they were, suspiclous men—smell- ing out treachery as a jackal smells out carrion; and when Tugluk Esa, one of them, had recog- nized Mehmet Yar, had noticed the gliding, secretive way_in which he tried to slip across the threshold of his bother’s house, he had wondered, had stepped forward and boomed out: “What are you doing—you, the governor of the Abdali—here in Samarkand?” The captain, though the hirrabashee could not have known, had been in despair. To be balked almost at the outset! Well, he had thought—a dead horse cannot eat grass, nor can a dead man carry tales . and swift- 1y he nad drawn his sword. But at once the other had whistled shrilly. His retainers had come on a run; had overwhelmed the captain; had taken him, the next morning, before the Grand Khan, The palace servant who related the happening had been present at the interview. He described to Ali Hassan, whcse identity he did not know, how Mehmet Yar, asked why he had left his post without permission, had given evasive re- plies, until finally the Grand Khan had ex- claimed: THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 15, W% “Hate each other all you But—no deeds of violence. disobey—you know the punishment.” straighten out its kinks and say what you mean. Or else—your brother’s head on a pole!” ‘The captain had salaamed. “The reason why I am here is simple, my lord. There is a woman.” “There is always a woman. Ah"—the Grand Khan had smiled reminiscently, ironically-— “once I, too, made my heart a carpet for narrow, lisping feet. Who is this woman?” “Kothra is her name. She is captive to Al Hassan.” And Mehmet Yar had told the whole truth; how, unable to fight a duel with the chief, unable to persuade him to give up the girl, he had meant to see his brother safely across the border, to return to the steppe, to carry her off. - “And all this fuss and bother because of & woman!” the Grand Kahn had commented with a laugh. “You have been a good governor, I forgive you for having left your post without permis- sion. As for Kothra—she is yours.’ * “But—how . . ., 2 “My personal present to you. I shall give an order to Ali Hassan.” “Impossible! She is his captive—by the law of the steppe. . . .” “I am above the law. Besides, were you not please. If you ready to break this same law yourself, to steal the girl?” “Yes. Through my own pluck and craft. But —+to use your power—why—it would be coward- ly. My honor will not permit. . . .” “To the devil with your honor!” And when the captain had insisted that he would not, could not sully his honor, neither for Kothra‘s sake nor the Grand Khan's, the latter had cried impatiently: *“Fool! Honorable fool! Off to gaol with you—until you become less foolish— and less honorable! In gaol you will remain until you change your mind!” ® Sucn was the palace servant’s tale; and, that afternon, Ali Hassan obtained an audience with the Grand Khan. “I am no town-bred fop,” he began. “I know not how to curtsy and strut and preen fine feathers. I must speak out my blunt mind as I see it.” “Meaning,” asked the Grand Khan, smiling wanly, “that you will be exceedingly rude to me, your sovereign lord?” “Not rude. Truthful.” “Is there a difference? truthful as you please.” “There is this matter of myself and Kothra and Mehmet Yar.' * Very well. Be as 7 *This matter is squarely between the three of is beyond your right.” . might. If I should give .!.sm'here. You need the order. Ah”—with a lord- Kothra to Mehmet Yar! I! bow his thanks to me! Not I not heard that you, too, this russet-haired girl?” u! “" “Then why. . . . ?” “Maybe because of a priest’s wife’s lashing, nagging words. Maybe because of fate, and fate, My Lord, is a tough old jade with a secret she knows how to keep. . . .” “Maybe,” cut in the Grand Khan, “because you, too, are an honorable fool. Allah—but you have my heart’s good wishes to the innermos chamber!” : He told a servant to fetch Mehmet Yar, and, 20 minutes later, addressed chief and captain, standing before him side by side, tall, brisk and hearty, a bit hard in the look, a bit brag- gart, almost like twin brothers: “Here you are—you two! Honorable fools— both! I like you—both! Go back to the steppe—both! The audience is ended!” They salaamed, turned to go; and he called them back. “A wedding present for Kothra,” he said, drawing an emerald ring from his left thumb and giving it to Mehmet Yar; and, drawing a ruby ring from his right thumb and giving it to Ali Hassan¢ “A wedding present for another girl—soms day. . . ."~ “I shall never love another!” replied the chief stiffty. “And—I shall never love another,” he told Kothra, days later, when he and the captain, enemies no longer, had reached the valley of the Abdali. So Winter died, and Spring came again. "It came with boisterous winds out of India, and the snows melting fast, and the whistling of the wild geese flying north, and the steppe a pageantry of small, motley flowers. It came with a way, as we say in our language, for the open road, for putting the seven plains and seven hills and seven moors below a young man’s foot. And one day, for no reason that he knew of, Ali Hassen went traveling into the west; and returned a week or two later; and by his side a tall, black-haired girl called Habeebah—though, presently, he called her: “My wife! My dear one!” And on that day—was it not likke a woman? —Kothra was very much annoyed. “Wah!” she said to her husband, “are not men the fickle things?” ' And she grew quite angry when Mehmet Yar laughed. . . . (Copyright, 1980.) Exploits of “Q,” Famous W oman Spy Duriflg World War Then, unmarried (though some ecall dame) and one of a family of bated whether'to become a nun or a go Her nature had two sides—the mystic and re. ligious, the active and practical. side won, and she went to Germany, where high Prussian families she learned to speak fluently a fourth language, meeting promiment people. The German invasion found her, 34, back in Lille, whence she fled as refugee to England, and there fell in with the British secret service. They saw at once her qualifica- tions and proposed that she return to Lille as spy. Hln decision showed the courage and will behind the attractive face crowned by luxuriant dark hair. She had hoped to live with her mother, safe already, behind the British lines. Aside from risk of capture and death, she was not the woman to return will- ingly to a country filled with enemy soldiers. But she consulted her mother and a priest, then, it is said, the British commander himself, 8ir John French. A few days later she had made the hazardous trip through Holland and Belgium, through cordons of German guards, and was back at home in Lille, but not as Louise de Bettignies. Alice Dubois was the nom de guerre under which she was to fight the oppressors of her beloved patrie. With her own keen mind and admirable sang- froid, aided by British advice and money, she recruited her secret band for the war to be waged amid the German army just bchind the front. Soon, not in Lille alone but all the way back to Holland, she had spread nets that caught the precious information for which she risked her life. From headquarters in the Rue d’Isly, Lille, she could move by the underground railway she had built across the Channel to England and back—several hundred miles’ journey. Dressed in worn garments of the lower class, as seller of cheese or old lace, she moved from one refuge to another as in a game of checkers. One such place was in the frontier village of Estaimpuis, six yards from the border-line. If she was stopped, she showed false identity cards and passports which the chemist, De Geyter, in Mouscron, another frontier town, made so cleverly that the Germans never sus- pected them. On the frontier between France and Bel- gium Marie-Leonie van Houtte had already played a part before she met Louise and be- came “Charlotte,” her right hand. The Belgian-Dutch frontier, last obstacle be- by barbed wire, electric cables and searchlights, besides many German sentries.. Allied spies bearing reports must run that gantlet and none was more clever than Alice and Char- lotte. Barbed wire they cut, charged deadly cables they got over with rubber gloves and shoes and insulated ladders, or under by pas- sages dug beneath. Alice is said even to have walked right in the searchlight beams in Nght clothes, believing herself less conspicuous. She was never shot. She escaped land mines planted to blow to atoms those trying te run the gantlet. Sometimes the girls had as guide an eccentric but faithful Belgian whom Alice had got out of prison for border smuggling to work for her as an “insurance salesman.” Amos'r anything seemed possible to Alice. The short, rather slight young French- woman with her magnetic smile brought often to Folkestone information of great value. She told where German batteries were about Lille so accurately that British guns shelled them to pieces. She told where were big German am- munition dumps, which British bombing air- planes blew up once unwittingly as demon- stration to a doubting Thomas among Alice’s Heutenants. She reported so accurately how many and how large trains of German wounded passed nightly through Lille that the British could estimate enemy losses to a hicety. She and Charlotte had many real adventures, to which legend has added many more. Their life became harder. With many loyal Belgians in their midst fighting them secretly, the Ger- man invaders built up a counter-espionage service so hated that its leaders were marked for death by the Belgians and fled the country at the armistice. They were aided by Belgian criminals who thus bought their release and sometimes by Flemings of good family, like the betrayer of Miss Cavell, seeking preferment under the Germans. To outwit such cunning took all the wiles generally attributed to woman sples. Alice and Charlotte were repeatedly stopped and searched. Once, when false papers didn’t quite go, crude bribery did. But for the more dangerous Ger- man spy-chasers the two women evolved such ruses as hiding reports in a bar of chocolate that they ate as they were searched, even offering the searcher a bite. Once Charlotte carried an important message written in mvisible ink inside a rosary case. Once Alice prepared a minute map of the Ger- man arrangements abou! - Lille, which went through pasted on the len: c¢f an eyeglass! An expert penman had done it on translucent paper _ with microscopic pen and nvisible ink. Chil- dren carried messages for them, escaping en- tirely unusupected. Did such success turn Alice’s head? She be- came daring to the point of bravado. She car- ried reports openly in her handiag, sometimes mized with a half dozen manufactured passes in as many different names. Sometimes she went without any pass. She dared the Ger- mans to catch her. “Oh, they are so stupid!" she said to “har- siipdfe humtofvukm-ww friends who had often warned her that Mher recklessness endangered many others besides herself. When she and Charlotte were con- spies, but heads of an important espionage ring. Perhaps, too, they repented their tactical error in the Cavell case. In prison in Cologne, Alice was again the old Alice who for nearly two years had derled the German army. She persuaded other pris- oners to refuse to work on munitions to kill their compatriots, and was forced therefore, it is claimed, to wear thin clothes in Winter. First pneumonia, then an abscess wore her down. The Germans refused to let her go to Switzerland, and she died after a prison operation, Septem- ber 27, 1918, only 46 days before the ending of the war throughout which she had fought gal- lantly for her country and its allies. Charlotte nursed prisoners ill of typhoid, which she herself contracted, and nearly died, The German revolution released her. In March, 1927, she was decorated with the Legion of Honor, in token of France's gratitide. Fraulein Doktor, one of the most famous of woman spies in the World War, reigned as @ ruthless queen over her staff of assistants, O echnical expert, had given her a faulty report. She handed him a pistol, to use upon himself. He did. Such was her power. Mr, Johnson writes about her in The Star Maga- zine next -Sunday.