Arriving in the Middle East, The Spirit and Sand Saref are searching for the mythical Jewel of Gizeh, an amulet that is said to bistow eternal life upon its wearer. Given the Jewel by the Shiek Al Bey for helping locate his long lost daughter, The Spirit tries to make his way back to Central City to give the amulet to the museum...

Meanwhile, back in Central City, Sammy witnesses a robbery of police files whilst being hypnotised into thinking he is the strongest man in the world. Being entered into a fight and knocking out the champion, Sammy announces his intention to wipe crime out. One of the local criminals' girlfriend, Delilah, visits Sammy and tempts him to reveal the location of other police files by plying him with soda and cake before tieing him up to two old wooden pillars underneath an old stage. Delilah takes the other files, but fortunately Commissioner Dolan was a witness and captures her whilst in the meantime Sammy literally brings down the stage by pulling on the two old pillars...

This story is of great interest to Will Eisner as at the time Will's future wife, Ann was an actress in the Cecil B. DeMille film "Samson and Delilah" and warned Eisner that DeMille was seriously considering sueing for libel!

Back in the Middle East, The Spirit manages to secure passage on the 'Island Queen', run by Captain Skroob. Once well under way The Spirit also finds that Skroob has some other passengers on board - Sand Saref and Mr Carrion!

Before a major fight breaks out for the amulet, Captain Skroob abandons them all on a deserted island on which he had hidden some treasure some ten years ago. The Spirit and Carrion manage to swim back to the ship before it leaves and in an accident the Island Queen catches fire and starts to sink.

After a few days The Spirit and Carrion swim back to the ship, which by now is almost submerged, and find Captain Skroob. Carrion shoots Skroob and wounds The Spirit, asking him to hand over the Jewel - at that moment the ship decides to sink to the bottom of the sea and The Spirit is able to escape and make it back to the island. Sand Saref manages to tend to Denny Colt's wound and the two set sail on a raft that Carrion had.

Landing on another seemingly deserted island, The Spirit goes off to investigate and finds Archie Flye, a villain whom The Spirit had sent to jail many years ago. Up until this point Flye had not appeared in any of the previous Spirit stories. After a brief fight, The Spirit uses Flye's radio to call for rescue.

After another break from the story in which we go back to Central City to find that there was a drought, the scene returns to the island and we find that Flye has managed to escape and call some associates from a nearby hidden submarine. After quickly despatching Flye and his men, The Spirit and Sand are flown back to Central City.

Giving the Jewel of Gizeh to the museum, The Spirit and Sammy walk off and assume that Sand has given up trying to get the Jewel, but meanwhile, in the museum...

Eisner was looking for reasons to get The Spirit out of Central City, and he 'refried' and old 1941 Spirit story called "The Jewel of Death". Although he originally intended to have The Spirit return straight back to Central City at the end of the first story, he had enjoyed the tale so much that he decided to extend the storyline for several weeks (with two interruptions to the tale which were showing what was going on back in Central City).

Checklist

26 February 1950 - "Blood of the Earth" (Refry of 20 July 1941 story "The Jewel of Death")

5 March 1950 - "Sammy and Delilah" (set back in Central City)

12 March 1950 - "The Jewel of Gizeh"

19 March 1950 - "Marooned"

26 March 1950 - "The Island"

2 April 1950 - "Water" (set back in Central City)

9 April 1950 - "Rescue"