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The Sheik: A Novel

by E. M. Hull · English · Gutenberg #7031 · 504,446 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Sheik: A Novel

Author: E. M. Hull


        
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7031]
                Most recently updated: February 2, 2015

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7031

Credits: Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHEIK: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team











THE SHEIK

A Novel




by E. M. HULL

1921





CHAPTER I


"Are you coming in to watch the dancing, Lady Conway?"

"I most decidedly am not. I thoroughly disapprove of the expedition of
which this dance is the inauguration. I consider that even by
contemplating such a tour alone into the desert with no chaperon or
attendant of her own sex, with only native camel drivers and servants,
Diana Mayo is behaving with a recklessness and impropriety that is
calculated to cast a slur not only on her own reputation, but also on
the prestige of her country. I blush to think of it. We English cannot
be too careful of our behavior abroad. No opportunity is slight enough
for our continental neighbours to cast stones, and this opportunity is
very far from being slight. It is the maddest piece of unprincipled
folly I have ever heard of."

"Oh, come, Lady Conway! It's not quite so bad as all that. It is
certainly unconventional and--er--probably not quite wise, but remember
Miss Mayo's unusual upbringing----"

"I am not forgetting her unusual upbringing," interrupted Lady Conway.
"It has been deplorable. But nothing can excuse this scandalous
escapade. I knew her mother years ago, and I took it upon myself to
expostulate both with Diana and her brother, but Sir Aubrey is hedged
around with an egotistical complacency that would defy a pickaxe to
penetrate. According to him a Mayo is beyond criticism, and his
sister's reputation her own to deal with. The girl herself seemed,
frankly, not to understand the seriousness of her position, and was
very flippant and not a little rude. I wash my hands of the whole
affair, and will certainly not countenance to-night's entertainment by
appearing at it. I have already warned the manager that if the noise is
kept up beyond a reasonable hour I shall leave the hotel to-morrow."
And, drawing her wrap around her with a little shudder, Lady Conway
stalked majestically across the wide verandah of the Biskra Hotel.

The two men left standing by the open French window that led into the
hotel ballroom looked at each other and smiled.

"Some peroration," said one with a marked American accent. "That's the
way scandal's made, I guess."

"Scandal be hanged! There's never been a breath of scandal attached to
Diana Mayo's name. I've known the child since she was a baby. Rum
little cuss she was, too. Confound that old woman! She would wreck the
reputation of the Archangel Gabriel if he came down to earth, let alone
that of a mere human girl."

"Not a very human girl," laughed the American. "She was sure meant for
a boy and changed at the last moment. She looks like a boy in
petticoats, a damned pretty boy--and a damned haughty one," he added,
chuckling. "I overheard her this morning, in the garden, making
mincemeat of a French officer."

The Englishman laughed.

"Been making love to her, I expect. A thing she does not understand and
won't tolerate. She's the coldest little fish in the world, without an
idea in her head beyond sport and travel. Clever, though, and plucky as
they are made. I don't think she knows the meaning of the word fear."

"There's a queer streak in the family, isn't there? I heard somebody
yapping about it the other night. Father was mad and blew his brains
out, so I was told."

The Englishman shrugged his shoulders.

"You can call it mad, if you like," he said slowly. "I live near the
Mayos' in England, and happen to know the story. Sir John Mayo was
passionately devoted to his wife; after twenty years of married life
they were still lovers. Then this girl was born, and the mother died.
Two hours afterwards her husband shot himself, leaving the baby in the
sole care of her brother, who was just nineteen, and as lazy and as
selfish then as he is now. The problem of bringing up a girl child was
too much trouble to be solved, so he settled the difficulty by treating
her as if she was a boy. The result is what you see."

They moved nearer to the open window, looking into the brilliantly lit
ballroom, already filled with gaily chattering people. On a slightly
raised platform at one end of the room the host and hostess were
receiving their guests. The brother and sister were singularly unlike.
Sir Aubrey Mayo was very tall and thin, the pallor of his face
accentuated by the blackness of his smoothly brushed hair and heavy
black moustache. His attitude was a mixture of well-bred courtesy and
languid boredom. He seemed too tired even to keep the single eye-glass
that he wore in position, for it dropped continually. By contrast the
girl at his side appeared vividly alive. She was only of medium height
and very slender, standing erect with the easy, vigorous carriage of an
athletic boy, her small head poised proudly. Her scornful mouth and
firm chin showed plainly an obstinate determination, and her deep blue
eyes were unusually clear and steady. The long, curling black lashes
that shaded her eyes and the dark eyebrows were a foil to the thick
crop of loose, red-gold curls that she wore short, clubbed about her
ears.

"The result is worth seeing," said the American admiringly, referring
to his companion's last remark.

A third and younger man joined them.

"Hallo, Arbuthnot. You're late. The divinity is ten deep in would-be
partners already."

A dull red crept into the young man's face, and he jerked his head
angrily.

"I got waylaid by Lady Conway--poisonous old woman! She had a great
deal to say on the subject of Miss Mayo and her trip. She ought to be
gagged. I thought she was going on talking all night, so I fairly
bolted in the end. All the same, I agree with her on one point. Why
can't that lazy ass Mayo go with his sister?"

Nobody seemed to be able to give an answer. The band had begun playing,
and the floor was covered with laughing, talking couples.

Sir Aubrey Mayo had moved away, and his sister was left standing with
several men, who waited, programme in hand, but she waved them away
with a little smile and a resolute shake of her head.

"Things seem to be getting a hustle on," said the American.

"Are you going to try your luck?" asked the elder of the two
Englishmen.

The American bit the end off a cigar with a little smile.

"I sure am not. The haughty young lady turned me down as a dancer very
early in our acquaintance. I don't blame her," he added, with a rueful
laugh, "but her extreme candour still rankles. She told me quite
plainly that she had no use for an American who could neither ride nor
dance. I did intimate to her, very gently, that there were a few little
openings in the States for men beside cattle-punching and cabaret
dancing, but she froze me with a look, and I faded away. No, Sir
Egotistical Complacency will be having some bridge later on, which will
suit me much better. He's not a bad chap underneath if you can swallow
his peculiarities, and he's a sportsman. I like to play with him. He
doesn't care a durn if he wins or loses."

"It doesn't matter when you have a banking account the size of his,"
said Arbuthnot. "Personally, I find dancing more amusing and less
expensive. I shall go and take my chance with our hostess."

His eyes turned rather eagerly towards the end of the room where the
girl was standing alone, straight and slim, the light from an
electrolier gilding the thick bright curls framing her beautiful,
haughty little face. She was staring down at the dancers with an absent
expression in her eyes, as if her thoughts were far away from the
crowded ballroom.

The American pushed Arbuthnot forward with a little laugh.

"Run along, foolish moth, and get your poor little wings singed. When
the cruel fair has done trampling on you I'll come right along and mop
up the remains. If, on the other hand, your temerity meets with the
success it deserves, we can celebrate suitably later on." And, linking
his arm in his friend's, he drew him away to the card-room.

Arbuthnot went through the window and worked slowly round the room,
hugging the wall, evading dancers, and threading his way through groups
of chattering men and women of all nationalities. He came at last to
the raised dais on which Diana Mayo was still standing, and climbed up
the few steps to her side.

"This is luck, Miss Mayo," he said, with an assurance that he was far
from feeling. "Am I really fortunate enough to find you without a
partner?"

She turned to him slowly, with a little crease growing between her
arched eyebrows, as if his coming were inopportune and she resented the
interruption to her thoughts, and then she smiled quite frankly.

"I said I would not dance until everybody was started," she said rather
doubtfully, looking over the crowded floor.

"They are all dancing. You've done your duty nobly. Don't miss this
ripping tune," he urged persuasively.

She hesitated, tapping her programme-pencil against her teeth.

"I refused a lot of men," she said, with a grimace. Then she laughed
suddenly. "Come along, then. I am noted for my bad manners. This will
only be one extra sin."

Arbuthnot danced well, but with the girl in his arms he seemed suddenly
tongue-tied. They swung round the room several times, then halted
simultaneously beside an open window and went out into the garden of
the hotel, sitting down on a wicker seat under a gaudy Japanese hanging
lantern. The band was still playing, and for the moment the garden was
empty, lit faintly by coloured lanterns, festooned from the palm trees,
and twinkling lights outlining the winding paths.

Arbuthnot leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees.

"I think you are the most perfect dancer I have ever met," he said a
little breathlessly.

Miss Mayo looked at him seriously, without a trace of
self-consciousness.

"It is very easy to dance if you have a musical ear, and if you have
been in the habit of making your body do what you want. So few people
seem to be trained to make their limbs obey them. Mine have had to do
as they were told since I was a small child," she answered calmly.

The unexpectedness of the reply acted as a silencer on Arbuthnot for a
few minutes, and the girl beside him seemed in no hurry to break the
silence. The dance was over and the empty garden was thronged for a
little time. Then the dancers drifted back into the hotel as the band
started again.

"It's rather jolly here in the garden," Arbuthnot said tentatively. His
heart was pounding with unusual rapidity, and his eyes, that he kept
fixed on his own clasped hands, had a hungry look growing in them.

"You mean that, you want to sit out this dance with me?" she said with
a boyish directness that somewhat nonplussed him.

"Yes," he stammered rather foolishly.

She held her programme up to the light of the lantern. "I promised this
one to Arthur Conway. We quarrel every time we meet. I cannot think why
he asked me; he disapproves of me even more than his mother does--such
an interfering old lady. He will be overjoyed to be let off. And I
don't want to dance to-night. I am looking forward so tremendously to
to-morrow. I shall stay and talk to you, but you must give me a
cigarette to keep me in a good temper."

His hand shook a little as he held the match for her. "Are you really
determined to go through with this tour?"

She stared at him in surprise. "Why not? My arrangements have been made
some time. Why should I change my mind at the last moment?"

"Why does your brother let you go alone? Why doesn't he go with you?
Oh, I haven't any right to ask, but I do ask," he broke out vehemently.

She shrugged her shoulders with a little laugh. "We fell out, Aubrey
and I. He wanted to go to America. I wanted a trip into the desert. We
quarrelled for two whole days and half one night, and then we
compromised. I should have my desert tour, and Aubrey should go to New
York; and to mark his brotherly appreciation of my gracious promise to
follow him to the States without fail at the end of a month he has
consented to grace my caravan for the first stage, and dismiss me on my
way with his blessing. It annoyed him so enormously that he could not
order me to go with him, this being the first time in our wanderings
that our inclinations have not jumped in the same direction. I came of
age a few months ago, and, in future, I can do as I please. Not that I
have ever done anything else," she conceded, with another laugh,
"because Aubrey's ways have been my ways until now."

"But for the sake of one month! What difference could it make to him?"
he asked in astonishment.

"That's Aubrey," replied Miss Mayo drily.

"It isn't safe," persisted Arbuthnot.

She flicked the ash from her cigarette carelessly. "I don't agree with
you. I don't know why everybody is making such a fuss about it. Plenty
of other women have travelled in much wilder country than this desert."

He looked at her curiously. She seemed to be totally unaware that it
was her youth and her beauty that made all the danger of the
expedition. He fell back on the easier excuse.

"There seems to be unrest amongst some of the tribes. There have been a
lot of rumours lately," he said seriously.

She made a little movement of impatience. "Oh, that's what they always
tell you when they want to put obstacles in your way. The authorities
have already dangled that bogey in front of me. I asked for facts and
they only gave me generalities. I asked definitely if they had any
power to stop me. They said they had not, but strongly advised me not
to make the attempt. I said I should go, unless the French Government
arrested me.... Why not? I am not afraid. I don't admit that there is
anything to be afraid of. I don't believe a word about the tribes being
restless. Arabs are always moving about, aren't they? I have an
excellent caravan leader, whom even the authorities vouch for, and I
shall be armed. I am perfectly able to take care of myself. I can shoot
straight and I am used to camping. Besides, I have given my word to
Aubrey to be in Oran in a month, and I can't get very far away in that
time."

There was an obstinate ring in her voice, and when she stopped speaking
he sat silent, consumed with anxiety, obsessed with the loveliness of
her, and tormented with the desire to tell her so. Then he turned to
her suddenly, and his face was very white. "Miss Mayo--Diana--put off
this trip only for a little, and give me the right to go with you. I
love you. I want you for my wife more than anything on earth. I shan't
always be a penniless subaltern. One of these days I shall be able to
give you a position that is worthy of you; no, nothing could be that,
but one at least that I am not ashamed to offer to you. We've been very
good friends; you know all about me. I'll give my whole life to make
you happy. The world has been a different place to me since you came
into it. I can't get away from you. You are in my thoughts night and
day. I love you; I want you. My God, Diana! Beauty like yours drives a
man mad!"

"Is beauty all that a man wants in his wife?" she asked, with a kind of
cold wonder in her voice. "Brains and a sound body seem much more
sensible requirements to me."

"But when a woman has all three, as you have, Diana," he whispered
ardently, his hands closing over the slim ones lying in her lap.

But with a strength that seemed impossible for their smallness she
disengaged them from his grasp. "Please stop. I am sorry. We have been
good friends, and it has never occurred to me that there could be
anything beyond that. I never thought that you might love me. I never
thought of you in that way at all, I don't understand it. When God made
me He omitted to give me a heart. I have never loved any one in my
life. My brother and I have tolerated each other, but there has never
been any affection between us. Would it be likely? Put yourself in
Aubrey's place. Imagine a young man of nineteen, with a cold, reserved
nature, being burdened with the care of a baby sister, thrust into his
hands unwanted and unexpected. Was it likely that he would have any
affection for me? I never wanted it. I was born with the same cold
nature as his. I was brought up as a boy, my training was hard. Emotion
and affection have been barred out of my life. I simply don't know what
they mean. I don't want to know. I am very content with my life as it
is. Marriage for a woman means the end of independence, that is,
marriage with a man who is a man, in spite of all that the most modern
woman may say. I have never obeyed any one in my life; I do not wish to
try the experiment. I am very sorry to have hurt you. You've been a
splendid pal, but that side of life does not exist for me. If I had
thought for one moment that my friendship was going to hurt you I need
not have let you become so intimate, but I did not think, because it is
a subject that I never think of. A man to me is just a companion with
whom I ride or shoot or fish; a pal, a comrade, and that's just all
there is to it. God made me a woman. Why, only He knows."

Her quiet, even voice stopped. There had been a tone of cold sincerity
in it that Arbuthnot could not help but recognise. She meant everything
that she said. She said no more than the truth. Her reputation for
complete indifference to admiration and her unvarying attitude towards
men were as well known as her dauntless courage and obstinate
determination. With Sir Aubrey Mayo she behaved like a younger brother,
and as such entertained his friends. She was popular with everybody,
even with the mothers of marriageable daughters, for, in spite of her
wealth and beauty, her notorious peculiarities made her negligible as a
rival to plainer and less well-dowered girls.

Arbuthnot sat in silence. It was hardly likely, he thought bitterly,
that he should succeed where other and better men had failed. He had
been a fool to succumb to the temptation that had been too hard for him
to resist. He knew her well enough to know beforehand what her answer
would be. The very real fear for her safety that the thought of the
coming expedition gave him, her nearness in the mystery of the Eastern
night, the lights, the music, had all combined to rush to his lips
words that in a saner moment would never have passed them. He loved
her, he would love her always, but he knew that his love was as
hopeless as it was undying. But it was men who were men whom she wanted
for her friends, so he must take his medicine like a man.

"May I still be the pal, Diana?" he said quietly.

She looked at him a moment, but in the dim light of the hanging
lanterns his eyes were steady under hers, and she held out her hand
frankly. "Gladly," she said candidly. "I have hosts of acquaintances,
but very few friends. We are always travelling, Aubrey and I, and we
never seem to have time to make friends. We rarely stay as long in one
place as we have stayed in Biskra. In England they call us very bad
neighbours, we are so seldom there. We generally go home for three
months in the winter for the hunting, but the rest of the year we
wander on the face of the globe."

He held her slender fingers gripped in his for a moment, smothering an
insane desire to press them to his lips, which he knew would be fatal
to the newly accorded friendship, and then let them go. Miss Mayo
continued sitting quietly beside him. She was in no way disturbed by
what had happened. She had taken him literally at his word, and was
treating him as the pal he had asked to be. It no more occurred to her
that she might relieve him of her society than it occurred to her that
her continued presence might be distressing to him. She was totally
unembarrassed and completely un-self-conscious. And as they sat silent,
her thoughts far away in the desert, and his full of vain longings and
regrets, a man's low voice rose in the stillness of the night. "_Pale
hands I loved beside the Shalimar. Where are you now? Who lies beneath
your spell_?" he sang in a passionate, vibrating baritone. He was
singing in English, and yet the almost indefinite slurring from note to
note was strangely un-English. Diana Mayo leaned forward, her head
raised, listening intently, with shining eyes. The voice seemed to come
from the dark shadows at the end of the garden, or it might have been
further away out in the road beyond the cactus hedge. The singer sang
slowly, his voice lingering caressingly on the words; the last verse
dying away softly and clearly, almost imperceptibly fading into
silence.

For a moment there was utter stillness, then Diana lay back with a
little sigh. "The Kashmiri Song. It makes me think of India. I heard a
man sing it in Kashmere last year, but not like that. What a wonderful
voice! I wonder who it is?"

Arbuthnot looked at her curiously, surprised at the sudden ring of
interest in her tone, and the sudden animation of her face.

"You say you have no emotion in your nature, and yet that unknown man's
singing has stirred you deeply. How do you reconcile the two?" he
asked, almost angrily.

"Is an appreciation of the beautiful emotion?" she challenged, with
uplifted eyes. "Surely not. Music, art, nature, everything beautiful
appeals to me. But there is nothing emotional in that. It is only that
I prefer beautiful things to ugly ones. For that reason even pretty
clothes appeal to me," she added, laughing.

"You are the best-dressed woman in Biskra," he acceded. "But is not
that a concession to the womanly feelings that you despise?"

"Not at all. To take an interest in one's clothes is not an exclusively
feminine vice. I like pretty dresses. I admit to spending some time in
thinking of colour schemes to go with my horrible hair, but I assure
you that my dressmaker has an easier life than Aubrey's tailor."

She sat silent, hoping that the singer might not have gone, but there
was no sound except a cicada chirping near her. She swung round in her
chair, looking in the direction from which it came. "Listen to him.
Jolly little chap! They are the first things I listen for when I get to
Port Said. They mean the East to me."

"Maddening little beasts!" said Arbuthnot irritably.

"They are going to be very friendly little beasts to me during the next
four weeks.... You don't know what this trip means to me. I like wild
places. The happiest times of my life have been spent camping in
America and India, and I have always wanted the desert more than either
of them. It is going to be a month of pure joy. I am going to be
enormously happy."

She stood up with a little laugh of intense pleasure, and half turned,
waiting for Arbuthnot. He got up reluctantly and stood silent beside
her for a few moments. "Diana, I wish you'd let me kiss you, just
once," he broke out miserably.

She looked up swiftly with a glint of anger in her eyes, and shook her
head. "No. That's not in the compact. I have never been kissed in my
life. It is one of the things that I do not understand." Her voice was
almost fierce.

She moved leisurely towards the hotel, and he paced beside her
wondering if he had forfeited her friendship by his outburst, but on
the verandah she halted and spoke in the frank tone of camaraderie in
which she had always addressed him. "Shall I see you in the morning?"

He understood. There was to be no more reference to what had passed
between them. The offer of friendship held, but only on her own terms.
He pulled himself together.

"Yes. We have arranged an escort of about a dozen of us to ride the
first few miles with you, to give you a proper send-off."

She made a laughing gesture of protest. "It will certainly need four
weeks of solitude to counteract the conceit I shall acquire," she said
lightly, as she passed into the ballroom.

A few hours later Diana came into her bedroom, and, switching on the
electric lights, tossed her gloves and programme into a chair. The room
was empty, for her maid had had a _vertige_ at the suggestion that
she should accompany her mistress into the desert, and had been sent
back to Paris to await Diana's return. She had left during the day, to
take most of the heavy luggage with her.

Diana stood in the middle of the room and looked at the preparations
for the early start next morning with a little smile of satisfaction.
Everything was _en train_; the final arrangements had all been
concluded some days before. The camel caravan with the camp equipment
was due to leave Biskra a few hours before the time fixed for the Mayos
to start with Mustafa Ali, the reputable guide whom the French
authorities had reluctantly recommended. The two big suit-cases that
Diana was taking with her stood open, ready packed, waiting only for
the last few necessaries, and by them the steamer trunk that Sir Aubrey
would take charge of and leave in Paris as he passed through. On a
chaise-longue was laid out her riding kit ready for the morning. Her
smile broadened as she looked at the smart-cut breeches and high brown
boots. They were the clothes in which most of her life had been spent,
and in which she was far more at home than in the pretty dresses over
which she had laughed with Arbuthnot.

She was glad the dance was over; it was not a form of exercise that
appealed to her particularly. She was thinking only of the coming tour.
She stretched her arms out with a little happy laugh.

"It's the life of lives, and it's going to begin all over again
to-morrow morning." She crossed over to the dressing-table, and,
propping her elbows on it, looked at herself in the glass, with a
little friendly smile at the reflection. In default of any other
confidant she had always talked to herself, with no thought for the
beauty of the face staring back at her from the glass. The only comment
she ever made to herself on her own appearance was sometimes to wish
that her hair was not such a tiresome shade. She looked at herself now
with a tinge of curiosity. "I wonder why I'm so especially happy
to-night. It must be because we have been so long in Biskra. It's been
very jolly, but I was beginning to get very bored." She laughed again
and picked up her watch to wind. It was one of her peculiarities that
she would wear no jewellery of any kind. Even the gold repeater in her
hand was on a plain leather strap. She undressed slowly and each moment
felt more wide-awake. Slipping a thin wrap over her pyjamas and
lighting a cigarette she went out on to the broad balcony on to which
her bedroom gave. The room was on the first floor, and opposite her
window rose one of the ornately carved and bracketed pillars that
supported the balcony, stretching up to the second story above her
head. She looked down into the gardens below. It was an easy climb, she
thought, with a boyish grin--far easier than many she had achieved
successfully when the need of a solitary ramble became imperative. But
the East was inconvenient for solitary ramble; native servants had a
disconcerting habit of lying down to sleep wherever drowsiness overcame
them, and it was not very long since she had slid down from her balcony
and landed plumb on a slumbering bundle of humanity who had roused half
the hotel with his howls. She leant far over the rail, trying to see
into the verandah below, and she thought she caught a glimpse of white
drapery. She looked again, and this time there was nothing, but she
shook her head with a little grimace, and swung herself up on to the
broad ledge of the railing. Settling herself comfortably with her back
against the column she looked out over the hotel gardens into the
night, humming softly the Kashmiri song she had heard earlier in the
evening.

The risen moon was full, and its cold, brilliant light filled the
garden with strong black shadows. She watched some that seemed even to
move, as if the garden were alive with creeping, hurrying figures, and
amused herself tracking them until she traced them to the palm tree or
cactus bush that caused them. One in particular gave her a long hunt
till she finally ran it to its lair, and it proved to be the shadow of
a grotesque lead statue half hidden by a flowering shrub. Forgetting
the hour and the open windows all around her, she burst into a rippling
peal of laughter, which was interrupted by the appearance of a figure,
imperfectly seen through the lattice-work which divided her balcony
from the next one, and the sound of an irritable voice.

"For Heaven's sake, Diana, let other people sleep if you can't."

"Which, being interpreted, is let Sir Aubrey Mayo sleep," she retorted,
with a chuckle. "My dear boy, sleep if you want to, but I don't know
how you can on a night like this. Did you ever see such a gorgeous
moon?"

"Oh, damn the moon!"

"Oh, very well. Don't get cross about it. Go back to bed and put your
head under the clothes, and then you won't see it. But I'm going to sit
here."

"Diana, don't be an idiot! You'll go to sleep and fall into the garden
and break your neck."

"_Tant pis pour moi. Tant mieux pour toi,_" she said flippantly.
"I have left you all that I have in the world, dear brother. Could
devotion go further?"

She paid no heed to his exclamation of annoyance, and looked back into
the garden. It was a wonderful night, silent except for the cicadas'
monotonous chirping, mysterious with the inexplicable mystery that
hangs always in the Oriental night. The smells of the East rose up all
around her; here, as at home, they seemed more perceptible by night
than by day. Often at home she had stood on the little stone balcony
outside her room, drinking in the smells of the night--the pungent,
earthy smell after rain, the aromatic smell of pine trees near the
house. It was the intoxicating smells of the night that had first
driven her, as a very small child, to clamber down from her balcony,
clinging to the thick ivy roots, to wander with the delightful sense of
wrong-doing through the moonlit park and even into the adjoining gloomy
woods. She had always been utterly fearless.

Her childhood had been a strange one. There had been no near relatives
to interest themselves in the motherless girl left to the tender
mercies of a brother nearly twenty years her senior, who was frankly
and undisguisedly horrified at the charge that had been thrust upon
him. Wrapped up in himself, and free to indulge in the wander hunger
that gripped him, the baby sister was an intolerable burden, and he had
shifted responsibility in the easiest way possible. For the first few
years of her life she was left undisturbed to nurses and servants who
spoiled her indiscriminately. Then, when she was still quite a tiny
child, Sir Aubrey Mayo came home from a long tour, and, settling down
for a couple of years, fixed on his sister's future training, modelled
rigidly on his own upbringing. Dressed as a boy, treated as a boy, she
learned to ride and to shoot and to fish--not as amusements, but
seriously, to enable her to take her place later on as a companion to
the man whose only interests they were. His air of weariness was a
mannerism. In reality he was as hard as nails, and it was his intention
that Diana should grow up as hard. With that end in view her upbringing
had been Spartan, no allowances were made for sex or temperament and
nothing was spared to gain the desired result. And from the first Diana
had responded gallantly, throwing herself heart and soul into the
arduous, strenuous life mapped out for her. The only drawback to a
perfect enjoyment of life were the necessary lessons that had to be
gone through, though even these might have been worse. Every morning
she rode across the park to the rectory for a couple of hours' tuition
with the rector, whose heart was more in his stable than in his parish,
and whose reputation was greater across country than it was in the
pulpit. His methods were rough and ready, but she had brains, and
acquired an astonishing amount of diverse knowledge. But her education
was stopped with abrupt suddenness when she was fifteen by the arrival
at the rectory of an overgrown young cub who had been sent by a
despairing parent, as a last resource, to the muscular rector, and who
quickly discovered what those amongst whom she had grown up had hardly
realised, that Diana Mayo, with the clothes and manners of a boy, was
really an uncommonly beautiful young woman. With the assurance
belonging to his type, he had taken the earliest opportunity of telling
her so, following it with an attempt to secure the kiss that up to now
his own good looks had always secured for him. But in this case he had
to deal with a girl who was a girl by accident of birth only, who was
quicker with her hands and far finer trained than he was, and whose
natural strength was increased by furious rage. She had blacked his
eyes before he properly understood what was happening, and was dancing
around him like an infuriated young gamecock when the rector had burst
in upon them, attracted by the noise.

What she left he had finished, and then, breathless and angry, had
ridden back across the park with her and had briefly announced to Sir
Aubrey, who happened to be at home upon one of his rare visits, that
his pupil was both too old and too pretty to continue her studies at
the rectory, and had taken himself off as hurriedly as he had come,
leaving Sir Aubrey to settle for himself the new problem of Diana. And,
as before, it was settled in the easiest possible way. Physically she
was perfectly able to take up the role for which he had always intended
her; mentally he presumed that she knew as much as it was necessary for
her to know, and, in any case, travelling itself was an education, and
a far finer one than could be learned from books. So Diana grew up in a
day, and in a fortnight the old life was behind her and she had started
out on the ceaseless travels with her brother that had continued for
the last six years--years of perpetual change, of excitements and
dangers.

She thought of it all, sitting on the broad rail of the balcony, her
head slanted against the column on which she leaned. "It's been a
splendid life," she murmured, "and to-morrow--to-day begins the most
perfect part of it." She yawned and realised suddenly that she was
desperately sleepy. She turned back into her room, leaving the windows
wide, and, flinging off her wrap, tumbled into bed and slept almost
before her head was on the pillow.

It must have been about an hour later when she awoke, suddenly wide
awake. She lay quite still, looking cautiously under her thick lashes.
The room was flooded with moonlight, there was nothing to be seen, but
she had the positive feeling that there was another presence in the
room beside her own; she had had a half-conscious vision in the moment
of waking of a shadowy something that had seemed to fade away by the
window. As the actual reality of this thought pierced through the sleep
that dulled her brain and became a concrete suggestion, she sprang out
of the bed and ran on to the balcony. It was empty. She leaned over the
railing, listening intently, but she could see nothing and hear
nothing. Puzzled, she went back into her room and turned on the lights.
Nothing seemed to be missing: her watch lay where she had left it on
the dressing table; and the suit-cases had apparently not been tampered
with. By the bedside the ivory-mounted revolver that she always carried
was lying as she had placed it. She looked around the room again,
frowning. "It must have been a dream," she said doubtfully, "but it
seemed very real. It looked tall and white and solid, and I _felt_
it there." She waited a moment or two, then shrugged her shoulders,
turned out the lights, and got into bed. Her nerves were admirable, and
in five minutes she was asleep again.




CHAPTER II


The promised send-off had been enthusiastic. The arrangements for the
trip had been perfect; there had been no hitch anywhere. The guide,
Mustafa Ali, appeared capable and efficient, effacing himself when not
wanted and replying with courteous dignity when spoken to. The day had
been full of interest, and the long, hot ride had for Diana been the
height of physical enjoyment. They had reached the oasis where the
first night was to be passed an hour before, and found the camp already
established, tents pitched, and everything so ordered that Sir Aubrey
could find nothing to criticise; even Stephens, his servant, who had
travelled with him since Diana was a baby, and who was as critical as
his master on the subject of camps, had no fault to find.

Diana glanced about her little travelling tent with complete content.
It was much smaller than the ones to which she had always been
accustomed, ridiculously so compared with the large one she had had in
India the previous year, with its separate bath--and dressing-rooms.
Servants, too, had swarmed in India. Here service promised to be
inadequate, but it had been her whim on this tour to dispense with the
elaborate arrangements that Sir Aubrey cultivated and to try
comparative roughing it. The narrow camp cot, the tin bath, the little
folding table and her two suit-cases seemed to take up all the
available space. But she laughed at the inconvenience, though she had
drenched her bed with splashing, and the soap had found its way into
the toe of one of her long boots. She had changed from her riding
clothes into a dress of clinging jade-green silk, swinging short above
her slender ankles, the neck cut low, revealing the gleaming white of
her soft, girlish bosom. She came out of the tent and stood a moment
exchanging an amused smile with Stephens, who was hovering near
dubiously, one eye on her and the other on his master. She was late,
and Sir Aubrey liked his meals punctually. The baronet was lounging in
one deck-chair with his feet on another.

Diana wagged an admonishing forefinger. "Fly, Stephens, and fetch the
soup! If it is cold there will be a riot." She walked to the edge of
the canvas cloth that had been thrown down in front of the tents and
stood revelling in the scene around her, her eyes dancing with
excitement as they glanced slowly around the camp spread out over the
oasis--the clustering palm trees, the desert itself stretching away
before her in undulating sweeps, but seemingly level in the evening
light, far off to the distant hills lying like a dark smudge against
the horizon. She drew a long breath. It was the desert at last, the
desert that she felt she had been longing for all her life. She had
never known until this moment how intense the longing had been. She
felt strangely at home, as if the great, silent emptiness had been
waiting for her as she had been waiting for it, and now that she had
come it was welcoming her softly with the faint rustle of the
whispering sand, the mysterious charm of its billowy, shifting surface
that seemed beckoning to her to penetrate further and further into its
unknown obscurities.

Her brother's voice behind her brought her down to earth suddenly.
"You've been a confounded long time."

She turned to the table with a faint smile. "Don't be a bear, Aubrey.
It's all very well for you. You have Stephens to lather your chin and
to wash your hands, but thanks to that idiot Marie, I have to look
after myself."

Sir Aubrey took his heels down leisurely from the second chair, pitched
away his cigar, and, screwing his eyeglass into his eye with more than
usual truculence, looked at her with disapproval. "Are you going to rig
yourself out like that every evening for the benefit of Mustafa Ali and
the camel-drivers?"

"I do not propose to invite the worthy Mustafa to meals, and I am not
in the habit of 'rigging myself out,' as you so charmingly put it, for
any one's benefit. If you think I dress in camp to please you, my dear
Aubrey, you flatter yourself. I do it entirely to please myself. That
explorer woman we met in London that first year I began travelling with
you explained to me the real moral and physical value of changing into
comfortable, pretty clothes after a hard day in breeches and boots. You
change yourself. What's the difference?"

"All the difference," he snapped. "There is no need for you to make
yourself more attractive than you are already."

"Since when has it occurred to you that I am attractive? You must have
a touch of the sun, Aubrey," she replied, with uplifted eyebrows,
drumming impatiently with her fingers on the table.

"Don't quibble. You know perfectly well that you are good-looking--too
good-looking to carry through this preposterous affair."

"Will you please tell me what you are driving at?" she asked quietly.
But the dark blue eyes fixed on her brother's face were growing darker
as she looked at him.

"I've been doing some hard thinking to-day, Diana. This tour you
propose is impossible."

"Isn't it rather late in the day to find that out?" she interrupted
sarcastically; but he ignored the interruption.

"You must see for yourself, now that you are face to face with the
thing, that it is impossible. It's quite unthinkable that you can
wander for the next month all alone in the desert with those damned
niggers. Though my legal guardianship over you terminated last
September I still have some moral obligations towards you. Though it
has been convenient to me to bring you up as a boy and to regard you in
the light of a younger brother instead of a sister, we cannot get away
from the fact that you are a woman, and a very young woman. There are
certain things a young woman cannot do. If you had been the boy I
always wished you were it would have been a different matter, but you
are not a boy, and the whole thing is impossible--utterly impossible."
There was a fretful impatience in his voice.

Diana lit a cigarette slowly, and swung round on her chair with a hard
laugh. "If I had not lived with you all my life, Aubrey, I should
really be impressed with your brotherly solicitude; I should think you
really meant it. But knowing you as I do, I know that it is not anxiety
on my behalf that is prompting you, but the disinclination that you
have to travel alone without me. You have come to depend on me to save
you certain annoyances and inconveniences that always occur in
travelling. You were more honest in Biskra when you only objected to my
trip without giving reasons. Why have you waited until to-night to give
me those reasons?"

"Because I thought that here, at least, you would have sense enough to
see them. In Biskra it was impossible to argue with you. You made your
own arrangements against my wishes. I left it, feeling convinced that
the impossibility of it would be brought home to you here, and that you
would see for yourself that it was out of the question. Diana, give up
this insane trip."

"I will not."

"I've a thundering good mind to make you."

"You can't. I'm my own mistress. You have no right over me at all. You
have no claim on me. You haven't even that of ordinary brotherly
affection, for you have never given me any, so you cannot expect it
from me. We needn't make any pretence about it, I am not going to argue
any more. I will not go back to Biskra."

"If you are afraid of being laughed at----" he sneered; but she took him
up swiftly.

"I am not afraid of being laughed at. Only cowards are afraid of that,
and I am not a coward."

"Diana, listen to reason!"

"Aubrey! I have said my last word. Nothing will alter my determination
to go on this trip. Your arguments do not convince me, who know you. It
is your own considerations and not mine that are at the bottom of your
remonstrances. You do not deny it, because you can't, because it is
true."

They were facing each other across the little table. An angry flush
rose in Sir Aubrey's face, and his eyeglass fell with a little sharp
tinkle against a waistcoat button.

"You're a damned obstinate little devil!" he said furiously.

She looked at him steadily, her scornful mouth firm as his own. "I am
what you have made me," she said slowly. "Why quarrel with the result?
You have brought me up to ignore the restrictions attached to my sex;
you now round on me and throw them in my face. All my life you have set
me an example of selfishness and obstinacy. Can you wonder that I have
profited by it? You have made me as hard as yourself, and you now
profess surprise at the determination your training has forced upon me.
You are illogical. It is your fault, not mine. There was bound to be a
clash some day. It has come sooner than I expected, that's all. Up till
now my inclinations have gone with yours, but this seems to be the
parting of the ways. As I reminded you before, I am my own mistress,
and I will submit to no interference with my actions. Please understand
that clearly, Aubrey. I don't want to wrangle any more. I will join you
in New York as I promised. I am not in the habit of breaking my
promises, but my life is my own to deal with, and I will deal with it
exactly as I wish and not as any one else wishes. I will do what I
choose when and how I choose, and I will _never_ obey any will but
my own."

Sir Aubrey's eyes narrowed suddenly. "Then I hope to Heaven that one
day you will fall into the hands of a man who will make you obey," he
cried wrathfully.

Her scornful mouth curled still more scornfully. "Then Heaven help
him!" she retorted scathingly, and turned away to her tent.

But, alone, her anger gave way to amusement. It had been something,
after all, to rouse the lazy Aubrey to wrath. She knew exactly the
grievance he had been nursing against her during the last few weeks in
Biskra. Though he travelled perpetually and often in remote and
desolate places, he travelled with the acme of comfort and the minimum
of inconveniences. He put himself out for nothing, and the inevitable
difficulties that accrued fell on Diana's younger and less blase
shoulders. She had always known the uses he put her to and the
convenience she was to him. He might have some latent feelings with
regard to the inadvisability of her behavior, he might even have some
prickings of conscience on the subject of his upbringing of her, but it
was thoughts of his own comfort that were troubling him most. That she
knew, and the knowledge was not conducive to any kinder feeling towards
him. He always had been and always would be supremely selfish. The
whole of their life together had been conducted to suit his
conveniences and not hers. She knew, too, why her company was
particularly desired on his visit to America. It was a hunting trip,
but not the kind that they were usually accustomed to: it was a wife
and not big game that was taking Sir Aubrey across the ocean on this
occasion. It had been in his mind for some time as an inevitable and
somewhat unpleasant necessity. Women bored him, and the idea of
marriage was distasteful, but a son to succeed him was imperative--a
Mayo must be followed by a Mayo. An heir was essential for the big
property that the family had held for hundreds of years. No woman had
ever attracted him, but of all women he had met American women were
less actively irritating to him, and so it was to America that he
turned in search of a wife. He proposed to take a house in New York for
a few months and later on in Newport, and it was for that that Diana's
company was considered indispensable. She would save him endless
trouble, as all arrangements could be left in her hands and Stephens'.
Having made up his mind to go through with a proceeding that he
regarded in the light of a sacrifice on the family altar, his wish was
to get it over and done with as soon as possible, and Diana's
interference in his plans had exasperated him. It was the first time
that their wills had crossed, and she shrugged her shoulders
impatiently, with a grimace at the recollection. A little more and it
would have degenerated into a vulgar quarrel. She banished Aubrey and
his selfishness resolutely from her mind. It was very hot, and she lay
very still in the narrow cot, wishing she had not been so rigid in the
matter of its width, and wondering if a sudden movement in the night
would precipitate her into the bath that stood alongside. She thought
regretfully of a punkah, and then smiled derisively at herself.

"Sybarite!" she murmured sleepily. "You need a few discomforts."

She was almost aggressively cheerful next morning at breakfast and for
the time that they lingered at the oasis after the baggage camels had
started. Sir Aubrey was morose and silent, and she exchanged most of
her badinage with Stephens, who was superintending the packing of the
tiffin basket that would accompany her in charge of the man who had
been selected as her personal servant, and who was waiting, with
Mustafa Ali and about ten men, to ride with her.

The time for starting came. Stephens was fussing about the horse that
Diana was to ride.

"Everything all right, Stephens? Up to your standard? Don't look so
glum. I wish you were coming to look after me, but it couldn't be done.
Sir Aubrey would be lost without you."

The idea of a tour without Stephens in the background seemed suddenly
momentous, and the smile she gave him was more serious than she meant
it to be. She went back to her brother, who was pulling his moustache
savagely. "I don't think there's any use waiting any longer. You won't
want to hurry yourself too much, and you will want to be in Biskra in
time for dinner," she said as casually as she could.

He swung towards her. "Diana, it's still not too late to change your
mind. For Heaven's sake give up this folly. It's tempting Providence."
For the first time there was a genuine ring in his voice, and for a
moment Diana wavered, but only for a moment. Then she looked at him
with a slow smile.

"Do I fall on your neck and say, 'Take me back, dear Guardian; I will
be good,' or do I prostrate myself at your feet and knock my head on
your boots, and whine, in the language of the country, 'Hearing is
obeying'? Don't be ridiculous, Aubrey. You can't expect me to change my
mind at the eleventh hour. It's perfectly safe. Mustafa Ali will take
care that everything goes smoothly. He has his reputation in Biskra to
think of. You know the character the authorities gave him. He is not
likely to throw that away. In any case I can take care of myself,
thanks to your training. I don't mind owning to being conceited about
my shooting. Even you admit that I am a credit to your teaching."

With a gay little laugh she whipped out the ivory-mounted revolver, and
aiming at a low flat rock, some distance away, fired. She was an
unusually good revolver shot, but this time she seemed to have missed.
There was no mark on the stone. Diana stared at it stupidly, a frown of
perplexity creasing her forehead. Then she looked at her brother, and
back to the revolver in her hand.

Sir Aubrey swore. "Diana! What a senseless piece of bravado!" he cried
angrily.

She took no notice of him. She was still staring at the smooth rock
fate. "I don't understand it. How could I miss? It's as big as a
house," she murmured thoughtfully, and raised the revolver again.

But Sir Aubrey caught her wrist. "For God's sake don't make a fool of
yourself a second time. You have lowered your prestige quite enough
already," he said in a low voice, with a glance at the group of
watching Arabs.

Diana jerked the little weapon back into its place reluctantly. "I
don't understand it," she said again. "It must be the light." She
mounted and wheeled her horse alongside of Sir Aubrey's, and held out
her hand. "Good-bye, Aubrey. Expect me a month after you arrive. I will
cable to you from Cherbourg. Good luck! I shall roll up in time to be
best man," she added, laughing, and with a nod to Mustafa Ali she
turned her horse's head southwards.

For a long time she rode in silence. The quarrel with Aubrey had left a
nasty taste in her mouth. She knew that what she was doing was
considered unconventional, but she had been brought up to be
unconventional. She had never even thought, when she planned her tour,
of possible criticism; it would have made no difference to her if she
had thought, and she had been amazed and amused at the sensation that
her proposed trip had caused. The publicity to which it had given rise
had annoyed her intensely; she had been scornful that people could not
occupy themselves with their own affairs and leave her to deal with
hers. But that Aubrey should join in the general criticism and present
such a complete _volte-face_ to the opinions he had always held
was beyond her comprehension. She was angry with him, and contempt was
mingled with her anger. It was inconsistent with the whole of his
lifelong attitude toward her, and the discovery of his altered ideas
left her rather breathless and more than ever determined to adhere to
her own deeply-rooted convictions. Aubrey was responsible for them, he
had instilled them, and if he chose now to abandon them that was his
look-out. For her own part she saw no reason to change principles she
had been brought up in. If Aubrey really thought there was danger in
this expedition he could have sacrificed himself for once and come with
her. As Jim Arbuthnot had said, it was only a month, a negligible
length of time, but Aubrey's selfishness would not allow him to make
that concession any more than her own obstinacy would allow her to give
way. It was too much to expect. And this was the desert! It was the
expedition that she had dreamed of and planned for years. She could not
give it up. The idea of danger brought a little laugh to her lips. How
could anything in the desert hurt her? It had been calling to her
always. There was nothing strange about the scene that lay all around
her. Her surroundings seemed oddly familiar. The burning sun overhead
in the cloudless sky, the shimmering haze rising from the hot, dry
ground, the feathery outline of some clustering palm trees in a tiny
distant oasis were like remembrances that she watched again with a
feeling of gladness that was fuller and deeper than anything that she
had been conscious of before. She was radiantly happy--happy in the
sense of her youth and strength, her perfect physical fitness, happy in
the capacity of her power of enjoyment, happy with the touch of the
keen, nervous horse between her knees, exhilarated with her new
authority. She had looked forward so eagerly, and realisation was
proving infinitely greater than anticipation. And for a whole month
this perfect happiness was to be hers. She thought of her promise to
Aubrey with impatience. To give up the joyous freedom of the desert for
the commonplace round of American social life seemed preposterous. The
thought of the weeks in New York were frankly tedious; Newport would be
a little less bad, for there were alleviations. The only hope was that
Aubrey would find the wife he was looking for quickly and release her
from an obligation that was going to be very wearisome. Aubrey was
counting on her, and it would be unsporting to let him down; she would
have to keep her promise, but she would be glad when it was over.
Aubrey married would settle definitely the possibility of any further
disagreements between them. She wondered vaguely what the future Lady
Mayo would be like, but she did not expend much pity on her. American
girls as a rule were well able to care for themselves. She stroked her
horse with a little smile. Aubrey and his possible wife seemed
singularly uninteresting beside the vivid interest of the moment. A
caravan that had been visible for a long time coming towards them drew
nearer, and Diana reined in to watch the long line of slow, lurching
camels passing. The great beasts, with their disdainful tread and long,
swaying necks, never failed to interest her. It was a large caravan;
the bales on the camels' backs looked heavy, and beside the merchants
on riding camels and a motley crowd of followers--some on lean little
donkeys and others on foot--there was an armed guard of mounted men. It
took some time to pass. One of two of the camels carried huddled
figures, swathed and shapeless with a multitude of coverings, that
Diana knew must be women. The contrast between them and herself was
almost ridiculous. It made her feel stifled even to look at them. She
wondered what their lives were like, if they ever rebelled against the
drudgery and restrictions that were imposed upon them, if they ever
longed for the freedom that she was revelling in, or if custom and
usage were so strong that they had no thoughts beyond the narrow life
they led. The thought of those lives filled her with aversion. The idea
of marriage--even in its highest form, based on mutual consideration
and mutual forbearance--was repugnant to her. She thought of it with a
shiver of absolute repulsion. To Aubrey it was distasteful, but to her
cold, reserved temperament it was a thing of horror and disgust. That
women could submit to the degrading intimacy and fettered existence of
married life filled her with scornful wonder. To be bound irrevocably
to the will and pleasure of a man who would have the right to demand
obedience in all that constituted marriage and the strength to enforce
those claims revolted her. For a Western woman it was bad enough, but
for the women of the East, mere slaves of the passions of the men who
owned them, unconsidered, disregarded, reduced to the level of animals,
the bare idea made her quiver and bring her hand down heavily on her
horse's neck. The nervous creature started sharply and she let him go,
calling to Mustafa Ali as she cantered past him. He had ridden to meet
the caravan and was dismounted, deep in conversation with the chief of
the armed guard. With the thoughts that it had provoked the caravan had
lost all interest for Diana. She wanted to get away from it, to forget
it, and she rode on unmindful of her escort, who, like her guide, had
stopped to speak with the traders. Diana's horse was fleet, and it was
some time before they caught her up. There was a look of annoyance on
Mustafa Ali's face as she turned on hearing them behind her and signed
to him to ride beside her.

"Mademoiselle is not interested in the caravan?" he asked curiously.

"No," she replied shortly, and asked for some details connected with
her own expedition. The man talked easily and well, in fluent French,
and after giving the required information, volunteered anecdotes
relating to various well-known people whom he had guided in the desert.
Diana watched him interestedly. He seemed a man of about middle age,
though it was difficult to guess more than approximately, for the
thick, peaked beard that hid both mouth and chin made him look older
than he really was. His beard had been his only drawback from Diana's
point of view, for she judged men by their mouths. Eyes were
untrustworthy evidences of character in an Oriental, for they usually
wavered under a European's. Mustafa Ali's were wavering now as she
looked at him, and it occurred to her that they had not seemed nearly
so shifty in Biskra when she had engaged him. But she attached no
importance to the thought, and dismissed it as much less interesting
than the great difference displayed in their respective modes of
riding. The Arab's exaggeratedly short stirrup would have given her
agonies of cramp. She pointed the difference with a laugh of amusement
and drew the man on to speak of his horses. The one Diana was riding
was an unusually fine beast, and had been one of the greatest points in
the guide's favour when he had brought it for her inspection. He was
enthusiastic in its praise, but volubly vague as to its antecedents,
which left Diana with the conviction that the animal had either been
stolen or acquired in some irregular manner and that it would be
tactless to pursue further inquiries. After all it was no business of
hers. It was enough that her trip was to be conducted on the back of a
horse that it was a pleasure to ride and whose vagaries promised to
give interest to what otherwise might have been monotonous. Some of the
horses that she had seen in Biskra had been the veriest jades.

She asked Mustafa Ali about the country through which they were
passing, but he did not seem to have much information that was really
of interest, or what seemed important to him appeared trivial to her,
and he constantly brought the conversation back to Biskra, of which she
was tired, or to Oran, of which she knew nothing. The arrival at a
little oasis where the guide suggested that the midday halt might be
made was opportune. Diana swung to the ground, and, tossing down her
gloves, gave herself a shake. It was hot work riding in the burning sun
and the rest would be delightful. She had a thoroughly healthy
appetite, and superintended the laying out of her lunch with interest.
It was the last time that it would be as daintily packed. Stephens was
an artist with a picnic basket. She was going to miss Stephens. She
finished her lunch quickly, and then, with her back propped against a
palm tree, a cigarette in her mouth, her arms clasped round her knees,
she settled down happily, overlooking the desert. The noontime hush
seemed over everything. Not a breath of wind stirred the tops of the
palms; a lizard on a rock near her was the only living thing she could
see. She glanced over her shoulder. The men, with their big cloaks
drawn over their heads, were lying asleep, or at any rate appeared to
be so; only Mustafa Ali was on foot, standing at the edge of the oasis,
staring fixedly in the direction in which they would ride later.

Diana threw the end of her cigarette at the lizard and laughed at its
precipitant flight. She had no desire to follow the example of her
escort and sleep. She was much too happy to lose a minute of her
enjoyment by wasting it in rest that she did not require. She was
perfectly content and satisfied with herself and her outlook. She had
not a care or a thought in the world. There was not a thing that she
would have changed or altered. Her life had always been happy; she had
extracted the last ounce of pleasure out of every moment of it. That
her happiness was due to the wealth that had enabled her to indulge in
the sports and constant travel that made up the sum total of her
desires never occurred to her. That what composed her pleasure in life
was possible only because she was rich enough to buy the means of
gratifying it did not enter her head. She thought of her wealth no more
than of her beauty. The business connected with her coming of age, when
the big fortune left to her by her father passed unreservedly into her
own hands, was a wearisome necessity that had been got through as
expeditiously as possible, with as little attention to detail as the
old family lawyer had allowed, and an absence of interest that was
evidenced in the careless scrawl she attached to each document that was
given her to sign. The mere money in itself was nothing; it was only a
means to an end. She had never even realised how much was expended on
the continuous and luxurious expeditions that she had made with Sir
Aubrey; her own individual tastes were simple, and apart from the
expensive equipment that was indispensable for their hunting trips, and
which was Aubrey's choosing, not hers, she was not extravagant. The
long list of figures that had been so boring during the tedious hours
that she had spent with the lawyer, grudging every second of the
glorious September morning that she had had to waste in the library
when she was longing to be out of doors, had conveyed nothing to her
beyond the fact that in future when she wanted anything she would be
put to the trouble of writing out an absurd piece of paper herself,
instead of leaving the matter in Aubrey's hands, as she had done
hitherto.

She had hardly understood and had been much embarrassed by the formal
and pedantic congratulations with which the lawyer had concluded his
business statement. She was not aware that she was an object of
congratulation. It all seemed very stupid and uninteresting. Of real
life she knew nothing and of the ordinary ties and attachments of
family life less than nothing. Aubrey's cold, loveless training had
debarred her from all affection; she had grown up oblivious of it. Love
did not exist for her; from even the thought of passion she shrank
instinctively with the same fastidiousness as she did from actual
physical uncleanliness.

That she had awakened an emotion that she did not understand herself in
certain men had been an annoyance that had become more intolerable with
repetition. She had hated them and herself impartially, and she had
scorned them fiercely. She had never been so gentle and so human with
any one as she had been with Jim Arbuthnot, and that only because she
was so radiantly happy that night that not even the distasteful
reminder that she was a woman whom a man coveted was able to disturb
her happiness. But here there was no need to dwell on annoyances or
distasteful reminders.

Diana dug her heels into the soft ground with a little wriggle of
content; here she would be free from anything that could mar her
perfect enjoyment of life as it appeared to her. Here there was nothing
to spoil her pleasure. Her head had drooped during her thoughts, and
for the last few minutes her eyes had been fixed on the dusty tips of
her riding-boots. But she raised them now and looked up with a great
content in them. It was the happiest day of her life. She had forgotten
the quarrel with Aubrey. She had put from her the chain of ideas
suggested by the passing caravan. There was nothing discordant to
disturb the perfect harmony of her mind.

A shade beside her made her turn her head. Mustafa Ali salaamed
obsequiously. "It is time to start, Mademoiselle."

Diana looked up in surprise and then back over her shoulder at the
escort. The men were already mounted. The smile faded from her eyes.
Mustafa Ali was guide, but she was head of this expedition; if her
guide had not realised this he would have to do so now. She glanced at
the watch on her wrist.

"There is plenty of time," she said coolly.

Mustafa Ali salaamed again. "It is a long ride to reach the oasis where
we must camp to-night," he insisted hurriedly.

Diana crossed one brown boot over the other, and scooping up some sand
in the palm of her hand trickled it through her fingers slowly. "Then
we can ride faster," she replied quietly, looking at the shining
particles glistening in the sun.

Mustafa Ali made a movement of impatience and persisted doggedly.
"Mademoiselle would do well to start."

Diana looked up swiftly with angry eyes. Under the man's suave manner
and simple words a peremptory tone had crept into his voice. She sat
quite still, her fingers raking the warm sand, and under her haughty
stare the guide's eyes wavered and turned away. "We will start when I
choose, Mustafa Ali," she said brusquely. "You may give orders to your
men, but you will take your orders from me. I will tell you when I am
ready. You may go."

Still he hesitated, swaying irresolutely backwards and forwards on his
heels.

Diana snapped her fingers over her shoulder, a trick she had learned
from a French officer in Biskra. "I said go!" she repeated sharply. She
took no notice of his going and did not look back to see what orders he
gave the men. She glanced at her watch again. Perhaps it was growing
late, perhaps the camp was a longer ride than she had thought; but
Mustafa Ali must learn his lesson if they rode till midnight to reach
the oasis. She pushed her obstinate chin out further and then smiled
again suddenly. She hoped that the night would fall before they reached
their destination. There had been one or two moonlight riding picnics
out from Biskra, and the glamour of the desert nights had gone to
Diana's head. This riding into the unknown away from the noisy,
chattering crowd who had spoiled the perfect stillness of the night
would be infinitely more perfect. She gave a little sigh of regret as
she thought of it. It was not really practical. Though she would wait
nearly another hour to allow the fact of her authority to sink into
Mustafa Ali's brain she would have to hasten afterwards to arrive at
the camp before darkness set in. The men were unused to her ways and
she to theirs. She would not have Stephens' help to-night; she would
have to depend on herself to order everything as she wished it, and it
was easier done in daylight. One hour would not make much difference.
The horses had more in them than had been taken out of them this
morning; they could be pushed along a bit faster with no harm happening
to them. She eyed her watch from time to time with a grin of amusement,
but suppressed the temptation to look and see how Mustafa Ali was
taking it, for her action might be seen and misconstrued.

When the time she had set herself was up she rose and walked slowly
towards the group of Arabs. The guide's face was sullen, but she took
no notice, and, when they started, motioned him to her side again with
a reference to Biskra that provoked a flow of words. It was the last
place she wanted to hear of, but it was one of which he spoke the
readiest, and she knew it was not wise to allow him to remain silent to
sulk. His ill-temper would evaporate with the sound of his own voice.
She rode forward steadily, silent herself, busy with her own thoughts,
heedless of the voice beside her, and unconscious of the fact when it
became silent.

She had been quite right about the capabilities of the horses. They
responded without any apparent effort to the further demand made of
them. The one in particular that Diana was riding moved in a swift,
easy gallop that was the perfection of motion.

They had been riding for some hours when they came to the first oasis
that had been sighted since leaving the one where the midday halt was
made. Diana pulled up her horse to look at it, for it was unusually
beautiful in the luxuriousness and arrangement of its group of palms
and leafy bushes. Some pigeons were cooing softly, hidden from sight
amongst the trees, with a plaintive melancholy that somehow seemed in
keeping with the deserted spot. Beside the well, forming a triangle,
stood what had been three particularly fine palm trees, but the tops
had been broken off about twenty feet up from the ground, and the
mutilated trunks reared themselves bare and desolate-looking. Diana
took off her heavy helmet and tossed it to the man behind her, and sat
looking at the oasis, while the faint breeze that had sprung up stirred
her thick, short hair, and cooled her hot head. The sad notes of the
pigeons and the broken palms, that with their unusualness vaguely
suggested a tragedy, lent an air of mystery to the place that pleased
her.

She turned eagerly to Mustafa Ali. "Why did you not arrange for the
camp to be here? It would have been a long enough ride."

The man fidgeted in his saddle, fingering his beard uneasily, his eyes
wandering past Diana's and looking at the broken trees. "No man rests
here, Mademoiselle. It is the place of devils. The curse of Allah is
upon it," he muttered, touching his horse with his heel, and making it
sidle restlessly--an obvious hint that Diana ignored.

"I like it," she persisted obstinately.

He made a quick gesture with his fingers. "It is accursed. Death lurks
beside those broken palm trees," he said, looking at her curiously.

She jerked her head with a sudden smile. "For you, perhaps, but not for
me. Allah's curse rests only upon those who fear it. But since you are
afraid, Mustafa Ali, let us go on." She gave a little light laugh, and
Mustafa Ali kicked his horse savagely as he followed.

The distance before her spread out cleanly with the sharp distinctness
that precedes the setting sun. She rode on until she began to wonder if
it would indeed be night-fall before she reached her destination. They
had ridden longer and faster than had ever been intended. It seemed odd
that they had not overtaken the baggage camels. She looked at her watch
with a frown. "Where is your caravan, Mustafa Ali?" she called. "I see
no sign of an oasis, and the darkness will come."

"If Mademoiselle had started earlier----" he said sullenly.

"If I had started earlier it would still have been too far. To-morrow
we will arrange it otherwise," she said firmly.

"To-morrow----" he growled indistinctly.

Diana looked at him keenly. "What did you say?" she asked haughtily.

His hand went to his forehead mechanically. "To-morrow is with Allah!"
he murmured with unctuous piety.

A retort trembled on Diana's lips, but her attention was distracted
from her annoying guide to a collection of black specks far off across
the desert. They were too far away for her to see clearly, but she
pointed to them, peering at them intently. "See!" she cried. "Is that
the caravan?"

"As Allah wills!" he replied more piously than before, and Diana
wished, with a sudden feeling of irritation, that he would stop
relegating his responsibilities to the Deity and take a little more
active personal interest in his missing camel train.

The black specks were moving fast across the level plain. Very soon
Diana saw that it was not the slow, leisurely camels that they were
overtaking, but a band of mounted men who were moving swiftly towards
them. They had seen nobody since the traders' caravan had passed them
in the morning. For Diana the Arabs that were approaching were even
more interesting than the caravan had been. She had seen plenty of
caravans arriving and departing from Biskra, but, though she had seen
small parties of tribesmen constantly in the vicinity of the town, she
had never seen so large a body of mounted men before, nor had she seen
them as they were here, one with the wild picturesqueness of their
surroundings. It was impossible to count how many there were, for they
were riding in close formation, the wind filling their great white
cloaks, making each man look gigantic. Diana's interest flamed up
excitedly. It was like passing another ship upon a hitherto empty sea.
They seemed to add a desired touch to the grim loneliness of the scene
that had begun to be a little awe-inspiring. Perhaps she was hungry,
perhaps she was tired, or perhaps she was only annoyed by the bad
arrangements of her guide, but before the advent of the mounted Arabs
Diana had been conscious of a feeling of oppression, as if the silent
desolation of the desert was weighing heavily upon her, but the body of
swiftly moving men and horses had changed the aspect utterly. An
atmosphere of life and purpose seemed to have taken the place of the
quiet stagnation that had been before their coming.

The distance between the two parties decreased rapidly. Diana, intent
on the quickly advancing horsemen, spurred ahead of her guide with
sparkling eyes. They were near enough now to see that the horses were
beautiful creatures and that each man rode magnificently. They were
armed too, their rifles being held in front of them, not slung on their
backs as she had seen in Biskra. They passed quite close to her, only a
few yards away--a solid square, the orderly ranks suggesting training
and discipline that she had not looked for. Not a head turned in her
direction as they went by and the pace was not slackened. Fretted by
the proximity of the galloping horses, her own horse reared
impatiently, but Diana pulled him in, turning in her saddle to watch
the Arabs pass, her breath coming quick with excitement.

"What are they?" she called out to Mustafa Ali, who had dropped some
way behind her. But he, too, was looking back at the horsemen, and did
not seem to hear her question. Her escort had lagged still further
behind her guide and were some distance away. Diana watched the rapidly
moving, compact square eagerly with appreciatory eyes--it was a
beautiful sight. Then she gave a little gasp. The galloping horses had
drawn level with the last stragglers of her own party, and just beyond
they stopped suddenly. Diana would not have believed it possible that
they could have stopped so suddenly and in such close formation while
travelling at such a pace. The tremendous strain on the bridles flung
the horses far back on their haunches. But there was no time to dwell
on the wonderful horsemanship or training of the men. Events moved too
rapidly. The solid square split up and lengthened out into a long line
of two men riding abreast. Wheeling behind the last of Mustafa's men
they came back even faster than they had passed, and circled widely
round Diana and her attendants. Bewildered by this manoeuvre she
watched them with a puzzled frown, striving to soothe her horse, who
was nearly frantic with excitement. Twice they galloped round her
little band, their long cloaks fluttering, their rifles tossing in
their hands. Diana was growing impatient. It was very fine to watch,
but time and the light were both going. She would have been glad if the
demonstration had occurred earlier in the day, when there would have
been more time to enjoy it. She turned again to Mustafa Ali to suggest
that they had better try to move on, but he had gone further from her,
back towards his own. She wrestled with her nervous mount, trying to
turn him to join her guide, when a sudden burst of rifle shots made her
start and her horse bound violently. Then she laughed. That would be
the end of the demonstration, a parting salute, the _decharge de
mousqueterie_ beloved of the Arab. She turned her head from her
refractory horse to look at them ride off, and the laugh died away on
her lips. It was not a farewell salute. The rifles that the Arabs were
firing were not pointing up into the heavens, but aiming straight at
her and her escort. And as she stared with suddenly startled eyes,
unable to do anything with her plunging horse, Mustafa Ali's men were
blotted out from her sight, cut off by a band of Arabs who rode between
her and them. Mustafa Ali himself was lying forward on the neck of his
horse, who was standing quiet amidst the general confusion. Then there
came another volley, and the guide slid slowly out of his saddle on to
the ground, and at the same time Diana's horse went off with a wild
leap that nearly unseated her.

Until they started shooting the thought that the Arabs could be hostile
had not crossed her mind. She imagined that they were merely showing
off with the childish love of display which she knew was
characteristic. The French authorities had been right after all.
Diana's first feeling was one of contempt for an administration that
made possible such an attempt so near civilisation. Her second a
fleeting amusement at the thought of how Aubrey would jeer. But her
amusement passed as the real seriousness of the attack came home to
her. For the first time it occurred to her that her guide's descent
from his saddle was due to a wound and not to the fear that she had at
first disgustedly attributed to him. But nobody had seemed to put up
any kind of a fight, she thought wrathfully. She tugged angrily at her
horse's mouth, but the bit was between his teeth and he tore on
frantically. Her own position made her furious. Her guide was wounded,
his men surrounded, and she was ignominiously being run away with by a
bolting horse. If she could only turn the wretched animal. It would
only be a question of ransom, of that she was positive. She must get
back somehow to the others and arrange terms. It was an annoyance, of
course, but after all it added a certain piquancy to her trip, it would
be an experience. It was only a "hold-up." She did not suppose the
Arabs had even really meant to hurt any one, but they were excited and
some one's shot, aimed wide, had found an unexpected billet. It could
only be that. It was too near Biskra for any real danger, she argued
with herself, still straining on the reins. She would not admit that
there was any danger, though her heart was beating in a way that it had
never done before. Then as she hauled ineffectually at the bridle with
all her strength there came from behind her the sound of a long, shrill
whistle. Her horse pricked up his ears and she was conscious that his
pace sensibly lessened. Instinctively she looked behind. A solitary
Arab was riding after her and as she looked she realised that his horse
was gaining on hers. The thought drove every idea of stopping her
runaway from her and made her dig her spurs into him instead. There was
a sinister air of deliberation in the way in which the Arab was
following her; he was riding her down.

Diana's mouth closed firmly and a new keenness came into her steady
eyes. It was one thing to go back voluntarily to make terms with the
men who had attacked her party; it was quite another thing to be
deliberately chased across the desert by an Arab freebooter. Her
obstinate chin was almost square. Then the shadow of a laugh flickered
in her eyes and curved her mouth. New experiences were crowding in upon
her to-day. She had often wondered what the feelings of a hunted
creature were. She seemed in a fair way of finding out. She had always
stoutly maintained that the fox enjoyed the run as much as the hounds;
that remained to be proved, but, in any case, she would give this hound
a run for his money. She could ride, and there seemed plenty yet in the
frightened animal under her. She bent down, lying low against his neck
with a little, reckless laugh, coaxing him with all her knowledge and
spurring him alternately. But soon her mood changed. She frowned
anxiously as she looked at the last rays of the setting sun. It would
be dark very soon. She could not go chasing through the night with this
tiresome Arab at her heels. The humour seemed to have died out of the
situation and Diana began to get angry. In the level country that
surrounded her there were no natural features that could afford cover
or aid in any way; there seemed nothing for it but to own herself
defeated and pull up--if she could. An idea of trying to dodge him and
of returning of her own free will was dismissed at once as hopeless.
She had seen enough in her short glimpse of the Arabs' tactics when
they had passed her to know that she was dealing with a finished
horseman on a perfectly trained horse, and that her idea could never
succeed. But, perversely, she felt that to that particular Arab
following her she would never give in. She would ride till she dropped,
or the horse did, before that.

The whistle came again, and again, in spite of her relentless spurring,
her horse checked his pace. A sudden inspiration came to her. Perhaps
it was the horse she was riding that was the cause of all the trouble.
It was certainly the Arab's whistle that had made it moderate its
speed; it was responding clearly to a signal that it knew. Her guide's
reluctance to give any particulars of his acquisition of the horse came
back to her. There could not be much doubt about it. The animal had
unquestionably been stolen, and either belonged to or was known to the
party of Arabs who had met them.

The _naivete_ that paraded a stolen horse through the desert at
the risk of meeting its former owner made her smile in spite of her
annoyance, but it was not a pleasant smile, as her thoughts turned from
the horse to its present owner. The sum of Mustafa Ali's delinquencies
was mounting up fast. But it was his affair, not hers. In the meantime
she had paid for the horse to ride through the desert, not to be
waylaid by Arab bandits. Her temper was going fast.

She urged the horse on with all her power, but perceptibly he was
slowing up. She flashed another backward look. The Arab was close
behind her--closer than she had been aware. She had a momentary glimpse
of a big white figure, dark piercing eyes, and white gleaming teeth,
and passionate rage filled her. With no thought of what the
consequences or retaliation might be, with no thought at all beyond a
wild desire to rid herself of her pursuer, driven by a sudden madness
which seemed to rise up in her and which she could not control, she
clutched her revolver and fired twice, full in the face of the man who
was following her. He did not even flinch and a low laugh of amusement
came from him. And at the sound of his laugh Diana's mouth parched
suddenly, and a cold shiver rippled across her spine. A strange feeling
that she had never experienced before went through her. She had missed
again as she had missed this morning. How, she did not know; it was
inexplicable, but it was a fact, and a fact that left her with a
feeling of powerlessness. She dropped the useless revolver, trying
vainly to force her horse's pace, but inch by inch the fiery chestnut
that the Arab was riding crept up nearer alongside. She would not turn
to look again, but glancing sideways she could see its small,
wicked-looking head, with flat laid ears and vicious, bloodshot eyes,
level with her elbow. For a moment or two it remained there, then with
a sudden spurt the chestnut forged ahead, and as it shot past it
swerved close in beside her, and the man, rising in his stirrups and
leaning towards her, flung a pair of powerful arms around her, and,
with a jerk, swung her clear of the saddle and on to his own horse in
front of him. His movement had been so quick she was unprepared and
unable to resist. For a moment she was stunned, then her senses came
back to her and she struggled wildly, but, stifled in the thick folds
of the Arab's robes, against which her face was crushed, and held in a
grip that seemed to be slowly suffocating her, her struggles were
futile. The hard, muscular arm round her hurt her acutely, her ribs
seemed to be almost breaking under its weight and strength, it was
nearly impossible to breathe with the close contact of his body. She
was unusually strong for a girl, but against this steely strength that
held her she was helpless. And for a time the sense of her helplessness
and the pain that any resistance to the arm wrapped round her gave her
made her lie quiet. She felt the Arab check his horse, felt the
chestnut wheel, spinning high on his hind legs, and then bound forward
again.

Her feelings were indescribable. She did not know what to think. Her
mind felt jarred. She was unable to frame any thoughts coherently. What
had happened was so unexpected, so preposterous, that no conclusion
seemed adequate. Only rage filled her--blind, passionate rage against
the man who had dared to touch her, who had dared to lay his hands on
her, and those hands the hands of a native. A shiver of revulsion ran
through her. She was choking with fury, with anger and with disgust.
The ignominy of her plight hurt her pride badly. She had been
outridden, swept from her saddle as if she were a puppet, and compelled
to bear the proximity of the man's own hateful body and the restraint
of his arms. No one had ever dared to touch her before. No one had ever
dared to handle her as she was being handled now. How was it going to
end? Where were they going? With her face hidden she had lost all sense
of direction. She had no idea to what point the horse had turned when
he had wheeled so suddenly. He was galloping swiftly with continual
disconcerting bounds that indicated either temper or nerves, but the
man riding him seemed in no way disturbed by his horse's behavior. She
could feel him swaying easily in the saddle, and even the wildest leaps
did not cause any slackening of the arm around her.

But by degrees as she continued to lie still the pressure on her body
was relieved slightly, and she was able to turn her head a little
towards the air for which she was almost fainting, but not enough to
enable her to see what was passing around her. She drank in the cool
air eagerly. Though she could not see she knew that the night had come,
the night that she had hoped would fall before she reached her
destination, but which now seemed horrible. The fresh strength that the
air gave her fanned the courage that still remained with her.
Collecting all her force she made a sudden desperate spring, trying to
leap clear of the arm that now lay almost loosely about her, her
spurred heels tearing the chestnut's flank until he reared
perpendicularly, snorting and trembling. But with a quick sweep of his
long arm the Arab gathered her back into his hold, still struggling
fiercely. His arms were both round her; he was controlling the maddened
horse only with the pressure of his knees.

"Doucement, doucement." She heard the slow, soft voice indistinctly,
for he was pressing her head again closely to him, and she did not know
if the words were applied to herself or to the horse. She fought to
lift her head, to escape the grip that held her, straining, striving
until he spoke again.

"Lie still, you little fool!" he snarled with sudden vehemence, and
with brutal hands he forced her to obey him, until she wondered if he
would leave a single bone unbroken in her body, till further resistance
was impossible. Gasping for breath she yielded to the strength that
overpowered her, and ceased to struggle. The man seemed to know
intuitively that she was beaten, and turned his undivided attention to
his horse with the same low laugh of amusement that had sent the
strange feeling through her when her shots had missed him. It had
puzzled her then, but it grew now with a horrible intensity, until she
knew that it was fear that had come to her for the first time in her
life--a strange fear that she fought against desperately, but which was
gaining on her with a force that was sapping her strength from her and
making her head reel. She did not faint, but her whole body seemed to
grow nerveless with the sudden realisation of the horror of her
position.

After that Diana lost all sense of time, as she had already lost all
sense of direction. She did not know if it was minutes or hours that
passed as they still galloped swiftly through the night. She did not
know if they were alone or if the band of Arabs to which this man
belonged were riding with them, noiseless over the soft ground. What
had happened to her guide and his men? Had they been butchered and left
where they fell, or were they, too, being hurried unwillingly into some
obscure region of the desert? But for the moment the fate of Mustafa
Ali and his companions did not trouble her very much; they had not
played a very valiant part in the short encounter, and her own
situation swamped her mind to the exclusion of everything else.

The sense of fear was growing on her. She scorned and derided it. She
tried to convince herself it did not exist, but it did exist, torturing
her with its strangeness and with the thoughts that it engendered. She
had anticipated nothing like this. She had never thought of a
contingency that would end so, that would induce a situation before
which her courage was shuddering into pieces with the horror that was
opening up before her--a thing that had always seemed a remote
impossibility that could never touch her, from even the knowledge of
which her life with Aubrey had almost shielded her, but which now
loomed near her, forcing its reality upon her till she trembled and
great drops of moisture gathered on her forehead.

The Arab moved her position once, roughly, but she was glad of the
change for it freed her head from the stifling folds of his robes. He
did not speak again--only once when the chestnut shied violently he
muttered something under his breath. But her satisfaction was
short-lived. A few minutes afterwards his arm tightened round her once
more and he twined a fold of his long cloak round her head, blinding
her. And then she understood. The galloping horse was pulled in with
almost the same suddenness that had amazed her when she had first seen
the Arabs. She felt him draw her close into his arms and slip down on
to the ground; there were voices around her--confused, unintelligible;
then they died away as she felt him carry her a few paces. He set her
down and unwound the covering from her face. The light that shone
around her seemed by contrast dazzling with the darkness that had gone
before. Confused, she clasped her hands over her eyes for a moment and
then looked up slowly. She was in a big, lofty tent, brightly lit by
two hanging lamps. But she took no heed of her surroundings; her eyes
were fixed on the man who had brought her there. He had flung aside the
heavy cloak that enveloped him from head to foot and was standing
before her, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in white flowing robes,
a waistcloth embroidered in black and silver wound several times about
him, and from the top of which showed a revolver that was thrust into
the folds.

Diana's eyes passed over him slowly till they rested on his brown,
clean-shaven face, surmounted by crisp, close-cut brown hair. It was
the handsomest and cruellest face that she had ever seen. Her gaze was
drawn instinctively to his. He was looking at her with fierce burning
eyes that swept her until she felt that the boyish clothes that covered
her slender limbs were stripped from her, leaving the beautiful white
body bare under his passionate stare.

She shrank back, quivering, dragging the lapels of her riding jacket
together over her breast with clutching hands, obeying an impulse that
she hardly understood.

"Who are you?" she gasped hoarsely.

"I am the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan."

The name conveyed nothing. She had never heard it before. She had
spoken without thinking in French, and in French he replied to her.

"Why have you brought me here?" she asked, fighting down the fear that
was growing more terrible every moment.

He repeated her words with a slow smile. "Why have I brought you here?
Bon Dieu! Are you not woman enough to know?"

She shrank back further, a wave of colour rushing into her face that
receded immediately, leaving her whiter than she had been before. Her
eyes fell under the kindling flame in his. "I don't know what you
mean," she whispered faintly, with shaking lips.

"I think you do." He laughed softly, and his laugh frightened her more
than anything he had said. He came towards her, and although she was
swaying on her feet, desperately she tried to evade him, but with a
quick movement he caught her in his arms.

Terror, agonising, soul-shaking terror such as she had never imagined,
took hold of her. The flaming light of desire burning in his eyes
turned her sick and faint. Her body throbbed with the consciousness of
a knowledge that appalled her. She understood his purpose with a horror
that made each separate nerve in her system shrink against the
understanding that had come to her under the consuming fire of his
ardent gaze, and in the fierce embrace that was drawing her shaking
limbs closer and closer against the man's own pulsating body. She
writhed in his arms as he crushed her to him in a sudden access of
possessive passion. His head bent slowly down to her, his eyes burned
deeper, and, held immovable, she endured the first kiss she had ever
received. And the touch of his scorching lips, the clasp of his arms,
the close union with his warm, strong body robbed her of all strength,
of all power of resistance.

With a great sob her eyes closed wearily, the hot mouth pressed on hers
was like a narcotic, drugging her almost into insensibility. Numbly she
felt him gather her high up into his arms, his lips still clinging
closely, and carry her across the tent through curtains into an
adjoining room. He laid her down on soft cushions. "Do not make me wait
too long," he whispered, and left her.

And the whispered words sent a shock through her that seemed to wrench
her deadened nerves apart, galvanising her into sudden strength. She
sprang up with wild, despairing eyes, and hands clenched frantically
across her heaving breast; then, with a bitter cry, she dropped on to
the floor, her arms flung out across the wide, luxurious bed. It was
not true! It was not true! It could not be--this awful thing that had
happened to her--not to her, Diana Mayo! It was a dream, a ghastly
dream that would pass and free her from this agony. Shuddering, she
raised her head. The strange room swam before her eyes. Oh, God! It was
not a dream. It was real, it was an actual fact from which there was no
escape. She was trapped, powerless, defenceless, and behind the heavy
curtains near her was the man waiting to claim what he had taken. Any
moment he might come; the thought sent her shivering closer to the
ground with limbs that trembled uncontrollably. Her courage, that had
faced dangers and even death without flinching, broke down before the
horror that awaited her. It was inevitable; there was no help to be
expected, no mercy to be hoped for. She had felt the crushing strength
against which she was helpless. She would struggle, but it would be
useless; she would fight, but it would make no difference. Within the
tent she was alone, ready to his hand like a snared animal; without,
the place was swarming with the man's followers. There was nowhere she
could turn, there was no one she could turn to. The certainty of the
accomplishment of what she dreaded crushed her with its surety. All
power of action was gone. She could only wait and suffer in the
complete moral collapse that overwhelmed her, and that was rendered
greater by her peculiar temperament. Her body was aching with the grip
of his powerful arms, her mouth was bruised with his savage kisses. She
clenched her hands in anguish. "Oh, God!" she sobbed, with scalding
tears that scorched her cheeks. "Curse him! Curse him!"

And with the words on her lips he came, silent, noiseless, to her side.
With his hands on her shoulders he forced her to her feet. His eyes
were fierce, his stern mouth parted in a cruel smile, his deep, slow
voice half angry, half impatiently amused. "Must I be valet, as well as
lover?"




CHAPTER III


The warm sunshine was flooding the tent when Diana awoke from the deep
sleep of exhaustion that had been almost insensibility, awoke to
immediate and complete remembrance. One quick, fearful glance around
the big room assured her that she was alone. She sat up slowly, her
eyes shadowy with pain, looking listlessly at the luxurious
appointments of the tent. She looked dry-eyed, she had no tears left.
They had all been expended when she had grovelled at his feet imploring
the mercy he had not accorded her. She had fought until the unequal
struggle had left her exhausted and helpless in his arms, until her
whole body was one agonised ache from the brutal hands that forced her
to compliance, until her courageous spirit was crushed by the
realisation of her own powerlessness, and by the strange fear that the
man himself had awakened in her, which had driven her at last moaning
to her knees. And the recollection of her abject prayers and weeping
supplications filled her with a burning shame. She loathed herself with
bitter contempt. Her courage had broken down; even her pride had failed
her.

She wound her arms about her knees and hid her face against them.
"Coward! Coward!" she whispered fiercely. Why had she not scorned him?
Or why had she not suffered all that he had done to her in silence? It
would have pleased him less than the frenzied entreaties that had only
provoked the soft laugh that made her shiver each time she heard it.
She shivered now. "I thought I was brave," she murmured brokenly. "I am
only a coward, a craven."

She lifted her head at last and looked around her. The room was a
curious mixture of Oriental luxury and European comfort. The lavish
sumptuousness of the furnishings suggested subtly an unrestrained
indulgence, the whole atmosphere was voluptuous, and Diana shrank from
the impression it conveyed without exactly understanding the reason.
There was nothing that jarred artistically, the rich hangings all
harmonised, there were no glaring incongruities such as she had seen in
native palaces in India. And everything on which her eyes rested drove
home relentlessly the hideous fact of her position. His things were
everywhere. On a low, brass-topped table by the bed was the half-smoked
cigarette he had had between his lips when he came to her. The pillow
beside her still bore the impress of his head. She looked at it with a
growing horror in her eyes until an uncontrollable shuddering seized
her and she cowered down, smothering the cry that burst from her in the
soft pillows and dragging the silken coverings up around her as if
their thin shelter were a protection. She lived again through every
moment of the past night until thought was unendurable, until she felt
that she would go mad, until at last, worn out, she fell asleep.

It was midday when she awoke again. This time she was not alone. A
young Arab girl was sitting on the rug beside her looking at her with
soft brown eyes of absorbed interest As Diana sat up she rose to her
feet, salaaming, with a timid smile.

"I am Zilah, to wait on Madame," she said shyly in stumbling French,
holding out a wrap that Diana recognised with wonder as her own. She
looked behind her. Her suit-cases were lying near her, open, partially
unpacked. The missing baggage camels had been captured first, then. She
was at least to be allowed the use of her own belongings. A gleam of
anger shot into her tired eyes and she swung round with a sharp
question; but the Arab girl shook her head uncomprehendingly, drawing
back with frightened eyes; and to all further questions she remained
silent, with down-drooping mouth like a scared child. She was little
more. She evidently only half understood what was said to her and could
give no answer to what she did understand, and turned away with obvious
relief when Diana stopped speaking. She went across the tent and pulled
aside a curtain leading into a bathroom that was as big and far better
equipped than the one that Diana had had in the Indian tent, and which,
up to now, had seemed the last word in comfort and luxury. Though the
girl's knowledge of French was limited her hands were deft enough, but
her ignorance of the intricacies of a European woman's toilette was
very apparent, and constantly provoked in her a girlish giggle that
changed hurriedly to a startled gravity when Diana looked at her.
Laughter was very far from Diana, but she could not help smiling now
and again at her funny mistakes.

The girl, with her big, wondering eyes, her shy, hesitating French and
childish curiosity, in some indefinable way gave back to Diana the
self-control that had slipped from her. Her pride reasserted itself,
rigidly suppressing any sign of feeling or emotion that could be
noticed by the gentle, inquisitive eyes fixed on her.

The hot bath that took the soreness out of her limbs brought back the
colour to her face and lips. She even tubbed her head, rubbing the
glistening curls dry with fierce vigour, striving to rid herself of the
contamination that seemed to have saturated her. Yet the robes against
which they had been pressed were spotless, and the hands that had held
her were fastidiously clean, even to the well-kept nails.

She came back into the bedroom to find Zilah on her knees poring over
her scanty but diverse wardrobe with bewilderment, fingering the
evening dresses with shy hands, and finally submitting tentatively to
Diana the tweed skirt that had been packed with her other things for
the journey when Oran should be reached. But Diana put it aside, and
pointed to the riding clothes she had worn the previous day. In them
she felt more able to face what might be before her, the associations
connected with them seemed to give her moral strength, in them she
would feel herself again--Diana the boy, not the shivering piece of
womanhood that had been born with tears and agony last night. She bit
her lip as she stamped her foot down into the long boot.

She sent the girl away at last, and noticed that she avoided passing
into the adjoining room, but vanished instead through the curtains
leading into the bathroom. Did that mean that in the outer room the
Arab Sheik was waiting? The thought banished the self-control she had
regained and sent her weakly on to the side of the bed with her face
hidden in her hands. Was he there? Her questions to the little
waiting-girl had only been concerned with the whereabouts of the camp
to which she had been brought and also of the fate of the caravan; of
the man himself she had not been able to bring herself to speak. The
strange fear that he had inspired in her filled her with rage and
humiliation. The thought of seeing him again brought a shame that was
unspeakable. But she conquered the agitation that threatened to grow
beyond restraint, pride helping her again. It was better to face the
inevitable of her own free will than be fetched whether she would or
not. For she knew now the strength of the man who had abducted her,
knew that physically she was helpless against him. She raised her head
and listened. It was very silent in the next room. Perhaps she was to
be allowed a further respite. She jerked her head impatiently at her
own hesitation. "Coward!" she whispered again contemptuously, and flung
across the room. But at the curtains she halted for a moment, then with
set face drew them aside and went through.

The respite had been granted, the room appeared to be empty. But as she
crossed the thick rugs her heart leapt suddenly into her throat, for
she became aware of a man standing in the open doorway. His back was
turned to her, but in a moment she saw that the short, slim figure in
white linen European clothes bore no resemblance to the tall Arab she
had expected to see. She thought her footsteps were noiseless, but he
turned with a little quick bow. A typical Frenchman with narrow, alert,
clean-shaven face, sleek black hair and dark restless eyes. His legs
were slightly bowed and he stooped a little; his appearance was that of
a jockey with the manners of a well-trained servant. Diana coloured
hotly under his glance, but his eyes were lowered instantly.

"Madame is doubtless ready for lunch." He spoke rapidly, but his voice
was low and pleasant. His movements were as quick and as quiet as his
voice, and in a dream Diana found herself in a few moments before a
lunch that was perfectly cooked and daintily served. The man hovered
about her solicitously, attending to her wants with dexterous hands and
watchful eyes that anticipated every need. She was bewildered, faint
from want of food, everything seemed unreal. For the moment she could
just sit still and be waited on by the soft-footed, soft-spoken
manservant who seemed such a curious adjunct to the household of an
Arab chief.

"Monseigneur begs that you will excuse him until this evening. He will
return in time for dinner," he murmured as he handed her a cous-cous.

Diana looked up blankly. "Monseigneur?"

"My master. The Sheik."

She flushed scarlet and her face hardened. Hypocritical, Oriental beast
who "begged to be excused"! She refused the last dish curtly, and as
the servant carried it away she propped her elbows on the table and
rested her aching head on her hands. A headache was among the new
experiences that had overwhelmed her since the day before. Suffering in
any form was new to her, and her hatred of the man who had made her
suffer grew with every breath she drew.

The Frenchman came back with coffee and cigarettes. He held a match for
her, coaxing the reluctant flame with patience that denoted long
experience with inferior sulphur.

"Monseigneur dines at eight. At what hour will Madame have tea?" he
asked, as he cleared away and folded up the table.

Diana choked back the sarcastic retort that sprang to her lips. The
man's quiet, deferential manner, that refused to see anything
extraordinary in her presence in his master's camp, was almost harder
to bear than flagrant impertinence would have been. That she could have
dealt with; this left her tingling with a feeling of impotence, as if a
net were gradually closing round her in whose entangling meshes her
vaunted liberty was not only threatened, but which seemed destined even
to stifle her very existence. She pulled her racing thoughts up with a
jerk. She must not think if she was going to keep any hold over herself
at all. She gave him an answer indifferently and turned her back on
him. When she looked again he was gone, and she heaved a sigh of
relief. She had chafed under his watchful eyes until the feeling of
restraint had grown unbearable.

She breathed more freely now that he was gone, flinging up her head and
jerking her shoulders back with an angry determination to conquer the
fear that made her ashamed. Natural curiosity had been struggling with
her other emotions, and she gave way to it now to try and turn the
channel of her thoughts from the fixed direction in which they tended,
and wandered round the big room. The night before she had taken in
nothing of her surroundings, her eyes had been held only by the man who
had dominated everything. Here, also, were the same luxurious
appointments as in the sleeping-room. She had knowledge enough to
appreciate that the rugs and hangings were exquisite, the former were
Persian and the latter of a thick black material, heavily embroidered
in silver. The main feature of the room was a big black divan heaped
with huge cushions covered with dull black silk. Beside the divan,
spread over the Persian rugs, were two unusually large black bearskins,
the mounted heads converging. At one end of the tent was a small
doorway, a little portable writing-table. There were one or two Moorish
stools heaped with a motley collection of ivories and gold and silver
cigarette cases and knick-knacks, and against the partition that
separated the two rooms stood a quaintly carved old wooden chest.
Though the furniture was scanty and made the tent seem even more
spacious than it really was, the whole room had an air of barbaric
splendour. The somber hangings gleaming with thick silver threads
seemed to Diana like a studied theatrical effect, a setting against
which the Arab's own white robes should contrast more vividly; she
remembered the black and silver waistcloth she had seen swathed round
him, with curling scornful lip. There was a strain of vanity in all
natives, she generalised contemptuously. Doubtless it pleased this
native's conceit to carry out the colour scheme of his tent even in his
clothes, and pose among the sable cushions of the luxurious divan to
the admiration of his retainers. She made a little exclamation of
disgust, and turned from the soft seductiveness of the big couch with
disdain.

She crossed the tent to the little bookcase and knelt beside it
curiously. What did a Francophile-Arab read? Novels, probably, that
would harmonise with the atmosphere that she dimly sensed in her
surroundings. But it was not novels that filled the bookcase. They were
books of sport and travel with several volumes on veterinary surgery.
They were all in French, and had all been frequently handled, many of
them had pencilled notes in the margins written in Arabic. One shelf
was filled entirely with the works of one man, a certain Vicomte Raoul
de Saint Hubert. With the exception of one novel, which Diana only
glanced at hastily; they were all books of travel. From the few
scribbled words in the front of each Diana could see that they had all
been sent to the Arab by the author himself--one even was dedicated to
"My friend, Ahmed Ben Hassan, Sheik of the Desert." She put the books
back with a puzzled frown. She wished, with a feeling that she could
not fathom, that they had been rather what she had imagined. The
evidence of education and unlooked-for tastes in the man they belonged
to troubled her. It was an unexpected glimpse into the personality of
the Arab that had captured her was vaguely disquieting, for it
suggested possibilities that would not have existed in a raw native, or
one only superficially coated with a veneer of civilisation. He seemed
to become infinitely more sinister, infinitely more horrible. She
looked at her watch with sudden apprehension. The day was wearing away
quickly. Soon he would come. Her breath came quick and short and the
tears welled up in her eyes.

"I mustn't! I mustn't!" she whispered in a kind of desperation. "If I
cry again I shall go mad." She forced them back, and crossing to the
big black divan that she had scorned before dropped down among the soft
cushions. She was so tired, and her head throbbed persistently.

She was asleep when the servant brought tea, but she started up as he
put the tray on a stool beside her.

"It is Madame's own tea. If she will be good enough to say if it is
made to her taste," he said anxiously, as if his whole happiness was
contained in the tiny teapot at which he was frowning deprecatingly.

His assiduity jarred on Diana's new-found jangling nerves. She
recognised that he was sincere in his efforts to please her, but just
now they only seemed an added humiliation. She longed to shout "Go
away!" like an angry schoolboy, but she managed to give him the
information he wanted, and putting cigarettes and matches by her he
went out with a little smile of satisfaction. The longing for fresh air
and the desire to see what place she had been brought to grew
irresistible as the evening came nearer. She went to the open doorway.
A big awning stretched before it, supported on lances. She stepped out
from under its shade and looked about her wonderingly. It was a big
oasis--bigger than any she had seen. In front of the tent there was an
open space with a thick belt of palm trees beyond. The rest of the camp
lay behind the Chief's tent. The place was alive with men and horses.
There were some camels in the distance, but it was the horses that
struck Diana principally. They were everywhere, some tethered; some
wandering loose, some exercising in the hands of grooms. Mounted Arabs
on the outskirts of the oasis crossed her view occasionally. There were
groups of men engaged on various duties all around her. Those who went
by near her salaamed as they passed, but took no further notice of her.
A strange look came into Diana's eyes. This was the desert indeed, the
desert as she had never expected to see it, the desert as few could
expect to see it. But the cost! She shuddered, then turned at a sudden
noise near her. A biting, screaming chestnut fury was coming past close
to the tent, taking complete charge of the two men who clung, yelling,
to his head. He was stripped, but Diana recognised him at once. The one
brief view she had had of his small, vicious head as he shot past her
elbow the evening before was written on her brain for all time. He came
to a halt opposite Diana, refusing to move, his ears laid close to his
head, quivering all over, snatching continually at his grooms, who
seemed unable to cope with him. Once he swung up on his hind legs and
his cruel teeth flashed almost into the face of one of the men, who was
taken off his guard, and who dropped on to the ground, rolling out of
the way with a howl that provoked a shout of laughter from a knot of
Arabs who had gathered to watch the usual evening eccentricities of the
chestnut. The French servant, coming from behind the tent, stopped to
speak to the man as he picked himself up and made a grab at the horse's
head, and then turned to Diana with his pleasant smile.

"He is rightly named Shaitan, Madame, for he is assuredly possessed of
a devil," he said, indicating the chestnut, who, at that moment, with a
violent plunge, broke away from the men who were holding him and headed
for the edge of the oasis with the Arabs streaming after him. "The
mounted men will catch him," he added with a little laugh, in response
to Diana's exclamation.

"Is he amusing himself, or is it really vice?" she asked.

"Pure vice, Madame. He has killed three men."

Diana looked at him incredulously, for his tone was casual and his
manner did not indicate any undue feeling.

"He ought to be shot," she said indignantly.

The man shrugged. "Monseigneur is fond of him," he said quietly.

And so because Monseigneur was fond of him the vicious animal was
surrounded with every care that his master's pleasure might not be
interfered with. Evidently the lives of his wretched people were of
less value to him than that of a favourite horse. It sounded compatible
with the mercilessness she had herself experienced. What she would not
have believed yesterday to-day seemed terribly credible. The courage
that the relief of his absence brought back was sinking fast, as fast
as the red ball glowing in the heavens was sinking down towards the
horizon. She turned from her own fearful thoughts to look at some more
horses that were being led away to the lines on the other side of the
camp.

"The horses are magnificent, but they are bigger than any Arabs I have
seen before."

"They are a special breed, Madame," replied the Frenchman. "The tribe
has been famous for them for generations. Monseigneur's horses are
known through all the Barbary States, and as far as France," he added,
with a little accent of pride creeping into his voice.

Diana looked at him speculatively. There was an inflection in his voice
each time he mentioned his master that indicated a devotion that she
was unable to accredit to the brute for whose treatment she was still
suffering. But her thoughts were broken into abruptly.

"There is Monseigneur," said the servant suddenly. He spoke as if she,
too, must be glad of his coming. Did the valet imagine for one moment
that she was here of her own free will? Or was it all a part of the
hypocrisy in which she seemed to be enveloped? She flashed one glance
at the horseman riding through the belt of trees that fringed the oasis
and an icy perspiration chilled her from head to foot. She shrank back
under the awning and into the coolness of the tent, raging against the
mastering fear that she could not overcome. But just inside the open
doorway she stood firm; even her fear could make her go no further. She
would meet him here, not cowering into the inner room like a trembling
creature skulking in the furthest corner of its cage. That much pride
at least was left.

From the shelter of the tent she watched the troop arrive at the open
space before her. The horse the Sheik was riding was jet black, and
Diana looked from the beautiful creature's satiny coat to the man's
white robes with angry contempt.

"Black and white! Black and white! Mountebank!" she muttered through
her clenched teeth. Then as he swung to the ground every thought fell
from her but the terror he inspired. She waited, breathless, the swift
racing of her heart an actual physical pain.

He lingered, fondling the great black horse, and even after it had been
led away he stood looking after it, talking to a tall young Arab who
had ridden in with him. At last he turned and came leisurely towards
the tent. He paused at the door to speak to the Frenchman, a
picturesque, barbaric figure, with flowing robes and great white cloak,
the profile of his lean face clean cut against the evening sky, the
haughty poise of his head emphasised by the attitude in which he was
standing, arrogant, dominating. He moved his hands when he spoke with
quick, expressive gestures, but his voice was slow and soft, pitched in
a deep musical key, but with all its softness unmistakably
authoritative. He pointed with outstretched, steady hand to something
beyond her line of vision, and as he turned to enter the tent he
laughed softly, and she shivered involuntarily. Then he swept in, and
she drew back from him with lowered eyes. She would not look at him;
she would not meet his look. His presence was an offence, she was
scorched with shame. Every fibre of her being cried out in protest at
his proximity. She wished with passionate fierceness that she could
die. She shook feverishly and caught her quivering lip between her
teeth to keep it still, and the red-gold curls lay wet against her
forehead. Her breast heaved stormily with the rapid beating of her
heart, but she held herself proudly erect. He crossed the tent with a
long noiseless stride.

"I hope that Gaston took care of you properly and gave you everything
that you wanted?" he said easily, stooping to a little table to light a
cigarette. The coolness of his words and manner were like a dash of
cold water. She had been prepared for anything but this calm
nonchalance in a situation that was intolerable. His tone conveyed the
perfunctory regret of a host for an unavoidable absence. Her fear gave
way to rage, her body stiffened, her hands clenched.

"Is it not time that this ended? Haven't you done enough?" she burst
out passionately. "Why have you committed this outrage?"

A thin thread of smoke drifted towards her, as if the hand holding the
cigarette had moved in her direction in one of the gestures that she
had noticed outside, but there was no answer. His silence infuriated
her and she grew utterly reckless.

"Do you think that you can keep me here, you fool? That I can vanish
into the desert and no notice be taken of my disappearance--that no
inquiries will be made?"

"There will be no inquiries," he answered calmly.

She ground the heel of her boot into the soft carpet. "There
_will_ be inquiries," she choked furiously. "I am not such a
nonentity that nothing will be done when I am missed. The English
authorities will make the French Government find out who is
responsible, and you will have to pay for what you have done."

He laughed--the little amused laugh that sent the same cold feeling of
dread through her that she had felt the day before.

"The French Government has no jurisdiction over me. I am not subject to
it. I am an independent chief, my own master. I recognise no
government. My tribe obey me and only me."

Her shaking fingers found the handkerchief for which they were groping,
and she wiped the moisture that had gathered on the palms of her hands.

"When I am missed----" she began desperately, trying to keep a bold
front, but her assurance was leaving her.

"You will not be missed for so long that it will be too late," he
replied drily.

"Too late! What do you mean?" she gasped.

"Your own plans will stop any possibility of inquiry for some time to
come." He paused, and behind her, Diana heard him strike another match.
The banal little incident nearly snapped her nerves that were stretched
to breaking-point. She put her hands to her head to try and stop the
throbbing in her temples.

"You engaged a caravan in charge of Mustafa Ali," he went on evenly,
"to travel in the desert for a month. You set out from Biskra, but your
intention was at the end of the time to travel northward to Oran and
there dismiss the caravan. From there you were to cross to Marseilles,
then to Cherbourg, where you would embark for America to follow your
brother, who has already started."

She listened breathlessly with an ever-increasing fear growing in her
eyes. The slow, casual voice detailing her itinerary with the quiet
certainty of perfect knowledge filled her with a terror that made her
want to scream. She swayed a little as she stood, her eyes fixed on the
endless strip of desert and gold-flecked sky visible through the
opening of the tent, but she saw nothing of the undulating sand, nor
the red glory of the setting sun.

"How do you know--all--this?" she whispered with dry lips that
trembled.

"I wished to know. It was quite simple." The answer was given
carelessly, and again the thin thread of smoke drifted across her face.

Her anger flamed up again. "Is it money that you want? Are you holding
me for ransom?" But her scornful voice faltered and died away on the
last word, and it did not need his silence to convince her that it was
no question of ransom. She had only spoken to try and stifle the inner
conviction that grew despite her efforts to crush it. Her hands were
locked together tightly, her eyes still staring out unseeing at the
wonderful sunset. She felt dazed, hopeless, like a fugitive who has
turned into a cul-de-sac, hemmed in on every side; there seemed no way
out, no loophole of escape. She wrung her hands convulsively and a
great shudder shook her. Then in her despair a faint ray of hope came.

"Mustafa Ali, or one of the caravan men may have given the alarm
already in Biskra--if you have not--murdered them all," she whispered
jerkily.

"I have not murdered them all," he rejoined shortly, "but Mustafa Ali
will not give any alarm in Biskra."

"Why?" She tried to keep silent, but the question was forced from her,
and she waited tense for his answer. Tales of ruthless Arab cruelty
surged through her mind. What had been the fate of the unfortunate
caravan leader? Her eyes closed and her throat grew dry.

"There was no need for any murder," he continued sarcastically. "When
you come to know me better you will realise that I do not leave too
much to chance. 'All things are with Allah, blessed be his name.' Good!
But it is well to remember that Allah does not always concern himself
with the affairs of men, and arrange accordingly. If I had left this
affair to chance there might very easily have been, as you suggest,
murder done--though we do not call it murder in the desert. It was very
simple. _Voyons_! You paid Mustafa Ali well to guide you in the
desert. I paid him better to lead you to me. I paid him well enough to
make him content to remove himself from Biskra, where awkward questions
might be asked, to another sphere of usefulness where he is not known,
and where he can build up for himself a new reputation as a caravan
leader."

There was another silence and her hands went groping to her throat. It
had been no chance affair then--no accidental meeting that the Arab
chief had turned to his own account, but an organised outrage that had
been carefully planned from the beginning. From the very outset she had
been a dupe. She ground her teeth with rage. Her suave, subservient
guide had been leading her the whole time, not in the direction that
had been mapped out in Biskra, but towards the man who had bought him
to betray his trust. Mustafa Ali's shifting eyes, his desire to hurry
her from the oasis where they had rested at mid-day, his tone were all
explained. He had acted well. The last touch--the imaginary wound that
had toppled him slowly out of his saddle had been a masterpiece, she
reflected bitterly. Nothing had been omitted to make the attempt a
success. The horse that had been given her to ride was the Sheik's
beyond all doubt, trained to his whistle. Even her revolver had been
tampered with. She had not missed, as she had thought. She remembered
the noise, the fleeting vision she had had in the hotel at Biskra. It
had been some one in her room, Mustafa Ali himself, or one of his men,
who had stolen in and substituted the blank cartridges. The possibility
of Aubrey changing his mind and accompanying her must also have been
thought of, for the Sheik had provided against the resistance that
would certainly have then been made by the number of followers he had
brought with him--a large enough force to frustrate easily any
attempted opposition to the attack.

The net that she had felt closing round her earlier in the afternoon
seemed wrapped round her now inextricably, drawing tighter and tighter,
smothering her. She gasped for breath. The sinking sun seemed suddenly
to leap up wildly into the heavens; then she pulled herself together
with a tremendous effort. "Why have you done this?" she murmured
faintly.

Then for a moment her heart stood still, her eyes dilating. He had come
close behind her, and she waited in an agony, until he caught her to
him, crushing her against him, forcing her head back on his arm.

"Because I wanted you. Because one day in Biskra, four weeks ago, I saw
you for a few moments, long enough to know that I wanted you. And what
I want I take. You played into my hands. You arranged a tour in the
desert. The rest was easy."

Her eyes were shut, the long dark lashes quivering on her pale cheeks
so that she could not see his face, but she felt him draw her closer to
him and then his fierce kisses on her mouth. She struggled frantically,
but she was helpless, and he laughed softly as he kissed her lips, her
hair, her eyes passionately. He stood quite still, but she felt the
heavy beating of his heart under her cheek, and understood dimly the
passion that she had aroused in him. She had experienced his tremendous
strength. She realised from what he had told her that he recognised no
law beyond his own wishes, and was prepared to go to any lengths to
fulfil them. She knew that her life was in his hands, that he could
break her with his lean brown fingers like a toy is broken, and all at
once she felt pitifully weak and frightened. She was utterly in his
power and at his mercy--the mercy of an Arab who was merciless.

She gave in suddenly, lying quiet in his arms. She had touched the
lowest depths of degradation; he could do nothing more to her than he
had done. For the moment she could fight no further, she was worn out
and utterly weary. A numb feeling of despair came over her and with it
a sense of unreality, as if it were a hideous nightmare from which she
would wake, for the truth seemed too impossible, the setting too
theatrical. The man himself was a mystery. She could not reconcile him
and the barbaric display in which he lived with the evidences of
refinement and education that the well-worn books in the tent evinced.
The fastidious ordering of his appointments puzzled her; it was strange
to find in such a place. A dozen incongruities that she had noticed
during the day crowded into her recollection until her head reeled. She
turned from them wearily; she was too tired to think, too spent in mind
and body. And with the despair a kind of indifference stole over her.
She had suffered so much that nothing more mattered.

The strong arms around her tightened slowly. "Look at me," he said in
the soft slow voice that seemed habitual to him, and which contrasted
oddly with the neat, clipping French that he spoke. She shivered and
her dark lashes flickered for a moment. "Look at me." His voice was
just as slow, just as soft, but into it had crept an inflection that
was unmistakable.

Twenty-four hours ago Diana Mayo had not known the meaning of the word
fear, and had never in all her life obeyed any one against her
inclination, but in twenty-four hours she had lived through years of
emotions. For the first time she had pitted her will against a will
that was stronger than her own, for the first time she had met an
arrogance that was greater and a determination that was firmer than
hers. For the first time she had met a man who had failed to bow to her
wishes, whom a look had been powerless to transform into a willing
slave. In a few hours that had elapsed she had learned fear, a terrible
fear that left her sick with apprehension, and she was learning
obedience. Obedient now, she forced herself to lift her eyes to his,
and the shamed blood surged slowly into her cheeks. His dark,
passionate eyes burnt into her like a hot flame. His encircling arms
were like bands of fire, scorching her. His touch was torture.
Helpless, like a trapped wild thing, she lay against him, panting,
trembling, her wide eyes fixed on him, held against their will.
Fascinated she could not turn them away, and the image of the brown,
handsome face with its flashing eyes, straight, cruel mouth and strong
chin seemed searing into her brain. The faint indefinite scent of an
uncommon Turkish tobacco clung about him, enveloping her. She had been
conscious of the same scent the previous day when he had held her in
his arms during the wild ride across the desert.

He smiled down at her suddenly. "_Bon Dieu_! Do you know how
beautiful you are?" he murmured. But the sound of his voice seemed to
break a spell that had kept her dumb. She struggled again to free
herself.

"Let me go!" she cried piteously, and it was her complete immunity from
him that she prayed for, but he chose wilfully to misunderstand her.
The passion faded from his eyes, giving place to a gleam of mockery.

"There is plenty of time. Gaston is the most discreet servant. We shall
hear him when he comes," he said with a low laugh.

But she persisted with the courage of desperation. "When will you let
me go?"

With an exclamation of impatience he put her from him roughly, and
going to the divan flung himself down on the cushions, lit another
cigarette and picked up a magazine that was lying on an inlaid stool
beside him.

She bit her lips to keep back the hysterical sobs that rose in her
throat, nerving herself with clenched hands, and followed him. "You
_must_ tell me. I _must_ know. When will you let me go?"

He turned a page with deliberation, and flicked the ash from his
cigarette before looking up. A heavy scowl gathered on his face, and
his eyes swept her from head to foot with a slow scrutiny that made her
shrink. "When I am tired of you," he said coldly.

She shuddered violently and turned away with a little moan, stumbling
blindly towards the inner room, but as she reached the curtains his
voice arrested her. He had thrown aside the magazine and was lying back
on the divan, his long limbs stretched out indolently, his hands
clasped behind his head.

"You make a very charming boy," he said lightly, with a faint smile,
"but it was not a boy that I saw in Biskra. You understand?"

Beyond the curtains she stood a moment, shaking all over, her face
hidden in her hands, able to relax a little the hold she was keeping on
herself. Yes! She understood, plainly enough. The understanding had
already been forced upon her. It was an order from one who was prepared
to compel his commands, to make herself more attractive with all that
it implied in the eyes of the man who held her in his power and who
looked at her as no other man had ever dared to look, with appraising
criticism that made her acutely conscious of her sex, that made her
feel like a slave exposed for sale in a public market.

She must take off the boyish clothes that somehow seemed to lend her
courage and substitute, to gratify the whim of the savage in the next
room, the womanly dress that revealed more intimately the slender lines
of her figure and intensified the uncommon beauty of her face.

She went to the dressing table with lagging feet and stared resentfully
at the white face and haggard eyes that looked back at her from the
mirror. It was like the face of a stranger. Aubrey's words came back to
her with an irony that was horrible. To-night she did not dress to
please herself. Her face was set, her eyes almost black with rage, but
behind the rage there was lurking apprehension. She started at every
sound that came from the adjoining room. Her fingers, wet with
perspiration, seemed almost unable to fulfil their task. She hated him,
she hated herself, she hated her beauty that had brought this horror
upon her. She would have rebelled if she had dared, but instinctively
she hurried--fear had already driven her so far. But when she was ready
she did not move from the table beside which she stood. Fear had forced
her to haste, but her still struggling pride would not permit her to
obey her fear any further. She raised her eyes to the glass again,
glowering angrily at the pale reflection, and the old obstinacy mingled
with the new pain that filled them. Must she endure his mocking glance
with chalk-like cheeks and eyes like a beaten hound? Had she not even
courage enough left to hide the fear that filled her with
self-contempt? The wave of anger that went through her rushed the
colour into her face and she leaned nearer the glass with a little
murmur of satisfaction that stopped abruptly as her fingers gripped the
edge of the table, and she continued staring into the mirror not at her
own face, but at the white robes that appeared behind her head,
blotting out the limited view she had had of the room.

The Sheik was standing behind her. He had come with the peculiar
noiseless tread that she had noticed before. He swung her round to look
at her and she writhed under his eyes of admiration, straining from him
as far as his grip allowed. Holding her with one hand he took her chin
in the other and tilted her face up to his with a little smile. "Don't
look so frightened. I don't want anything more deadly than some soap
and water. Surely even an Arab may be allowed to wash his hands?"

His mocking voice and his taunt of fear stung her, but she would not
answer and, with a laugh and a shrug, he lot her go, picking up a razor
from the table and lounging into the bathroom.

With crimson cheeks Diana fled into the outer room, His manner could
not have been more casual if she had been his wife a dozen years. She
waited for him in a tumult of emotions, but with the advent of Gaston
and dinner he returned to the attitude of dispassionate, courteous host
that he had assumed when he first came in. He was a few minutes late,
and apologised gravely as he sat down opposite her. He maintained the
attitude throughout dinner, and conscious of the watching manservant
Diana made herself reply to his easy conversation.

He talked mainly of the desert and the sport that it offered, as if he
had studied her tastes and chosen the topic to please her. He spoke
well; what he said was interesting, and showed complete knowledge of
the subject, and at any other time Diana would have listened fascinated
and absorbed, but now the soft, slow, cultured voice only seemed to add
to the incongruity of the situation. The role of willing guest that he
was forcing upon her was almost more than she could play, and the
necessity of sitting still and responding was taxing her endurance to
the utmost. And all the time she was aware acutely of his constant
surveillance. Reluctantly her own furtive glance was drawn frequently
to his face, and always his dark fierce eyes were watching her with a
steadiness that racked her nerves, till she was reminded irresistibly
of an exhibition that she had seen in a circus in Vienna, where a lion
tamer had concluded an unusually daring performance by dining in the
lions' cage, surrounded by savage snarling brutes very different from
the sleepy half-drugged creatures ordinarily shown. Interested in the
animals, she had gone behind with Aubrey after the performance, and
while fondling some tiny lion cubs that had been brought for her to see
had chatted with the tamer, a girl little older than herself. She had
been somewhat unapproachable until she had realised from Diana's
friendly manner that her questions were prompted by real interest and
not mere curiosity, and had unbent with surprising swiftness, accepting
Diana's proffered cigarettes and taking her to see her special lions,
who were boxed for the night. Diana had wandered up and down before the
narrow cages, looking at the big brutes still restless from the show,
rubbing her cheek on the soft little round head of the cub she was
holding in her arms, smiling at its sleepy rasping purr.

"Are you ever afraid?" she had asked suddenly--"not of the ordinary
performance, but of that last act, when you dine all alone with them?"

The girl shrugged her shoulders, blowing a little cloud of smoke into
the cub's face, and her eyes had met Diana's slowly over his little
yellow body. "One does not taste very much," she had said drily.

And it was so with Diana. She had eaten mechanically everything that
had been put before her, but she had tasted nothing. She had one
thought in her mind that excluded everything else--to hide from the
probing eyes that watched her ceaselessly the overmastering fear that
augmented every moment. One thing she had noticed during the meal. For
her only the servant poured out the light French wine that he had
brought. Her eyes wandered to the Sheik's empty glass, and meeting her
glance he smiled, with a little inclination.

"Excuse me. I do not drink wine. It is my only virtue," he added, with
a sudden gleam leaping into his eyes that drove the blood into her
cheeks and her own eyes on to her plate.

She had forgotten that he was an Arab.

The dinner seemed interminable, and yet she wished that it would never
end. While the servant was in the room she was safe; the thought of his
going sent a cold shudder through her. With the coffee came a huge
Persian hound, almost upsetting the Frenchman in the entrance in his
frantic endeavour to precede him through the doorway. He flung his long
grey body across the Sheik's knees with a whine of pleasure and then
turned his head to growl at Diana. But the growl died away quickly, and
he lumbered down and came to her side curiously, eyeing her for a
moment and then thrusting his big head against her.

The Sheik laughed. "You are honoured. Kopec makes few friends."

She did not answer. The natural reply was almost certain to provoke a
retort that she did not desire, so she remained silent, smoothing the
hound's rough coat. With her heart turning slowly to lead she lingered
over her coffee until there was no further possible pretext for
remaining at the table, then rose with a short, sharp sigh.

For some minutes the Sheik had sat silent, his own coffee long since
finished. He made no comment when she got up, and went himself to the
big divan, followed by the hound, who had gone back to him as soon as
he moved.

Diana turned to the little bookcase, snatching at the opportunity it
offered for further silence, and took a book at random. She did not
know what she was looking at, she did not care. She only prayed
fervently that she might be left alone, that the sudden silent fit that
had come over him might continue.

Near her Gaston was clearing away the table and as he finished he
paused to speak to his master. Diana heard the words "le petit Sheik,"
but the rest was in Arabic and unintelligible to her. The Sheik frowned
with a gesture of annoyance, then nodded, and the servant left the
tent.

A few moments after a voice that she had not heard before made her look
up.

The young Arab who had ridden in with the Sheik was standing beside the
divan. The fierce eyes that were watching her every movement met hers,
and his cigarette was waved towards the young man. "My lieutenant,
Yusef, a son of the desert with the soul of a _flaneur._ His body
is here with me, but his heart is on the _trottoirs_ of Algiers."

The tall lad laughed and salaamed profoundly, then straightened
himself, posing magnificently until a curt word from the Sheik recalled
him to his errand and his swagger changed swiftly to a deference of
which the significance was not lost on Diana. The Arab might unbend to
his people if it so pleased him, but he kept them well in hand. She
looked at the lieutenant as he stood before his chief. He was tall and
slender as a girl, with an air of languid indolence that was obviously
a pose, for it was slipping from him now fast as he talked. His face
was strikingly handsome, only saved from effeminacy by a firm chin. He
was patently aware of his good looks. But he was also patently in awe
of his chief, and the news that he brought was apparently not welcome.

Through her thick lashes Diana watched them intently. The younger man
voluble, gesticulating, at times almost cringing. The Sheik silent,
except for an occasional word, the heavy scowl back on his face,
growing blacker every moment. At last with a shrug of impatience he got
up and they went out together, the hound following them. Diana subsided
on to the thick rug beside the bookcase. For a moment again she was
alone, free of the watching eyes that seemed to be burning into her all
the time, free of the hated proximity. She dropped her head on her
knees with a little whimper of weariness. For a moment she need not
check the tide of misery that rushed over her. She was tired in mind
and body, exhausted with the emotion that had shaken her until she knew
that no matter what happened in the future the Diana of yesterday was
dead, and her new self was strange and unfamiliar. She did not trust
it; she feared its capacity for maintaining the struggle she had
resolved upon. The old courageous self had never failed her, this new
shrinking fearful personality filled her with distrust. Her confidence
in herself was gone. Her contempt of herself was unutterable. The
strength that remained was not sufficient to conquer the fear that had
taken so strong a hold upon her. She could only hope to hide it, to
deny him at least that much satisfaction. She had grovelled at his feet
once and it had amused him. He had laughed! She would die rather than
afford him a similar amusement. She could never wipe out the
recollection of her cowardice; he would remember always, and so would
she; but she could atone for it if her strength held. And she prayed
that it might hold, until a sob broke from her and her hands cramped
around her knees. She pushed her hair off her forehead with a heavy
sigh, and she looked back over her shoulder at the empty room. It had
changed since this morning in the indefinable way a strange room does
change after a few hours' association. If she could leave it now and
never see it again in all her life no single detail of it would ever be
forgotten. Its characteristics had been stamped upon her as familiarly
as if the hours passed in it had been years. And yesterday was years
ago, when the poor silly fool that had been Diana Mayo had ridden
blindly into the trap from which her boasted independence had not been
able to save her. She had paid heavily for the determination to ignore
the restrictions of her sex laid upon her and the payment was not yet
over. Her tired body shrank from the struggle that must recommence so
soon. If he would only spare her until this numbing weariness that made
her so powerless should lessen. She heard his voice at the door and her
icy fingers grasped at the book that had slipped to the ground. The
thick rugs deadened the sound of his movements, but she knew
instinctively that he had come in and gone back to the divan where he
had been sitting before. She knew that he was looking at her. She could
feel his eyes fixed on her and she quivered with the consciousness of
his stare. She waited, shivering, for him to speak or move. His methods
of torture were diverse, she thought with dreary bitterness. Behind the
tent in the men's lines a tom-tom was beating, and the irregular rhythm
seemed hammering inside her own head. She could have shrieked with the
agony of it.

"Come here--Diane."

She started, for a moment hardly recognising the Gallic rendering of
her name, and then flushed angrily without answering or moving. It was
a very little thing to stir her after all that had been done, but the
use of her name flamed the anger that had been almost swamped in fear.
The proprietory tone in his voice roused all her inherent obstinacy.
She was not his to go at his call. What he wanted he must take--she
would never give voluntarily. She sat with her hands gripped tightly in
her lap, breathing rapidly, her eyes dark with apprehension.

"Come here," he repeated sharply.

Still she took no notice, but the face that he could not see was
growing very white.

"I am not accustomed to having my orders disobeyed," he said at last,
very slowly.

"And I am not accustomed to obeying orders," she retorted fiercely,
though her lips were trembling.

"You will learn." The sinister accent of his voice almost shattered her
remaining courage.

She crouched, gasping, on the ground, the same horrible terror that had
come to her last night stealing over her irresistibly, paralysing her.
Waiting, listening, agonising, the tom-tom growing louder and
louder--or was it only the throbbing in her own head? With a choking
cry she leaped to her feet suddenly and fled from him, back till the
side of the tent stopped her and she stood, with wide-flung arms,
gripping the black and silver hangings until he reached her.

Stooping he disengaged her clinging fingers from the heavy drapery and
drew her hands slowly together up to his breast with a little smile.
"Come," he whispered, his passionate eyes devouring her.

She fought against the fascination with which they dominated her,
resisting him dumbly with tight-locked lips till he held her
palpitating in his arms.

"Little fool," he said with a deepening smile. "Better me than my men."

The gibe broke her silence.

"Oh, you brute! You brute!" she wailed, until his kisses silenced her.




CHAPTER IV


"A month! Thirty-one days! Oh, God! Only thirty-one days. It seems a
lifetime. Only a month since I left Biskra. A month! A month!"

Diana flung herself on to her face, burying her head deeply into the
cushions of the divan, shutting out from her sight the barbaric luxury
of her surroundings, shuddering convulsively. She did not cry. The
complete breakdown of the first night had never been repeated. Tears of
shame and anger had risen in her eyes often, but she would not let them
fall. She would not give her captor the satisfaction of knowing that he
could make her weep. Her pride was dying hard. Her mind travelled back
slowly over the days and nights of anguished revolt, the perpetual
clash of will against will, the enforced obedience that had made up
this month of horror. A month of experience of such bitterness that she
wondered dully how she still had the courage to rebel. For the first
time in her life she had had to obey. For the first time in her life
she was of no account. For the first time she had been made conscious
of the inferiority of her sex. The training of years had broken down
under the experience. The hypothetical status in which she had stood
with regard to Aubrey and his friends was not tolerated here, where
every moment she was made to feel acutely that she was a woman, forced
to submit to everything to which her womanhood exposed her, forced to
endure everything that he might put upon her--a chattel, a slave to do
his bidding, to bear his pleasure and his displeasure, shaken to the
very foundation of her being with the upheaval of her convictions and
the ruthless violence done to her cold, sexless temperament. The
humiliation of it seared her proud heart. He was pitiless in his
arrogance, pitiless in his Oriental disregard of the woman subjugated.
He was an Arab, to whom the feelings of a woman were non-existent. He
had taken her to please himself and he kept her to please himself, to
amuse him in his moments of relaxation.

To Diana before she had come to Africa the life of an Arab Sheik in his
native desert had been a very visionary affair. The term sheik itself
was elastic. She had been shown Sheiks in Biskra who drove hard
bargains to hire out mangy camels and sore-covered donkeys for trips
into the interior. Her own faithless caravan-leader had called himself
"Sheik." But she had heard also of other and different Sheiks who lived
far away across the shimmering sand, powerful chiefs with large
followings, who seemed more like the Arabs of her imaginings, and of
whose lives she had the haziest idea. When not engaged in killing their
neighbours she visualized them drowsing away whole days under the
influence of narcotics, lethargic with sensual indulgence. The pictures
she had seen had been mostly of fat old men sitting cross-legged in the
entrance of their tents, waited on by hordes of retainers, and looking
languidly, with an air of utter boredom, at some miserable slave being
beaten to death.

She had not been prepared for the ceaseless activity of the man whose
prisoner she was. His life was hard, strenuous and occupied. His days
were full, partly with the magnificent horses that he bred, and partly
with tribal affairs that took him from the camp for hours at a time.
Upon one or two occasions he had been away for the whole night and had
come back at daybreak with all the evidences of hard riding. Some days
she rode with him, but when he had not the time or the inclination, the
French valet went with her. A beautiful grey thoroughbred called Silver
Star was kept for her use, and sometimes on his back she was able to
forget for a little time. So the moments of relaxation were less
frequent than they might have been, and it was only in the evenings
when Gaston had come and gone for the last time and she was alone with
the Sheik that an icy hand seemed to close down over her heart. And,
according to his mood, he noticed or ignored her. He demanded implicit
obedience to his lightest whim with the unconscious tyranny of one who
had always been accustomed to command. He ruled his unruly followers
despotically, and it was obvious that while they loved him they feared
him equally. She had even seen Yusef, his lieutenant, cringe from the
heavy scowl that she had, herself, learned to dread.

"You treat them like dogs," she said to him once. "Are you not afraid
that one day they will rise against you and murder you?"

And he had only shrugged his shoulders and laughed, the same low laugh
of amusement that never failed to make her shiver.

The only person whose devotion seemed untinged by any conflicting
sentiment was the French valet, Gaston.

It was the Sheik's complete indifference to everything beyond his own
will, his Oriental egoism, that stung her most. He treated her
supplications and invectives with a like unconcern. The paroxysms of
wild rage that filled her periodically made no impression on him. He
accorded them a shrug of ennui or watched her with cold curiosity, his
lips parted in a little cruel smile, as if the dissection of her
lacerated feelings amused him, until his patience was exhausted, and
then, with one of the lithe, quick movements that she could never
evade, his hands would grip and hold her and he would look at her. Only
that, but in the grasp of his lean, brown fingers and under the stare
of his dark, fierce eyes her own would drop, and the frantic words die
from her lips. She was physically afraid of him, and she hated him and
loathed herself for the fear he inspired. And her fear was legitimate.
His strength was abnormal, and behind it was the lawlessness and
absolutism that allowed free rein to his savage impulses. He held life
and death in his hand.

A few days after he had taken her she had seen him chastise a servant.
She did not know what the man's fault had been, but the punishment
seemed out of all proportion to anything that could be imagined, and
she had watched fascinated with horror, until he had tossed away the
murderous whip, and without a second glance at the limp, blood-stained
heap that huddled on the ground with suggestive stillness had strolled
back unconcerned to the tent. The sight had sickened her and haunted
her perpetually. His callousness horrified her even more than his
cruelty. She hated him with all the strength of her proud, passionate
nature. His personal beauty even was an additional cause of offence.
She hated him the more for his handsome face and graceful, muscular
body. His only redeeming virtue in her eyes was his total lack of
vanity, which she grudgingly admitted. He was as unconscious of himself
as was the wild animal with which she compared him.

"He is like a tiger," she murmured deep into the cushions, with a
shiver, "a graceful, cruel, merciless beast." She remembered a tiger
she had shot the previous winter in India. After hours of weary,
cramped waiting in the machan the beautiful creature had slipped
noiselessly through the undergrowth and emerged into the clearing. He
had advanced midway towards the tree where she was perched and had
stopped to listen, and the long, free stride, the haughty poise of the
thrown-back head, the cruel curl of the lips and the glint in the
ferocious eyes flashing in the moonlight, were identical with the
expression and carriage of the man who was her master. Then it had been
admiration without fear, and she had hesitated at wantonly destroying
so perfect a thing, until the quick pressure of her shikari's fingers
on her arm brought her back to facts and reminded her that the "perfect
thing" was reported to have eaten a woman the previous week. And now it
was fear with a reluctant admiration that she despised herself for
according.

A hand on her shoulder made her start up with a cry. Usually her nerves
were in better control, but the thick rugs deadened every sound, and
she had not expected him so soon. He had been out since dawn and had
come in much past his usual time, and had been having a belated siesta
in the adjoining room.

Angry with herself she bit her lip and pushed the tumbled hair off her
forehead. He dropped on to the divan beside her and lit the inevitable
cigarette; he smoked continuously every moment he was not in the
saddle. She glanced at him covertly. He was lying with his head thrown
back against the cushions, idly blowing smoke-rings and watching them
drift towards the open door-way. And as she looked he yawned and turned
to her.

"Zilah is careless. Insist that she puts away your boots, and does not
leave your clothes lying on the floor. There was a scorpion in the
bathroom to-day," he said lazily, stretching out his long legs.

She flushed hotly, as she always did when he made any casual reference
to the intimacy of their life. It was his casualness that frightened
her, the carelessly implied continuance of a state that scorched her
with shame. His attitude invariably suggested a duration of their
relations that left her numb with a kind of helpless despair. He was so
sure of himself, so sure of his possession of her.

She felt the warm blood pouring over her face now, up to the roots of
her bright hair and dyeing her slender neck, and she put her hands up
to her head, her fingers thrust through her loose curls, to shield her
face from his eyes.

She gave a sigh of relief when Gaston came in bringing a little tray
with two filigree-cased cups of coffee.

"I have brought coffee; Madame's tea is finished," he murmured in tones
of deepest distress, and with a gesture that conveyed a national
calamity.

There had been just enough tea taken on the tour to last a month. It
was another pin-prick, another reminder. She set her teeth, moving her
head angrily, and found herself looking into a pair of mocking eyes,
and, as always, her own dropped.

Gaston said a few words in Arabic to his master, and the Sheik
swallowed the boiling coffee and went out hastily. The valet moved
about the tent with his usual deft noiselessness, gathering up
cigarette ends and spent matches, and tidying the room with an
assiduous orderliness that was peculiarly his own. Diana watched him
almost peevishly. Was it the influence of the desert that made all
these men cat-like in their movements, or was the servant consciously
or unconsciously copying his master? With a sudden fit of childish
irritability she longed to smash something, and, with an impetuous
hand, sent the little inlaid table with the tray and coffee-cups
flying. She was ashamed of the impulse even before the crash came, and
looked at Gaston clearing up the debris with anxious eyes. What was the
matter with her? The even temper on which she prided herself and the
nerves that had been her boast had vanished, gone by the board in the
last month. If her nerve failed her utterly what would become of her?
What would she do?

Gaston had gone, and she looked around the tent with a hunted
expression. There seemed no escape possible from the misery that was
almost more than she could bear.

There was a way out that had been in her mind often, and she had
searched frequently in the hope that she might find the means. But the
Sheik had also thought and had taken precautions. One day it seemed as
if her desperate wish might be fulfilled, and she had had only a
moment's hesitation as she stretched out her hand to take the revolver
that had been left lying on a table, but as her fingers closed on the
butt a muscular hand closed over hers. He had come in with his usual
silent step and was close to her without her knowing. He had taken the
weapon from her quietly, holding her eyes with his own, and had jerked
it open, showing the empty magazine. "Do you think that I am quite a
fool?" he had asked without a trace of expression in his voice.

And since then she had been under a ceaseless, unobtrusive surveillance
that had left her no chance of carrying out her terrible resolve. She
buried her face in her hands. "Oh, my God! Is it never going to end? Am
I never going to get away from him?"

She sprang to her feet and walked restlessly round the tent, her hands
clasped behind her back, her head thrown up, and her lips pressed close
together. She panted as if she had been running, and her eyes had a
far-away, unseeing look. Gradually she got command of herself again and
the nervous excitement died down, leaving her weary and very desolate.
The solitude seemed suddenly horrible. Anything would be better than
the silent emptiness of the great tent. A noise outside attracted her,
and she wandered to the doorway and out under the awning. Near her the
Sheik with Gaston and Yusef stood watching a mad, ramping colt that was
being held with difficulty by two or three men, who clung to him
tenaciously in spite of his efforts to break away, and beyond was a
semi-circle of Arabs, some mounted and some on foot, leaving a wide,
open space between them and the tent. They were intensely excited,
talking and gesticulating, the mounted men riding round the outer ring
that they formed. Diana leaned against one of the lances that supported
the awning and watched the scene with growing interest. This camp was
many miles to the south of the one to which she had first been brought,
and which had been broken up a few days after her capture. The setting
was wonderful, the far-off hills dusky in the afternoon light, the
clustering palms behind the tents, the crowd of barbaric figures in
picturesque, white robes, the horsemen moving continuously up and down,
and in the midst of everything the beautiful, wild creature, frenzied
by the noise, kicking and biting at the men holding him. After a moment
the Sheik held up his hand, and a man detached himself from the
chattering crowd and came to him salaaming. The Sheik said a few words,
and with another salaam and a gleam of white teeth, the man turned and
approached the struggling group in the centre of the ring.

Diana straightened up with interest. The frantic colt was going to be
broken. It was already saddled. Several additional men ran forward, and
between them the horse was forcibly held for a moment--only for a
moment, but it was long enough for the man who leaped like a flash on
to his back. The others fell away, racing from the reach of the
terrible lashing heels. Amazed for the moment at the sudden
unaccustomed weight, the colt paused, and then reared straight up, till
it seemed to Diana that he must fall backward and crush the man who was
clinging to him. But he came down at last, and for a few moments it was
almost impossible to follow his spasmodic movements as he strove to rid
himself of his rider. The end came quickly. With a twisting heave of
his whole body he shot the Arab over his head, who landed with a dull
thud and lay still, while the men who had been holding the colt dashed
in and secured him before he was aware of his liberty. Diana looked
towards the fallen man; a little crowd were gathered around him, and
her heart beat faster as she thought that he was dead. Dead so quickly,
and only a moment before he had been so full of life and strength.
Death meant nothing to these savages, she thought bitterly, as she
watched the limp body being carried away by three or four men, who
argued violently over their burden. She glanced at the Sheik. He seemed
perfectly unconcerned and did not even look in the direction of the man
who had fallen. On the contrary, he laughed, and, turning to Yusef, put
his hand en his shoulder and nodded towards the colt. Diana gave a
gasp. He spared no one. He was going to make the young man take his
chance as the rough-rider had taken his. She knew that the lieutenant
rode well, as did all Ahmed Ben Hassan's followers, and that his
languid manner was only a pose, but he looked so young and boyish, and
the risk seemed enormous. She had seen colts broken before many times,
but never a colt so madly savage as this one. But to Yusef the chance
was evidently welcome. With an answering laugh, he swaggered out into
the arena, where the men greeted him with shouts. There was the same
procedure as before, and Yusef bounded up lightly into the saddle. This
time, instead of rearing, the frightened beast dashed forward in a wild
effort to escape, but the mounted men, closing up, headed him into the
middle of the ring again, and he went back to his first tactics with a
rapidity that was too much for the handsome lad on his back, and in a
few moments he was thrown heavily. With a shrill scream the colt turned
on him open-mouthed, and Yusef flung up one arm to save his face. But
the men reached him in time, dragging the colt from him by main force.
He rose to his feet unsteadily and limped to the tents behind. Diana
could not see him easily for the throng around him.

Again she looked at the Sheik and ground her teeth. He was stooping to
light a cigarette from a match that Gaston was holding, and then they
walked together nearer to the colt. The animal was now thoroughly
maddened, and it was increasingly difficult to hold him. They went up
close to the struggling, yelling grooms, and the next minute Diana saw
Gaston sitting firmly in the empty saddle. The little man rode
magnificently, and put up a longer fight than the others had done, but
at last his turn came, and he went flying over the colt's head. He came
down lightly on his hands and knees, and scrambled to his feet in an
instant amidst a storm of shouts and laughter. Laughing himself he came
back to the Sheik with a shrug of the shoulders and outspread, eloquent
hands. They spoke together for a moment, too low for Diana to hear, and
then Ahmed Ben Hassan went again into the middle of the ring. Diana's
breath came more quickly. She guessed his intention before he reached
the colt, and she moved forward from under the awning and joined
Gaston, who was wrapping his handkerchief round a torn hand.

"Monseigneur will try?" she asked a little breathlessly.

Gaston looked at her quickly. "Try, Madame?" he repeated in a queer
voice. "Yes, he will try."

Again the empty saddle was filled, and a curious hush came over the
watching crowd. Diana looked on with bright, hard eyes, her heart
beating heavily. She longed passionately that the colt might kill him,
and, at the same time, illogically, she wanted to see him master the
infuriated animal. The sporting instinct in her acknowledged and
responded to the fight that was going on before her eyes. She hated him
and she hoped that he might die, but she was forced to admire the
wonderful horsemanship that she was watching. The Sheik sat like a
rock, and every effort made to unseat him was unsuccessful. The colt
plunged wildly, making furious blind dashes backward and forward,
stopping dead in the hope of dislodging his rider, twirling round
suddenly until it seemed impossible that he could keep his feet. Then
he started rearing, straight up, his forelegs beating the air, higher
and higher, and then down, to commence again without a moment's
breathing-space.

Diana heard Gaston's breath whistle through his teeth. "Look, Madame!"
he cried sharply, and Diana saw the Sheik give a quick glance behind
him, and, as the colt shot up again, almost perpendicular, with a jerk
he pulled him deliberately over backwards, leaping clear with a
tremendous effort as the horse crashed to the ground. He was in the
saddle again almost before the dazed creature had struggled to its
feet. And then began a scene that Diana never forgot. It was the final
struggle that was to end in defeat for either man or horse, and the
Sheik had decided that it was not to be for the man. It was a
punishment of which the untamed animal was never to lose remembrance.
The savagery and determination of the man against the mad determination
of the horse. It was a hideous exhibition of brute strength and
merciless cruelty. Diana was almost sick with horror from the
beginning; she longed to turn away, but her eyes clung fascinated to
the battle that was going on. The hush that had fallen on the crowd had
given way to roars of excitement, and the men pressed forward eagerly,
to give back precipitately when the still-fighting animal's heels
flashed too near.

Diana was shaking all over and her hands were clenching and unclenching
as she stared at the man, who seemed a part of the horse he was sitting
so closely. Would it never end? She did not care now which killed the
other so that it would only stop. The man's endurance seemed mere
bravado. She clutched Gaston's arms with a hand that was wringing wet.
"It is horrible," she gasped with an accent of loathing.

"It is necessary," he replied quietly.

"Nothing can justify that," she cried passionately.

"Your pardon, Madame. He must learn. He killed a man this morning,
threw him, and what you call in English 'savaged' him."

Diana hid her face in her hands. "I can't bear it," she said pitifully.

A few minutes later Gaston clicked his tongue against his teeth. "See,
Madame. It is over," he said gently.

She looked up fearfully. The Sheik was standing on the ground beside
the colt, who was swaying slowly from side to side with heaving sides
and head held low to the earth, dripping blood and foam. And as she
looked he tottered and collapsed exhausted. There was a rush from all
sides, and Gaston went towards his master, who towered above the crowd
around him.

Diana turned away with an exclamation of disgust. It was enough to have
seen a display of such brutality; it was too much to stand by while his
fellow-savages acclaimed him for his cruelty.

She went slowly back into the tent, shaken with what she had seen, and
stood in undecided hesitation beside the divan. The helpless feeling
that she so often experienced swept over her with renewed force. There
was nowhere that she could get away from him, no privacy, no respite.
Day and night she must endure his presence with no hope of escape. She
closed her eyes in a sudden agony, and then stiffened at the sound of
his voice outside.

He came in laughing, a cigarette dangling from one blood-stained hand,
while with the other he wiped the perspiration from his forehead,
leaving a dull red smear. She shrank from him, looking at him with
blazing eyes. "You are a brute, a beast, a devil! I hate you!" she
choked furiously.

For a moment an ugly look crossed his face, and then he laughed again.
"Hate me by all means, _ma belle_, but let your hatred be
thorough. I detest mediocrity," he said lightly, as he passed on into
the other room.

She sank down on to the couch. She had never felt so desperate, so
powerless. She stared straight before her, shivering, as she went over
the scene she had just witnessed, her fingers picking nervously at the
jade-green silk of her dress. She longed for some power that would
deaden her feelings and blunt her capacity for suffering. She looked at
Gaston with hard eyes when he came in. He had approved of what the
Sheik had done, would have done it himself if he had been able. They
were all alike.

"The man who was hurt first," she asked abruptly, with a touch of her
old hauteur in her voice, "is he dead?"

"Oh no, Madame. He has concussion but he will be all right. They have
hard heads, these Arabs."

"And Yusef?"

Gaston grinned. "_Le petit_ Sheik has a broken collar-bone. It is
nothing. A few days' holiday to be petted in his harem, _et
voila_!"

"His harem?" echoed Diana in surprise. "Is he married?"

"_Mais oui_, Madame. He has two wives."

At Diana's exclamation he shrugged deprecatingly. "_Que
voulez-vous?_ It is the custom of the country," he said tolerantly,
with the air of conceding a melancholy fact with the best grace
possible.

The customs of the country was dangerous ground, and Diana changed the
subject hastily. "Where did you learn to ride, Gaston?"

"In a racing-stable at Auteuil, Madame, when I was a boy. Then I was
five years in the French cavalry. After that I came to Monseigneur."

"And you have been with him--how long?"

"Fifteen years, Madame."

"Fifteen years," she repeated wonderingly. "Fifteen years here, in the
desert?"

"Here and elsewhere, Madame," he answered rather more shortly than
usual, and with a murmur of excuse left the tent.

Diana leaned back against the cushions with a little sigh. Gaston need
not have been afraid that she was trying to learn his master's secrets
from him. She had not fallen as low as that. The mystery of the man
whose path had crossed hers so terribly seemed to augment instead of
lessen as the time went on. What was the power in him that compelled
the devotion of his wild followers and the little French ex-cavalryman?
She knit her forehead in perplexity and was still puzzling over it when
he came back. Immaculate and well-groomed he was very different from
the dishevelled, bloodstained savage of half-an-hour before. She shot a
nervous glance at him, remembering her outburst, but he was not angry.
He looked grave, but his gravity seemed centred in himself as he passed
his lean fingers tenderly over his smooth chin. She had seen Aubrey do
similarly hundreds of times. Occidental or Oriental, men seemed very
alike. She waited for him to speak and waited vainly. One of the
taciturn fits to which she had grown accustomed had come over
him--hours sometimes in which he simply ignored her altogether. The
evening meal was silent. He spoke once to Gaston, but he spoke in
Arabic, and the servant replied only with a nod of compliance. And
after Gaston was gone he did not speak for a long time, but sat on the
divan, apparently absorbed in his thoughts.

Restless, Diana moved about the tent, listlessly examining objects that
she knew by heart, and flirting over the pages of the French magazines
she had read a dozen times. Usually she was thankful for his silent
moods. To-night with a woman's perversity she wanted him to speak. She
was unstrung, and the utter silence oppressed her. She glanced over her
shoulder at him once or twice, but his back looked unapproachable. Yet
when he called her, with a swift revulsion of feeling, she wished he
had kept silent. She went to him slowly. She was too unnerved to-night
to struggle against him. What would be the use? she thought wearily; it
would only end in defeat as it always did. He pulled her down on the
divan beside him, and before she realised what he was doing slipped a
long jade necklace over her head. For a moment she looked stupidly at
the wonderful thing, almost unique in the purity of its colour and the
marvellous carving on the uniform square pieces of which it was
composed, and then with a low cry she tore it off and flung it on the
ground.

"How dare you?" she gasped.

"You don't like it?" he asked in his low, unruffled voice, his eyebrows
raised in real or assumed surprise. "Yet it matches your dress," and
lightly his long fingers touched the folds of green silk swathed across
the youthful curve of her breast. He glanced at an open box filled with
shimmering stones on a low stool beside him.

"Pearls are too cold and diamonds too banal for you," he said slowly.
"You should wear nothing but jade. It is the colour of the evening sky
against the sunset of your hair."

He had never spoken like that to her before, or used that tone of
voice. His methods had been more fierce than tender. She glanced up
swiftly at his face, but it baffled her. There was no love in his eyes
or even desire, nothing but an unusual gentleness. "Perhaps you would
prefer the diamonds and the pearls," he went on, pointing disdainfully
at the box.

"No, no. I hate them! I hate them all! I will not wear your jewels. You
have no right to think that I am that kind of woman," she cried
hysterically.

"You do not like them? _Bon Dieu!_ None of the other women ever
refused them. On the contrary, they could never get enough," he said
with a laugh.

Diana looked up with a startled glance, a look of horror dawning in her
eyes. "Other women?" she repeated blankly.

"You didn't suppose you were the first, did you?" he asked with brutal
candour. "Don't look at me like that. They were not like you, they came
to me willingly enough--too willingly. Allah! How they bored me! I
tired of them before they tired of me."

She flung her arm across her eyes with a dry sob, straining away from
him. She had never thought of that. In the purity of her mind it had
never occurred to her. She was only one of many, one of a succession of
mistresses, taken and discarded at his whim. She writhed with the shame
that filled her. "Oh, you hurt me!" she whispered very low, and then
anger killed all other feeling. He had loosened his arm about her and
she wrenched herself free and sprang to her feet. "I hate you, do you
understand? I hate you! I hate you!"

He lit a cigarette leisurely before answering and moved into a more
comfortable position on the divan. "So you have already told me this
afternoon," he said at length coolly, "and with reiteration your remark
becomes less convincing, _ma cherie_."

Her anger ebbed away. She was too tired to be angry. She was humiliated
and hurt, and the man before her had it in his power to hurt her more,
but she was at his mercy and to-night she could not fight. She pushed
the hair off her forehead with a heavy sigh and looked at the Sheik's
long length stretched out on the couch, the steely strength of his
limbs patent even in the indolent attitude in which he was lying, at
his brown handsome face, inscrutable as it always was to her, and the
feeling of helplessness came back with renewed force and with it the
sense of her own pitiful weakness against his force, compelling her to
speak. "Have you never felt pity for a thing that was weaker than
yourself? Have you never spared anything or any one in all your life?
Have you nothing in your nature but cruelty? Are all Arabs hard like
you?" she said shakily. "Has love never even made you merciful?"

He glanced up at her with a harsh laugh, and shook his head. "Love?
_Connais pas!_ Yes, I do," he added with swift mockery, "I love my
horses."

"When you don't kill them," she retorted.

"I am corrected. When I don't kill them."

There was something in his voice that made her reckless, that made her
want to hurt him. "If you give no love to the--the women whom you bring
here, do you give love to the women of your harem? You have a harem, I
suppose, somewhere?" she braved him with curling lip and scornful
voice, but as she spoke she knew that she had only hurt herself and her
voice faltered.

His hand reached out suddenly and he dragged her down into his arms
again with a laugh. "And if I have, are you jealous? What if the nights
I spent away from you were passed in my harem--what then?"

"Then may Allah put it into the heart of one of your wives to poison
you so that you never come back," she said fiercely.

"Allah! So beautiful and so bloodthirsty," he said in bantering
reproof. Then he turned her face up to his, smiling into her angry eyes
with amusement. "I have no harem and, thanks be to Allah, no wives,
_cherie._ Does that please you?"

"Why should I care? It is nothing to me," she replied sharply, with a
vivid blush.

He held her closer, looking deeply into her eyes, holding them as he
could when he liked, in spite of her efforts to turn them away--a
mesmerism she could not resist.

"Shall I make you care? Shall I make you love me? I can make women love
me when I choose."

She went very white and her eyes flickered. She knew that he was only
amusing himself, that he was utterly indifferent to her feelings, that
he did not care if she hated or loved him, but it was a new form of
torture that was more detestable than anything that had gone before it.
It infuriated her that he could even suggest that she could come to
care for him, that she could ever look on him as anything but a brutal
savage who had committed a hideous outrage, that she could ever have
any feeling for him except hatred and loathing. That he should class
her with the other women he spoke of revolted her, she felt degraded,
soiled as she had never done before, and she had thought that she had
felt the utmost humiliation of her position.

The colour rushed back into her face. "I would rather you killed me,"
she cried passionately.

"So would I," he said drily, "for if you loved me you would bore me and
I should have to let you go. While as it is"--he laughed softly--"as it
is I do not regret the chance that took me into Biskra that day."

He let her go and got up with a yawn, watching her approvingly as she
crossed the tent. The easy swing of her boyish figure and the defiant
carriage of her head reminded him of one of his own thoroughbred
horses. She was as beautiful and as wild as they were. And as he broke
them so would he break her. She was nearly tamed now, but not quite,
and by Allah! it should be quite! As he turned his foot struck against
the jade necklace lying on the rug where she had thrown it. He picked
it up and called her back. She came reluctantly, slowly, with mutinous
eyes.

He held out the necklace silently, and silently she stared not at it
but at him. Her heart began to beat faster, and the colour slowly left
her face. "Take it. I wish it," he said quietly.

"No." It was little more than a gasp.

"You will wear it to please me," he went on in the same soft voice, and
the old hateful mockery crept into his eyes, "to please my artistic
soul. I have an artistic soul even though I am only an Arab."

"I will not!"

The mockery was wiped out of his eyes in a flash, giving place to the
usual ferocity, and his forehead knit in the dreaded heavy scowl.
"Diane, obey me!"

She clenched her teeth on her lower lip until a rim of blood stained
their whiteness. If he would only shout or bluster like the average
angry man she felt that she could brave him longer, but the cold quiet
rage that characterised him always was infinitely more sinister, and
paralysed her with its silent force. She had never heard him raise his
voice in anger or quicken his usual slow, soft tone, but there was an
inflection that came into his voice and a look that came into his eyes
that was more terrible than any outburst. She had seen his men shrink
when, standing near him, she had barely been able to hear what he had
said. She had seen a look from him silence a clamorous quarrel that had
broken out among his followers too close to his own tent for his
pleasure. And that inflection was in his voice and that look was in his
eyes now. It was no longer use to resist. The fear of him was an agony.
She would have to obey, as in the end he always forced her to obey. She
wrenched her eyes away from his compelling stare, her bosom heaving
under the soft silk, her chin quivering, and reached out blindly and
took it from him. But the sudden chill of it against her bare breast
seemed to revive the courage that was not yet dead in her. She flung up
her head, the transient colour flaming into her cheeks, and her lips
sprang open, but he drew her to him swiftly, and laid his hand over her
mouth. "I know, I know," he said coldly. "I am a brute and a beast and
a devil. You need not tell me again. It commences to grow tedious." His
hand slipped to her shoulder, his fingers gripping the delicate,
rounded arm. "How much longer are you going to fight? Would it not be
wiser after what you have seen to-day to recognise that I am master?"

"You mean that you will treat me as you treated the colt this
afternoon?" she whispered, her eyes drawn back irresistibly to his in
spite of all her efforts.

"I mean that you must realise that my will is law."

"And if I do not?" He guessed rather than heard the words.

"Then I will teach you, and I think that you will learn--soon."

She quivered in his hands. It was a threat, but how much of it he meant
to be taken literally she did not know. Again every ghastly detail of
the afternoon passed with lightning speed through her mind. When he
punished he punished mercilessly. To what lengths would he go? The Arab
standards were not those of the men amongst whom she had lived. The
position of a woman in the desert was a very precarious one. There were
times when she forgot altogether that he was an Arab until some chance,
as now, drove the hard fact home indisputably. He was an Arab, and as a
woman she need expect no mercy at his hands. His hands! She looked down
for a second sideways at the fingers gripping her shoulder and she saw
them again stained with blood, saw them clenched round the dripping
thong. She knew already by bitter experience the iron grip of his lean
fingers and the compelling strength of his arms. Her quick imagination
leaped ahead. What she had already suffered would be nothing compared
with what would be. The remembrance of the stained, huddled figure of
the servant he had chastised rose before her. And as she battled with
herself, still torn in her passionate desire to make her strong will
and courageous spirit triumph over her coward woman's body that shrank
instinctively from physical torture, his arm tightened around her and
she felt the hard muscles pressing against her shoulders and soft, bare
neck, a suggestion of the force lying dormant beside her. She looked up
at him slowly.

His expression was unchanged, his forehead was still drawn together in
the heavy frown and there was no softening in his eyes. The cruel lines
about his mouth were accentuated and the tiger-look in his face was
more marked than ever. He was not threatening idly; he meant what he
said.

"You had better kill me," she said drearily.

"That would be to admit my own defeat," he replied coolly. "I do not
kill a horse until I have proved beyond all possible doubt that I
cannot tame it. With you I have no such proof. I can tame you and I
will. But it is for you to choose and to choose to-night if you will
obey me willingly or if I must make you. I have been very patient--for
me," he added, with an odd smile flitting across his face, "but my
patience is exhausted. Choose quickly." Insensibly he drew her closer
to him till his arm felt like an inflexible steel band about her, and
she thought with a shudder of the coils of a great serpent closing
round its victim. She made a final effort to conquer herself, but
between her and the broad chest so close to her she seemed to see a
horse's head held low in agony, blood and foam dripping from his
lacerated mouth, and a horse's flanks heaving piteously, torn with the
cruel punishment he had undergone. A sudden nausea came over her,
everything seemed to swim before her eyes, and she swayed against the
man who was holding her. Her bodily fear overruled her mind. She could
not bear any more.

"I will obey you," she whispered heavily.

He took her chin in his fingers and jerked her head up sharply, staring
at her intently until she felt he was looking into her very soul. The
heavy scowl smoothed away but the fierceness lingered in his eyes.
"Good!" he said at length briefly. "You are wise," he added
significantly. He tilted her head further back, bending his own down
until his lips were nearly touching hers. She shivered involuntarily,
an anguished appeal leaping into her eyes. He smiled ironically. "Do
you hate them so much, my kisses?"

She swallowed convulsively.

"You are at least candid if you are not complimentary;" and with that
he released her and turned away.

She reached the curtain that divided the two rooms, her heart beating
wildly, giddy with the strain that she had gone through. She paused a
moment and looked back at him, amazed at her own temerity. He had
unbuttoned the flap of the tent and was standing in the entrance
looking out into the night. The scent of the peculiar tobacco he used
drifted to her with the draught from the open door. Her eyes grew
puzzled. Would she ever understand him? To-night he had given her a
choice instead of simply enforcing his will, he had made her choose to
save herself, he had proved his determination and his mastery over her.
And with his last words the unexpected gentleness had come into his
voice again and the cruel lines about his mouth had relaxed in a smile
of amusement. It was the swift transition from ferocity to gentleness
that she could never fathom. His complex nature was beyond her
understanding. She would not try to understand him; she could never
know the depths of his baffling personality. She only knew that for
some reason of his own he had spared her, and she feared him more than
ever.




CHAPTER V


Under the awning of the tent Diana was waiting for Gaston and the
horses, pulling on her thick riding-gloves nervously. She was wrought
up to the utmost pitch of excitement. Ahmed Ben Hassan had been away
since the previous day and it was uncertain if he would return that
night or the next. He had been vague as to how long he would be
absent. There had been a constant coming and going amongst his
followers--messengers arriving on exhausted horses at all hours of the
day and night, and the Sheik himself had seemed unusually preoccupied.
He had not condescended to give any reason for the special activity of
his people and she had not asked him.

In the four weeks that had elapsed since she had promised him her
obedience she had been very silent. The fear and hatred of him grew
daily. She had learned to stifle the wild fits of rage and the angry
words that leaped to her lips. She had learned to obey--a reluctant
obedience given with compressed lips and defiant eyes, but given, and
with a silence that surprised even herself. Day after day she had
followed the usual routine, dumb unless he spoke to her; and with his
own attention occupied with matters beyond the four walls of his tent
he had not noticed or did not trouble to heed her silence. Lately he
had left her very much alone; she had ridden with him almost daily
until the last week, when he had announced curtly that in the meantime
the length of her rides must be curtailed and that Gaston would
accompany her. He had not offered any explanation, and she had not
sought one. She had chosen to see in it merely another act of tyranny
imposed on her by the man whose arbitrary exercise of power over her
and whose tacit possession of her galled her continually. And under the
sullen submission a wild fury of revolt was raging. She searched
feverishly for means of flight, and now the Sheik's absence seemed to
have given her the chance she had been waiting for. In the solitude of
the previous night she had tossed impatiently from side to side of the
big couch, vainly trying to find some means of taking advantage of her
comparative freedom to effect her escape. Surely she could find some
way of avoiding Gaston's vigilance. Excitement had kept her awake half
the night, and in the morning she had had hard work to keep her
agitation hidden and to appear as usual. She had even been afraid to
order the horses any earlier in her nervous terror lest the valet
should suspect there was any reason behind the simple request. After
her _petit dejeuner_ she had paced the tent, unable to sit still,
dreading lest any moment might bring the return of the Sheik and
frustrate her hopes. She looked back into the room with a shudder as
her eyes travelled over the luxurious appointments and different
objects that had become so curiously familiar in the last two months.
The unexpected equipments and the man's own baffling personality would
remain in her recollection always as an enigma that she would never be
able to solve. So much had been so inexplicable in himself and in his
mode of life. She drew a long breath and went out hastily into the
sunshine.

The horses were waiting, and Gaston was standing ready to hold her
stirrup. She fondled the beautiful grey horse's soft nose and patted
his satiny neck with a hand that trembled a little. She loved the horse
and to-day he should be the means of saving her. He responded to her
caresses, gentling her with slobbering mouth and whinnying softly. With
one last look at the big double tent and the rest of the camp behind it
she mounted and rode away without another backward glance. She had to
exercise a rigid control over herself. She longed to put Silver Star
into a hand gallop at once and shake off Gaston, but she was still too
near the camp. She must be patient and put a certain number of miles
between herself and the possibility of pursuit before she attempted
anything. Too early an endeavour would only bring the whole horde in
wild chase at her heels. The thought of the promise she had given to
the man from whom she was flying came back to her. She had promised
obedience, but she had not promised that she would not try to escape,
and, if she had, no promise wrung from her by fear was valid in her
opinion.

She rode steadily forward at a slow, swinging canter, instinctively
saving her horse, plan after plan passing through her brain to be
rejected as impracticable. Silver Star fretted continually at the
moderate pace, tossing his head and catching at his bit. She took no
heed of the time beyond the fact that it was passing quickly, and that
if anything was to be done it must be done as soon as possible. But
Gaston, riding a few paces behind her, was very much alive to the hour
and had looked several times at his watch. He ranged alongside of her
now with a murmured apology. "Pardon, Madame. It grows late," and
submitted his wrist watch for her inspection.

Diana glanced mechanically at her own wrist and then remembered that
she had broken her watch the day before. She pulled up, and tilting her
helmet back mopped her hot forehead, and, as she did so, a sharp breeze
sprang up, the curious wind that comes and goes so rapidly in the
desert. An idea flashed into her mind. It was a poor chance, but it
might succeed. She shot a glance at Gaston. He was looking in the
opposite direction, and, raising her hand, she fluttered her
handkerchief a moment in the breeze and then let it go. The wind
carried it some distance away. She gave a little cry and caught at the
bridle of the valet's horse.

"Oh, Gaston, my handkerchief!" and pointed to where the morsel of
cambric lay white against a rock. With a comical exclamation of dismay
he slipped to the ground and started to run across the sand.

She waited until he had got well on his way, sitting tense with shining
eyes and thumping heart, then, snatching off her helmet, she brought it
down with a resounding smack on the hindquarters of the servant's
horse, stampeding it in the direction of the camp, and, wheeling Silver
Star, headed for the north, deaf to Gaston's cries.

Wild with excitement and free to go his own pace at last her mount
galloped swiftly and the wind whistled past Diana's ears. To the
possible fate of the little Frenchman left on foot so far from the
encampment she gave no heed. For the moment she did not even think of
him, she had no thought for anybody but herself. Her ruse by its very
simplicity had succeeded. She was free and she did not care about
anything else. She had no plans or ideas what she should do or where
she should go beyond the fact that she would keep riding northward. She
had vague hopes that she might fall in with friendly Arabs who, for a
promised reward, would guide her to civilisation. Most of them could
speak a little French, and for the rest her small stock of Arabic must
do. She knew that she was mad to attempt to ride across the desert
alone, but she did not mind. She was free. She was too excited to think
coherently. She laughed and shouted like a mad thing and her madness
communicated itself to the grey, who was going at racing speed. Diana
knew that he was out of control, that she could not stop him if she
tried, but she did not want to try, the faster the better. In time he
would tire himself, but until then let him go as he pleased. She was
fast putting miles between herself and the camp that had been a prison,
between herself and the brute who had dared to do what he had done. At
the thought of the Sheik a sick feeling of fear ran through her. If
anything should happen? If he should catch her again? She shuddered,
and a cry burst from her lips, but she gripped herself at once. She was
idiotic, contemptible; it was impossible. It would be hours, perhaps
even the next day, before the alarm was given; he would not know in
what direction she had gone. She would have miles of start on one of
the fleetest of his horses. She tried to put him out of her mind. She
had escaped from him and his cruelty, it was a nightmare that was over.
The effects would remain with her always, nothing would ever be the
same again, but the daily dread, the daily contamination would be gone,
the helpless tortured feeling, the shame of submission that had filled
her with an acute self-loathing that was as intense as her passionate
hatred of the man who had forced her to endure his will. The memory of
it would live with her for ever. He had made her a vile thing. Her
cheeks scorched with the thought and she shivered at the remembrance of
all that she had gone through. She had been down into the depths and
she would carry the scars all her life. The girl who had started out so
triumphantly from Biskra had become a woman through bitter knowledge
and humiliating experience.

The pace was less killing now. Silver Star had settled down into the
steady tireless gallop for which Ahmed Ben Hassan's horses were famous.
The little breeze had died away as quickly as it had sprung up, and it
was very hot. Diana looked about her with glowing eyes. Everything
seemed different. From the first she had loved the desert, but back of
everything and mingled with everything had been the feeling of fear,
the continual restraint, the perpetual subservience to the whims of her
captor which had dominated everything. But now the whole aspect was
changed. She loved the endless, undulating expanse stretching out
before her, and as the grey topped each rise her interest grew keener.
What might not be behind the next one? For an hour or more the ground
rose and fell in monotonous succession, and then the desert grew level
again and quite suddenly she could see for miles. About two miles away
a few palm trees showed clustering together, and Diana turned in their
direction. They probably meant a well, and it was time she rested her
horse and herself. It was the tiniest little oasis, and she drew rein
and dismounted with fears for the well she had hoped to find. But there
was one, very much silted up, and she set to work to clear it as well
as she could to procure enough for herself and Silver Star, who was
frantically trying to get to the water. It was exhausting work, but she
managed to satisfy the grey, and, having unloosed his girths, she flung
herself down on the ground in a small patch of shade. She lit a
cigarette and lay flat on her back with her helmet over her eyes.

For the first time since she had shaken off Gaston she began to think
seriously. What she had done was madness. She had no food for herself
or her horse, no water, and Heaven alone knew where the next well might
be. She was alone in an uncivilised country among a savage people with
no protection of any ki

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