Sir George Barclay and most of his staff had a knowledge of Eastern
prisons from the outside. They knew them to be abodes of misery; dark,
insanitary dens, alive with vermin, squalid and filthy, filled with a
gaunt, ragged crowd who, all day long, held piteous hands through iron
bars, begging for food from the passers-by, the only food they were
given.
The Governor's staff did not look forward to a sojourn in El-Ammeh. As
for Sir George himself, he had other matters than his own personal
comfort to dwell on.
His thoughts were always with Pansy, and always in his heart was the
prayer that she would succumb to the effects of Cameron's bullet, and
not have to meet the fate his enemy had in store for her.
After the one interview the Sultan had ignored Barclay. But during the
long journey, Sir George often saw his enemy, and if he thought of
anything outside of his daughter's fate, it was to wonder why Casim
Ammeh looked so different from the wild hordes he ruled. Exactly like
a man of the well-bred, darker, Latin type, certainly not the son of
the savage marauder whom he, Barclay, had had to condemn to death.
On reaching El-Ammeh, the Europeans found the quarters awaiting them
very different from what experience had led them to expect.
They were ushered into a large courtyard dotted with trees and
surrounded by high walls. Into it a dozen little cells opened. Within
the enclosure they were free to wander as they pleased; a glance around
the place showed them why. The walls were twenty feet high, and as
smooth as glass, and there were always a dozen Arabs stationed by the
gate, watching all they did. At night they were each locked in
separate cells.
It was impossible to bribe the guards, as Cameron and his fellow
officers discovered before a week had passed.
For the imprisoned Englishmen the time passed slowly. Often they
speculated on their own ultimate fate. Whether death would be their
portion, or whether they would be left there to stew for years, after
the manner of more than one European who had had the misfortune to fall
into the clutches of some desert chief.
They all knew the reason of their capture--merely because they happened
to be on the Governor's staff. He had told them the story of Casim
Ammeh, and the promised revenge. They never thought of blaming
Barclay. What the present Sultan of El-Ammeh called "murder" was the
sort of thing any one of them might be called upon to do.
A day came when it seemed to Barclay that the fate that wild youth had
promised him long years ago was at hand.
One morning an escort came for him.
In their company he was led out of prison, to his execution, he
expected. His staff thought so too; for they took a brief, unemotional
farewell of him. They expected the same fate themselves at any moment.
However, Barclay was not led to his death. The escort took him through
a twist of narrow streets, into a house and up a flight of dark stairs.
He was left alone in an upper room, with a heavily barred window,
through which came a hum of wild voices, with an occasional loud,
guttural, excited call.
He crossed to the window, and stood there, riveted.
There was a big square beneath, seething with dark-faced, white-robed
men, all gazing in one direction--in the direction of a raised platform
where a girl stood. A slim, white girl.
It would have been much easier for Sir George to have faced death than
the sight before him.
Pansy was on the platform. His daughter! Standing there in full view
of the wild crowd. Being sold as a slave in the market of this desert
city. To become the property of one of those savages.
Barclay's hand went across his anguished face, to try and shut out the
horrible sight.
It could not be true! It must be some hideous nightmare.
Yet there she was, with white face and strained eyes, meeting her fate
bravely, as his daughter would. Pansy, as he had often seen her, in a
simple white muslin dress, and a wide white, drooping hat with a long,
blue, floating veil. Garbed as she had gone about his camp during his
fatal tour.
Even as Sir George looked, Pansy's tortured eyes met his, and she tried
to smile.
The sight broke him utterly, bringing a groan to his lips.
At the sound a voice said in French, with a note of savage triumph:
"Now perhaps _you_ understand what _I_ suffered when you shot my
father?"
Standing behind him was a big man in a khaki riding-suit, a European,
he looked. For the moment Barclay did not know him for his enemy, the
Sultan Casim Ammeh.
When he recognised him he did for Pansy what he would never have done
for himself--he begged for mercy.
"For God's sake, for the sake of the civilisation you know, don't
condemn my child to such a fate!" he entreated in a voice hoarse with
agony.
"You showed my father no mercy. Why should I show you any now?" the
Sultan asked coldly.
"At least have pity on the girl. Do what you like with me, but spare
my daughter."
"Did you show me any pity when I begged for my father's life? 'As ye
sow, so shall ye reap.' Isn't that what you Christians say? There is
your harvest. A pleasing sight for me, when I think of my father."
The Sultan's gaze went to the window, but there was more tenderness
than anything else in his eyes as they rested on the slim girl who
faced the crowd with such white courage.
Now one figure stood out from the surge, that of a big, lean man in
turban and loin-cloth, with long matted hair and beard, the latter
foam-flecked. He stood at the foot of the platform, and his eyes never
left the girl as he bid up and up against the other competitors;
cursing everyone who bid against him, yet always going higher.
"Look at that wild man from the desert," the Sultan said. "I know him.
He is a feather merchant. A miser. His home is a squalid tent, yet he
has more money than any man who comes to El-Ammeh. Love has unlocked
his heart. He will give all his hoarded wealth to possess that pretty
slave on the platform there. He will be a fitting mate for your
daughter. Think of her in his arms, and remember the man you
murdered--my father, the Sultan Casim Ammeh, whom I have now avenged."
At the taunts, despite the difference in their years and physique,
George Barclay turned on his tormentor.
"You brute! You devil!" he cried, springing at him.
With easy strength the Sultan caught and held him.
"You misjudge me," he said; "it's justice--merely 'An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth.'"
Then he pushed the older man from him and, turning on his heel, went
from the room.