When Sir George Barclay returned to prison, he was a broken man. His
officers were surprised to see him back alive, and anxious to hear what
had occurred. But a day or two passed before he was able to talk about
what had happened. And always before him was the bestial figure of the
miser feather merchant, into whose hands he imagined his daughter had
fallen.
When he told the story of her sale a strained silence fell on his
officers. A silence that Cameron broke.
"The damned brute," he said in a wild, heart-broken way, "and he knew
her in Grand Canary."
The fact of Pansy's acquaintance with the Sultan Casim Ammeh, Barclay
had learnt from Cameron in the early days of their capture. The
younger man immediately had recognised the Sultan as the Raoul Le
Breton, who when out of Africa posed as a French millionaire.
"He's worse than a savage," one of the other officers put in, "since he
knows better."
Sir George had nothing to say, once the story was told. Pansy's fate
was always before him; an agony that chased him into dreams, compared
with which his own death would have been as nothing.
One morning about ten days after the sale of slaves, one of the Arab
guards brought him a letter.
To his amazement, he saw his daughter's writing on the envelope.
With trembling fingers he opened it, wondering how she had managed to
get a message through to him, with a prayer in his heart that by some
miracle she might have escaped her horrible fate.
"No one knows better than I how you must have suffered on my account.
I tried to get a letter through to you before, but I have just heard it
never reached you, so I am sending another.
I was not sold that day in the slave-market. The Sultan never intended
to sell me. He only sent me there and made a pretence of selling me in
order to hurt you.
I am in the palace here, and no one could be better treated than I am.
I asked the Sultan to let you all go back to Gambia, but he will not
consent to that. But he has promised that you all will be well treated.
You must not worry because of me. It is not as if the Sultan and I
were strangers. I met him in Grand Canary, but I did not know who he
really was then--he was passing under a French name.
It is very difficult to know what to say to cheer you up. I know you
will worry whatever I say. I am quite safe here, and no harm will
happen to me. I cannot bear to think of you worrying, and you must try
not to do so for my sake.
Your loving daughter,
PANSY."
As George Barclay read through the letter, it seemed to him that he
knew what had happened. The girl had bartered herself in exchange for
his life and the lives of her friends.
He tried to gather what cold comfort he could by keeping the picture of
the Sultan before him as he had last seen him, big and handsome, in his
khaki riding suit, looking thoroughly European. At least the man who
had his daughter was a king, if a barbaric one, and civilised to a
certain extent. She had not fallen into the clutches of that grimy,
naked, foaming wretch, as he had imagined. And the knowledge eased his
tortured spirit considerably.