Jill's memory being of the kind which retains only the pleasant word
and act, the disagreeable episode of the afternoon had completely
evacuated that cell which in one second can raise us through the bluest
ether to the heaven as understood by the prayer-book, or send us diving
to the mud flats of the ocean bed to co-habit for a time with wingless
and non-temperamental oddities.
Having stopped several times to discover by ear and eye if she was
being followed from the hotel, and being satisfied that the sight of
her dressing-case had in no wise aroused the hall porter's curiosity,
she propped her luggage against the base of a palm tree growing
casually in the middle of a small street and proceeded to take her
bearings.
"Somehow it seemed quite easy to find when the maid was explaining,"
she communed to herself as she dug a hatpin afresh into her hat as is
the way of woman when at a loss. "How stupid of me to try a short cut,
because she distinctly said I was to stick to the main street until I
came to two mosques side by side, and then to turn off sharply to the
right. Oh! well, I turned off too soon and am lost--and I don't like
these little streets--no! not one little bit, but that big red star
hangs right over the house so I can but follow it--here goes!"
She picked up her case, and then drew back quickly behind the tree as a
white-robed figure slowly crossed the street, turned up another and
disappeared.
"Oh! Moll and Jack, what on earth would you think if you knew I was
alone in Egypt. Alone! but free! free! at last, quite, _quite_ free!"
And stretching out her arms on each side and giving herself a little
shake, Jill laughed ever so softly in pure exuberance of that feeling
of freedom, which seems to make an air pocket all about you and in the
middle of which you float contentedly, oblivious of the winds raging on
the outside.
So glancing up at the red star, and once more picking up her bag, she
too crossed the street and disappeared up a narrower one, halting for a
moment at the sight of a man standing with bent head in the attitude of
prayer and the beads of Allah hanging from the hands crossed upon the
breast.
Jilt's intuition was intense, and never once in all her life had it
failed her, and though to her all Eastern men seemed exactly alike in
the moonlight, yet her inner consciousness began to tap ont a message
of warning, and the bristles of her self-protection to rise at the
threatenings of danger.
"Bother!" however, was her only comment as, keeping the star ahead, she
walked steadily onward.
But she made a silent, strenuous, but unavailing struggle when
something white and soft was slipped over her head and a hand placed
firmly upon her mouth, as she felt herself lifted in a pair of strong
arms and carried some considerable distance until she heard the click
of a key, the opening and shutting of a door, and her captor's soft
footfall through what seemed to be a deserted house.
She stood perfectly still when planted on her feet, and looked around
her when the cloth had been removed from about her head.
White was her face indeed, but a little smile twisted the corner of her
mouth as she noted the oriental luxury of the room in which she stood.
Ornate could hardly describe it so offensive was it in its
multitudinous hangings, mirrors, lamps, and clutter of stools, tables,
divans, and couches, inlaid or plastered with glittering sequins, bits
of glass, and coloured imitation jewels.
But scorn simply blazed in the great blue eyes as she looked into those
of a man standing in front of the one and only door to the whole
apartment.
"You brute!" she said undiplomatically and in French as he moved a few
steps nearer and salaamed deeply. "Why, you're the man who followed me
from the restaurant to-day! What do you want? Backsheesh? I haven't
any so you had better let me go at once unless you want the police
after you! You can't treat English women in this off-hand way with
impunity, I can assure you. Open the door immediately if you please!"
Poor little Jill, who by involuntarily harking back to the insular
belief that the veriest heathen will quake in unison with the British
culprit at the mere threat of British law, showed the absolute
yarborough she held in this game, the stakes of which she guessed were
something more precious than life itself, and in which she held not a
single winning card.
"Let not Madame cause herself worry," answered the oriental also in
French, as he approached nearer still, his eyes ablaze with passion of
sorts as be looked the girl up and down from head to foot. "The
police--the law--you are in Egypt, Madame, or I should say Mademoiselle
I think. Money! when a man holds heaven itself within his grasp, does
he open his hand to grasp a passing cloud?"
"I should advise you to let me go _at_ once," repeated Jill, "if you
don't want my friends to raise trouble!"
But her bluff was of no avail as she was soon aware when once more the
man salaamed with a world of mockery in the action.
"But Mademoiselle has but now run away from her friends! No?--she has
but little--oh! _very_ little money!--yes?--and nowhere to go--it is
for that that I have thrown my protection around her!"
Jill thought hard for a moment, wondering how much the man knew of her
escapade.
"How do you know? _Who_ told you I had no money? I _have_ a friend as
it happens------!"
"Mademoiselle has no friend but me," interrupted the man; "she left
them at the hotel when she went to take a walk."
And Jill retreated step by step before him as he came closer still, his
voice sinking to a whisper, his hand within an inch of her wrist.
"I will not harm you because you are oh, _very_ beautiful! You are a
feast of loveliness and I--I am hungry!"
But still the little smile twisted the corner of Jill's red mouth as
she looked unflinchingly into the brown eyes in the depths of which
smouldered a something which was not good to look upon.
"I suppose you have stolen my dressing-case too," was her next,
somewhat irrelevant remark. "Men of _your_ type I dare say can find a
use for everything from women to hair-pins. You black _dog_, who _are_
you?"
Red murder flared in the room for one moment and then died down,
leaving a little smoke cloud of uncertainty in the man's mind.
He was used--oh, _very_ used to the breaking in of women, for was not
his name notorious in Northern Egypt and were there not whispers of
many young and beautiful who had mysteriously disappeared.
Were not men and women in his pay in every corner of the big cities
posing as honest individuals? And was he not in direct communication
with them? And had he not a coterie of jackal friends who hunted with
him, though of a truth not half so successfully or artistically as he?
And yet this slip of a girl, this pale white blossom, held him at bay,
more by her seeming indifference to the fate before her than by any
effort of will she made to combat the danger.
Blasé to tears of the exquisite women of his own country with their
lustrous brown eyes, marvellous languorous figures, and well-trained,
inherited ideas on love, the man was violently attracted by the
whiteness of this girl allied to her indifferent manner and an intense
virility which seemed to envelop her from head to foot.
True, there are natives of a white and surpassing beauty, but which
whiteness when compared to the genuine colouring of a _very_ fair
Englishwoman has the same effect on the purchaser or temporary owner as
would a white sapphire bought in mistake for a diamond.
Very, very beautiful, but somehow giving an impression of masquerade.
"Your so _valuable_ dressing-case is behind those cushions,
Mademoiselle, but you shall have things of gold to adorn your
apartment, at least for a time. I tire easily even of the most perfect
fruit, but I have friends, oh, many who are not so easily wearied!"
The man paused a moment as though awaiting some outburst, but none
forthcoming continued the enlightening discourse.
"Who am I?--that will you know shortly. A merry chase you gave me this
afternoon, and even baffled me for a time, but surely I have not
enjoyed an hour so much for many a day. You are unique, therefore not
to be run to earth by a _common_ black dog, otherwise I could have
secured you earlier in the day and by now------"
The man's lips, of an almost negroid fullness, curved in a smile, the
abomination of which sent a little shudder from Jill's high held head
to her steady little feet.
"But I _have_ you now, beautiful maiden, and if you will not bend to my
will, I will break you to it, even if I spoil your satin skin and the
soles of your small feet by the lash of the whip!"
"So!" said Jill after an interval in which the atmosphere, charged with
the electricity of anger, lust, scorn, and all the kindred sisters of
evilness, resembled what might be the result of a cross between a
spitting cat and a wireless installation. "So! Am I to understand
that you have vulgarly kidnapped me--and are holding me _not_ for
ransom, but for your evil pleasures and those of your friends?"
"Quite so, Mademoiselle! Your words are as clear as the stream running
through a certain oasis which long I coveted, but which fell to my
greatest enemy because he had a few more piastres than I--and maybe a
little more diplomacy--a man who would kill me if he could but find the
excuse, the moral breeder of camels, the fanatic son of Solomon, Hahmed
the great, Hahmed the most noble--_pah_!"
For one brief second Jill's eyes scanned the sensual face in front, but
seeing nothing more subtle than an intense hatred therein for the
absent man, shrugged her shoulders and then flung up her hand sharply
as the man's hand suddenly fastened on her wrist.
"Let go my hand at once," she said as indifferently as though she were
asking for a glass of water, but she wrenched herself free and fled
behind a divan almost hidden in a bower of growing tropical plants as
the man let go at her command to suddenly grip her about the waist.
"I shall scream the place down, and bite, and kick, and scratch, if you
touch me again."
For one moment they looked at each other across the pile of silken
cushions, the dark shining leaves of the plants throwing up the girl's
wonderful colouring, the white petals of a flower falling like snow
about her as she stood waiting for the next move in the exceedingly
dangerous game in which she was taking part.
The silence was absolutely deathly until the oriental broke it, smiling
the while as he might on a rebellious child.
"If you make a noise you will bring women and servants, and perhaps my
friends, packing to the door from the most distant corners of the
house. They do not know that you are here as I brought you in by a
secret door and private way, also no one is allowed to place foot in my
own quarter of the house without my permission, with the exception of
the guardian of the big door itself, but their curiosity would outweigh
their prudence if they heard cries, for their delight is unbounded when
trouble reigns between their friend or master and a _woman_. If you
bite and kick and scratch I shall have you overpowered and bound to
_your_ great sorrow, and _their_ greater delight. It has been written
that you shall be one of those whom I honour with my favour, why then
try to fight against that which is ordained?"
Jill answered never a word, contenting herself with keeping a watch on
the man's movements, though to the very innermost part of her she
longed to fling herself upon him to mutilate or to kill.
"We will have coffee, O! very lovely daughter of the North, and
consider this little matter settled even before we were born. Does my
suggestion find favour in those eyes which are as the sky at night?"
But for all answer Jill moved round the couch and sat herself down upon
the satin cushions, opened her hand-bag, and finding her cigarette case
lit a cigarette.
"By Allah! but you are wonderful, you English girl. I do not
understand you. I have had women here screaming, fighting, fainting,
begging for mercy upon their knees. Pah! they sickened me, but
you--well! I will go and order the coffee, not wishing to bring a
slave into your presence, and give orders also, Mademoiselle, that no
matter _what_ noise may be heard I must on no account be disturbed!
And death by knife, or whip, or water, is the _ordinary_ punishment for
those who disobey!"
Jill blew a smoke ring through another and smiled.
"It's no good ordering coffee because I shan't drink it!"
"You _will_ drink it," was the sharp reply.
"Will you take a bet?" was the ready answer.
For a moment the man who was becoming more and more amazed stared in
silence and then laughed softly as the absurdity of the situation
struck him.
"Certainly I will, for do not we orientals love a seeming hazard? So
although I take an unfair advantage of you I will lay this emerald ring
engraven with my name against one kiss from your red mouth that within
the half of one hour you will have drunk the coffee."
And taking the ring from his finger as he spoke he laid it upon a small
table beside Jill.