Diana came into the living-room one morning about a week after the
arrival of the Vicomte de Saint Hubert. She had expected to find the
room empty, for the Sheik had risen at dawn and ridden away on one of
the distant expeditions that had become so frequent, and she thought
his friend had accompanied him, but as she parted the curtains between
the two rooms she saw the Frenchman sitting at the little writing-table
surrounded by papers and writing quickly, loose sheets of manuscript
littering the floor around him. It was the first time that they had
chanced to be alone, and she hesitated with a sudden shyness. But Saint
Hubert had heard the rustle of the curtain, and he sprang to his feet
with the courteous bow that proclaimed his nationality.
"Your pardon, Madame. Do I disturb you? Tell me if I am in the way. I
am afraid I have been very untidy," he added, laughing apologetically,
and looking at the heap of closely-written sheets strewing the rug.
Diana came forward slowly, a faint colour rising in her face. "I
thought you had gone with Monseigneur."
"I had some work to do--some notes that I wanted to transcribe before I
forgot myself what they meant; I write vilely. I have had a hard week,
too, so I begged a day off. I may stay? You are sure I do not disturb
you?"
His sympathetic eyes and the deference in his voice brought an
unexpected lump into her throat. She signed to him to resume his work
and passed out under the awning. Behind the tent the usual camp hubbub
filled the air. A knot of Arabs at a little distance were watching one
of the rough-riders schooling a young horse, noisily critical and
offering advice freely, undeterred by the indifference with which it
was received. Others lounged past engaged on the various duties
connected with the camp, with the Eastern disregard for time that
relegated till to-morrow everything that could possibly be neglected
to-day. Near her one of the older men, more rigid in his observances
than the generality of Ahmed Ben Hassan's followers, was placidly
absorbed in his devotions, prostrating himself and fulfilling his
ritual with the sublime lack of self-consciousness of the Mohammedan
devotee.
Outside his own tent the valet and Henri were sitting in the sun,
Gaston on an upturned bucket, cleaning a rifle, and his brother
stretched full length on the ground, idly flapping at the flies with
the duster with which he had been polishing the Vicomte's riding-boots.
Both men were talking rapidly with frequent little bursts of gay
laughter. The Persian hound was lying at their feet. He raised his head
as Diana appeared, and, rising, went to her slowly, rearing up against
her with a paw on each shoulder, making clumsy efforts to lick her
face, and she pushed him down with difficulty, stooping to kiss his
shaggy head.
She looked away across the desert beyond the last palms of the oasis. A
haze hung round about, shimmering in the heat and blurring the outline
of the distant hills. A tiny breeze brought the acrid smell of camels
closer to her, and the creaking whine of the tackling over the well
sounded not very far away. Diana gave a little sigh. It had all grown
so familiar. She seemed to have lived no other life beside this nomad
existence. The years that had gone before faded into a kind of dim
remembrance, the time when she had travelled ceaselessly round the
world with her brother seemed very remote. She had existed then,
filling her life with sport, unconscious of the something that was
lacking in her nature, and now she was alive at last, and the heart
whose existence she had doubted was burning and throbbing with a
passion that was consuming her. Her eyes swept lingeringly around the
camp with a very tender light in them. Everything she saw was connected
with and bound up in the man who was lord of it all. She was very proud
of him, proud of his magnificent physical abilities, proud of his hold
over his wild turbulent followers, proud with the pride of primeval
woman in the dominant man ruling his fellow-men by force and fear.
The old Arab had finished his prayers and rose leisurely from his
knees, salaaming with a broad smile. All the tribesmen smiled on her,
and would go out of their way to win a nod of recognition from her. She
faltered a few words in stumbling Arabic in reply to his long, flowery
speech, and with a little laugh beat a hasty retreat into the tent.
She paused beside the Vicomte. "Is it another novel?" she asked shyly,
indicating the steadily increasing pile of manuscript.
He turned on his chair, resting his arms on the rail, twirling a
fountain pen between his fingers, and smiled at her as she curled up on
the divan with Kopec, who had followed her into the tent. "No, Madame,
Something more serious this time. It is a history of this very curious
tribe of Ahmed's. They are different in so many ways from ordinary
Arabs. They have been a race apart for generations. They have beliefs
and customs peculiarly their own. You may, for instance, have noticed
the singular absence among them of the strict religious practices that
hold among other Mohammedans. Ahmed Ben Hassan's tribe worship first
and foremost their Sheik, then the famous horses for which they are
renowned, and then and then only--Allah."
"Is Monseigneur a Mohammedan?"
Saint Hubert shrugged. "He believes in a God," he said evasively,
turning back to his writing.
Diana studied him curiously as he bent over his work. She smiled
when she thought of the mental picture she had drawn of Saint Hubert
before he came, and contrasted it with the real man under her eyes.
During the week that he had been in the camp he had forced her
liking and compelled her confidence by the sympathetic charm of his
manner. He had carried off a difficult position with a delicacy and
_savoir-faire_ that had earned him her gratitude. He had saved her
a hundred humiliations with a tact that had been as spontaneous as it
had been unobtrusive. And they had the bond between them of the common
love they had for this strange leader of a strange tribe. What had been
the origin of the friendship between these utterly dissimilar men--a
friendship that seemed to go back to the days of their boyhood? The
question intrigued her and she pondered over it, lying quietly on the
divan, smoothing the hound's huge head resting on her knee.
The Vicomte wrote rapidly for some time and then flung down his pen
with an exclamation of relief, gathered up the loose sheets from the
floor and, stacking them in an orderly heap on the table, swung round
on his chair again. He looked at the girl's slender little figure lying
with the unconsciously graceful attitude of a child against the
heaped-up cushions, her face bent over the dog's rough, grey head, and
he felt an unwonted emotion stirring in him. The quick sympathy that
she had aroused from the first moment of seeing her had given place to
a deeper feeling that moved him profoundly, and with it a chivalrous
desire to protect, a longing to stand between her and the irremediable
disaster that loomed inevitably ahead of her.
She felt his concentrated gaze and looked up. "You have done your
work?"
"All I can do at the moment. Henri must unravel the rest; he has a
passion for hieroglyphics. He is an invaluable person; I could never
get on without him. He bullied me when we were boys together--at least
that is what I called it. He called it 'amusing Monsieur le Vicomte,'
and for the last fifteen years he has tyrannised over me
wholeheartedly." He laughed and snapped his fingers at Kopec, who
whined and rolled his eyes in his direction, but did not lift his head
from Diana's knee.
There was a pause, and Diana continued fondling the hound absently. "I
have read your books, Monsieur--all that Monseigneur has here," she
said at last, looking up gravely.
He gave a little bow with a few murmured words that she did not catch.
"Your novel interested me," she went on, still stroking the hound, as
if the nearness of the great beast helped her.
"As a rule novels bore me, the subjects they deal with have been of no
interest to me, but this one gripped me. It is unusual, it is
wonderful, but--is it real?" She had spoken dispassionately with the
boyish candour that was characteristic, not complimenting an author on
a masterpiece, but stating a fact simply, as it appeared to her.
Saint Hubert leaned forward over the back of his chair. "In what
way--real?" he asked.
She looked at him squarely. "Do you think there really exists such a
man as you have drawn--a man who could be as tender, as unselfish, as
faithful as your hero?"
Saint Hubert looked away, and, picking up his pen, stabbed idly at the
blotting-pad, drawing meaningless circles and dots, with a slow shrug.
The scorn in her voice and the sudden pain in her eyes hurt him.
"Do you know such a man, Monsieur, or is he wholly a creature of your
imagination?" she persisted.
He completed a complicated diagram on the sheet of blotting-paper
before answering. "I do know a man who, given certain circumstances,
has the ability to develop into such a character," he said eventually
in a low voice.
She laughed bitterly. "Then you are luckier than I. I am not very old,
but during the last five years I have met many men of many
nationalities, and I have never known one who in any degree resembles
the _preux chevalier_ of your book. The men who have most
intimately touched my life have not known the meaning of the word
tenderness, and have never had a thought for any one beyond themselves.
You have been more fortunate in your acquaintances, Monsieur."
A dull red crept into the Vicomte's face, and he continued looking at
the pen in his fingers. "Beautiful women, Madame," he said slowly,
"unfortunately provoke in some men all that is basest and vilest in
their natures. No man knows to what depths of infamy he may stoop under
the stress of a sudden temptation."
"And the woman pays," cried Diana vehemently. "Pays for the beauty God
curses her with--the beauty she may hate herself; pays until the beauty
fades. How much----" She pulled herself up short, biting her lips.
Moved by the sense of the sympathy that had unconsciously been
influencing her during the past week and which had shaken the
self-suppression that she had imposed upon herself, her tongue had run
away with her. She was afraid of the confidence that his manner was
almost demanding of her. Her pride restrained her from the compassion
that her loneliness had nearly yielded to.
"Excuse me," she said coldly, "my ideas cannot possibly interest you."
"On the contrary, you interest me profoundly," he corrected quickly.
She noticed the slight difference in his words and laughed more
bitterly than before. "As what?--a subject for vivisection? Get on your
operating coat and bring your instruments without delay. The victim is
all ready for you. It will be 'copy' for your next book!"
"Madame!"
He had sprung to his feet, and she looked up at him miserably, her hand
held out in swift contrition. "Oh, forgive me! I shouldn't have said
that. You haven't deserved it. You have been--kind. I am grateful.
Forgive me and my rudeness. It must be the heat, it makes one very
irritable, don't you think?"
He ignored her pitiful little subterfuge and raised her outstretched,
quivering fingers to his lips. "If you will honour me with your
friendship," he said, with a touch of the old-world chivalry that was
often noticeable in him, "my life is at your service."
But as he spoke his voice changed. The touch of her cold fingers sent a
rush of feeling through him that for an instant overpowered him.
She let her hand lie in his, and for a few moments she avoided his eyes
and looked down at the rough head in her lap. Then she met his gaze
frankly. "Your offer is too rare a thing to put on one side. If you
will be my friend, as you are Monseigneur's friend----" she faltered,
turning her head away, and her fingers lying in his trembled slightly.
He started and crushed the hand he was holding unknowingly, as the
thought was forced on him. Monseigneur's friend! He realized that in
the last few moments he had forgotten the Sheik, had forgotten
everything, swept off his feet by an intense emotion that staggered him
with its unexpectedness, except the loveliness and helplessness of the
girl beside him. His head was reeling; his calmness, his loyalty, his
earlier feelings of dispassionate pity had given way to an extreme
agitation that was rushing him headlong and threatening to overwhelm
him. His heart beat furiously and he clenched his teeth, fighting to
regain his usual _sang-froid_. The emotional temperament that
Diana had divined from his novel had sprung uppermost with a bound,
overthrowing the rigid repression of years. The blood beat in his ears
as he strove to master himself, to crush the madness that had come upon
him.
He had closed his eyes with the shock of self-revelation, he opened
them now and looked down at her hesitatingly, almost fearfully,
clasping her hand closer in his and leaning nearer to her, drawn
irresistibly by the intoxication of her nearness. He saw her through a
mist that cleared gradually, saw that she was ignorant of the emotion
she had awakened in him, and, conscious only of his sympathy, had left
her hand in his as she would have left it in her brother's. She was
bent low over the hound, her face almost touching his big head, and as
Saint Hubert looked a glistening tear dropped on Kopec's rough, grey
neck. She had forgotten him, forgotten even that he was standing beside
her, in the one predominant thought that filled her mind. With an
immense effort he got command of himself. Somehow he must conquer this
sudden insanity. The loyalty that had hung trembling in the balance
reasserted itself and a self-disgust seized him. He had been within an
ace of betraying the man who had been for twenty years nearer to him
than a brother. She belonged to his friend, and now he had not even the
right to question the ethics of the Sheik's possession of her. The calm
that he had lost came back to him. The wound would heal though it might
always throb, but he was strong enough to hide its existence even from
the jealous eyes that had watched him ceaselessly since his outburst on
the night of his arrival. He had been conscious of them daily. Even
this morning the Sheik had made every effort short of a direct command
to induce him to go with him on the expedition that had taken him away
so early. Sure of himself now, he lifted her fingers to his lips again
reverently with a kind of renunciation in his kiss, and laid her hand
down gently. He turned away with a smothered sigh and a little pang at
her complete absorption, and, as he did so, Henri came in quickly.
"Monsieur le Vicomte! Will you come? There has been an accident."
With a cry that Saint Hubert never forgot Diana leaped to her feet, her
face colourless, and her lips framed the word "Ahmed," though no sound
came from them. She was shaking all over, and the Vicomte put his arm
round her instinctively. She clung to him, and he knew with a bitter
certainty that the support of a table or a chair would have meant no
less to her.
"What is it, Henri?" he said sharply, with a slight movement that
interposed himself between Diana and his servant.
"One of the men, Monsieur le Vicomte. His gun burst, and his hand is
shattered."
Saint Hubert nodded curtly towards the door and turned his attention to
Diana. She sank down on the divan and, gathering the hound's head in
her arm, buried her face in his neck. "Forgive me," she murmured, her
voice muffled in the rough, grey hair. "It is stupid of me, but he is
riding that brute Shaitan to-day. I am always nervous. Please go. I
will come in a minute."
He went without a word. "I am always nervous." The tales he had heard
of Diana Mayo as he passed through Biskra did not include nerves. His
face was set as he ran hurriedly across the camp.
Diana sat quite still after he had gone until the nervous shuddering
ceased, until Kopec twisted his head free of her arms and licked her
face with an uneasy whine. She brushed her hand across her eyes with a
gasp of relief, and went out into the bright sunlight with the hound at
her heels.
The noisy clamour of excited voices guided her to the scene of the
accident, and the surrounding crowd opened to let her pass through. The
wounded man was sitting holding up his hand stoically for Saint
Hubert's ministrations with a look of mild interest on his face. In
response to Diana's smile and cheery word he grinned sheepishly with a
roll of his fine eyes. Saint Hubert looked up quickly. "It is not a
pleasant sight," he said doubtfully.
"I don't mind. Let me hold that," she said quietly, rolling up her
sleeves and taking a crimson-spattered basin from Henri. Saint Hubert
flashed another look at her, marvelling at her steady voice and even
colour when he thought of the white-faced girl who had clung trembling
to him ten minutes earlier. Outside of Ahmed Ben Hassan she still
retained the fearless courage that she had always had; it was only when
anything touched him nearly that the new Diana, with the coward anxiety
of love, rose paramount.
She watched the Vicomte's skilful treatment of the maimed hand with
interest. There was a precision in his movement and a deft touch that
indicated both knowledge and practise. "You are a doctor?"
"Yes," he said, without looking up from his work, "I studied when I was
a young man and passed all the necessary examinations. It is
indispensable when one travels as I do. I have found it invaluable."
He took up some dressing that Henri held ready for him, and Diana
handed the now unwanted bowl to Gaston. She looked again at the Arab,
whose impassive face showed no sign of any feeling. "Does he feel it
very much, do you think?" she asked the valet.
He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "Less than I should, Madame.
What is really troubling him is the thought of what Monseigneur will
say when he hears that Selim was fool enough to buy a worthless gun
from one of the servants of the Dutchman who passed here last week,"
and he added a few teasing words in Arabic which made Selim look up
with a grimace.
Saint Hubert finished adjusting the bandages and stood up, wiping the
perspiration from his forehead.
"Will he do all right now?" asked Diana anxiously.
"I think so. The thumb is gone, as you saw, but I think I can save the
rest of the hand. I will watch him carefully, but these men of Ahmed's
are in such excellent condition that I do not think there will be any
trouble."
"I am going to ride," said Diana, turning away. "It is rather late, but
there is just time. Will you come?"
It was a temptation and he hesitated, gathering together the
instruments he had been using, but prudence prevailed.
"I should like to, but I ought to keep an eye on Selim," he said
quietly, snatching at the plausible excuse that offered. He found her
later before the big tent as she was ready to start, and waited while
she mounted.
"If I am late don't wait for me. Tell Henri to give you your lunch,"
she called out between The Dancer's idiotic prancings.
He watched her ride away, with Gaston a few paces behind and followed
by the escort of six men that the Sheik had lately insisted upon. The
continual presence of these six men riding at her heels irked her
considerably. The wild, free gallops that she had loved became quite
different with the thought of the armed guard behind her. They seemed
to hamper her and put a period to her enjoyment. The loneliness of her
rides had been to her half their charm; she had grown accustomed to and
oblivious of Gaston, but she was acutely conscious of the six pairs of
eyes watching her every movement. She did not see the necessity for
them. She had never been aware of anything any time when she was riding
that seemed to justify the Sheik's order. The oasis was not on a
caravan route, and if she ever saw Arabs at any distance from the camp
they always proved to be Ahmed Ben Hassan's own men. She had thought of
remonstrating with him, but her courage had failed her. His mood, since
the coming of Saint Hubert, had been of the coldest--almost repellant.
The weeks of happiness that had gone before had developed the intimacy
between them almost into a feeling of camaraderie. He had been more
humane, more Western, more considerate than he had ever been, and the
fear that she had of him had lain quiescent. She could have asked him
then. But since the morning of Raoul's arrival, when the unexpected
fervour of his embrace had given new birth to the hope that had almost
died within her, he had changed completely into a cold reserve that
chilled her. His caresses had been careless and infrequent, and his
indifference so great that she had wondered miserably if the flame of
his passion for her was burning out and if this was the end. And yet
throughout his indifference she had been conscious, like Saint Hubert,
of the surveillance of constant jealous eyes that watched them both
with a fierce scrutiny that was felt rather than actually seen. But the
spark of hope that the knowledge of this jealousy still fanned was not
great enough to overcome the barrier that his new mood had raised
between them. She dared ask no favour of him now. Her heart tightened
at the thought of his indifference. It hurt so. This morning he had
left her without a word when he had gone out into the early dawn, and
she was hungry for the kisses he withheld. She was used to his taciturn
fits, but her starved heart ached perpetually for tangible recognition.
Love, the capacity for which she had so long denied, had become a force
that, predominating everything, held her irresistibly. The accumulated
affection that, for want of an outlet, had been stemmed within her, had
burst all restraint, and the love that she gave to the man to whom she
had surrendered her proud heart was immeasurable--a love of infinite
tenderness and complete unselfishness, a love that had made her
strangely humble. She had yielded up everything to him, he dominated
her wholly. Her imperious will had bent before his greater
determination, and his mastery over her had provoked a love that craved
for recompense. She only lived for him and for the hope of his love,
engulfed in the passion that enthralled her. Her surrender had been no
common one. The feminine weakness that she had despised and fought
against had triumphed over her unexpectedly without humiliating
thoroughness. Sex had supervened to overthrow all her preconceived
notions. The womanly instincts that under Aubrey's training had been
suppressed and undeveloped had, in contact with the Sheik's vivid
masculinity and compelling personality, risen to the surface with
startling completeness.
To-day she was almost desperate. His callousness of the morning had
wounded her deeply, and a wave of rebellion welled up in her. She would
not be thrown aside without making any effort to fight for his love.
She would use every art that her beauty and her woman's instinct gave
her. Her cheek burned as she thought of the role she was setting
herself. She would be no better than "those others" whose remembrance
still made her shiver. But she crushed down the repugnant feeling
resolutely, flinging up her head with the old haughty gesture and
drawing herself straighter in the saddle with compressed lips. She had
endured so much already that she could even bear this further outrage
to her feelings. At no matter what cost she must make him care for her.
Though she loathed the means she would make him love her. But even as
she planned the doubt of her ability to succeed crept into her mind,
torturing her with insidious recollections.
Ahmed Ben Hassan was no ordinary man to succumb to the fascinations of
a woman. She had experienced his obstinacy, and knew the inflexibility
of his nature. His determination was a rock against which she had been
broken too many times not to know its strength. For a moment she
despaired, then courage came to her again, thrusting away the doubts
that crowded in upon her and leaving the hope that still lingered in
her heart. A faint tremulous smile curved her lips, and she looked up,
forcing her thoughts back to the present with an effort.
At the beginning of the ride they had passed several vedettes sitting
motionless on their impatient horses. The men had swung their rifles
high in the air in salute as she passed, and once or twice Gaston had
shouted a question as he galloped after her. But for the last hour they
had seen no one. The desert was undulating here, rising and falling in
short, sharp declivities that made a wide outlook impossible.
Gaston spurred to Diana's side. "Will Madame please to turn?" he said
respectfully. "It is late, and it is not safe riding amongst these
slopes. One cannot see what is coming and I am afraid."
"Afraid, Gaston?" she rallied laughingly.
"For you, Madame," he answered gravely.
She reined in The Dancer as she spoke; but it was too late. Even as she
turned her horse's head innumerable Arabs seemed to spring up on all
sides of them. Before she realised what was happening her escort
flashed past and wheeled in behind her, shooting steadily at the horde
of men who poured in upon them, and, with a groan, Gaston seized her
bridle and urged the horses back in the direction from which they had
come. The noise was deafening, the raucous shouting of the Arabs and
the continuous sharp crack of the rifles. Bullets began to whizz past
her.
Gaston tucked his reins under his knee, and with one hand grasping The
Dancer's bridle and his revolver in the other, rode looking back over
his shoulder. Diana, too, glanced behind her, and mechanically her
fingers closed over the shining little weapon that the Sheik had given
her the previous week. She saw with a sudden sickening the six men who
had formed her escort beaten back by the superior numbers that enclosed
them on every side. Already two were down and the rest were on foot,
and, as she watched, they were swallowed up in the mass of men that
poured over them, and, at the same time, a party of about twenty
horsemen detached themselves from the main body and galloped towards
her and Gaston.
She seized his arm. "Can't we do something? Can't we help them? We
can't leave them like that," she gasped, wrenching the revolver from
the holster at her waist.
"No, no, Madame, it is impossible. It is a hundred to six. You must
think of yourself. Go on, Madame. For God's sake, ride on. We may have
a chance." He loosed her bridle and dropped behind her, interposing
himself between her and the pursuing Arabs. A fierce yelling and a hail
of bullets that went wide made Diana turn her head as she crouched low
in the saddle. She realised the meaning of Gaston's tactics and checked
her horse deliberately.
"I won't go first. You must ride with me," she cried, wincing as a
bullet went close by her.
"_Mon Dieu!_ What are you stopping for? Do you think I can face
Monseigneur if anything happens to you, Madame?" replied Gaston
fiercely. "Do as I tell you. Go on!" Deference was gone in the fear
that roughened his voice.
He looked back and his face grew grey. For himself he had no fear, but
for the girl beside him he dared not even think. They were Ibraheim
Omair's men who had trapped them, and he cursed his folly in allowing
Diana to come so far. Yet it had seemed safe enough. The scout's
reports had lately proved that the robber Sheik had up to now respected
the boundary line between the two territories. This must be a sudden
tentative raid which had met with unlooked-for success. The bait would
be too tempting to allow of any slackening on the part of the raiders.
The white woman, who was Ahmed Ben Hassan's latest toy, and his
servant, whom he was known to value so highly, would be a prize that
would not be lightly let go. For himself it would be probably torture,
certainly death, and for her----! He set his teeth as he looked at her
and the perspiration poured down his face. He would kill her himself
before it came to that. And as he looked she turned her head, and met
his agonised eyes for a moment, smiling bravely. He had refrained up
till now from shooting, trying to reserve his ammunition for a last
resource, but he saw that he must delay no longer. He fired slowly and
steadily, picking his men with careful precision. It was a forlorn
hope, but by checking the leaders even for a few moments he might gain
time. The accuracy of his aim, that every time proved effectual, might
keep back the onrush until they got clear of the undulating country,
until they got out into the open where the sounds of the firing might
reach some of the outpost sentinels, until they got too near to the
Sheik's camp for pursuit to be possible. The bullets pattered
continuously round them, but the men who fired them were not Ahmed Ben
Hassan's carefully trained marksmen. But still Gaston knew that their
position was almost hopeless. Any moment a bullet might reach one of
them.
Their pursuers, too, seemed to guess his thoughts and opened out into
an irregular, extended line, swerving and manoeuvring continually,
making accurate shooting impossible, while they urged their horses to a
terrific pace trying to outflank them. Diana was shooting now. The
thought of her escort's annihilation and her own and Gaston's peril had
overcome the reluctance she had had at first, and she had even a moment
to wonder at her coolness. She did not feel afraid, the death of
Ahmed's men had made her angry, a fierce revengeful anger that made her
see red and filled her with a desire to retaliate in kind. She fired
rapidly, emptying her revolver, and she had just reloaded with steady
fingers when The Dancer stumbled, recovering himself for a few steps,
and then lurched slowly over on to his side, blood pouring from his
mouth. Diana sprang clear, and in a moment Gaston was beside her,
thrusting her behind him, shielding her with his own body, and firing
steadily at the oncoming Arabs.
The same feeling of unreality that she had experienced once before the
first day in the Sheik's camp came over her. The intense stillness--for
the Arabs had ceased shouting--the hot, dry sand with the shimmering
heat haze rising like mist from its whispering surface, the cloudless
deep blue sky overhead, the band of menacing horsemen circling nearer
and nearer, the dead Dancer, with Gaston's horse standing quietly
beside his prostrate companion, and lastly, the man beside her, brave
and devoted to the end, all seemed fantastic and unreal. She viewed it
dispassionately, as if she were a spectator rather than a participant
in the scene. But for a moment only, then the reality of the situation
came clearly to her again. Any minute might mean death for one or other
or both of them, and with an instinctive movement she pressed closer to
Gaston. They were both silent, there seemed nothing to say. The valet's
left hand clenched over hers at the involuntary appeal for
companionship that she made, and she felt it contract as a bullet
gashed his forehead, blinding him for a moment with the blood that
dripped into his eyes. He let go her hand to brush his arm across his
face, and as he did so the Arabs with suddenly renewed shouting bore
down upon them.
Gaston turned sharply and Diana read his purpose in the horror in his
eyes. She held up her head with a little nod and the same brave smile
on her white lips. "Please," she whispered, "quickly!" A spasm crossed
his face, "Turn your head," he muttered desperately. "I cannot do it if
you----"
There was a rattle of shots, and with a gasp he crumpled up against
her. For a moment it was pandemonium. Standing over Gaston's body she
fired her last shot and flung the empty revolver in the face of a man
who sprang forward to seize her. She turned with a desperate hope of
reaching Gaston's horse, but she was hemmed in, and for a second she
stood at bay, hands clenched and teeth set, braving the wild faces that
surrounded her, and were closing in upon her, with flashing defiant
eyes. Then she was conscious of a crashing blow on her head, the ground
heaved up under her feet, everything went black before her eyes, and
without a sound she fell senseless.
Late in the afternoon Saint Hubert was still writing in the big tent.
Henri had deciphered the notes that had baffled his master in the
morning, and the Vicomte had taken advantage of the solitude to do some
long-neglected work. He had forgotten the time, forgotten to be
surprised at Diana's continued absence, immersed in the interesting
subject he was dealing with, and not realising the significance of her
delayed return. Ahmed had spoken of the proximity of his hereditary
enemy, but Saint Hubert had not grasped how near the robber Sheik had
ventured.
He was too engrossed to notice the usual noise in the camp that
heralded the Sheik's arrival, and he looked up with a start when Ahmed
Ben Hassan swept in. The Sheik's dark eyes glanced sombrely around the
tent and without a word he went through into the inner room. In a
moment he came hack.
"Where is Diane?"
Saint Hubert got up, puzzled at his tone. He looked at his watch. "She
went for a ride this morning. _Dieu!_ I had no idea it was so
late."
"This morning!--and not back yet?" repeated the Sheik slowly. "What
time this morning?"
"About ten, I think," replied Saint Hubert uneasily. "I'm not sure. I
didn't look. There was an accident, and she delayed to watch me tie up
one of your foolish children who had been playing with a worthless
gun."
The Sheik moved over to the doorway. "She had an escort?" he asked
curtly.
"Yes."
Ahmed Ben Hassan's face hardened and the heavy scowl contracted his
black brows. Had she all these weeks been tricking him--feigning a
content she did not feel, lulling his suspicions to enable her to seize
another opportunity to attempt to get away? For a moment his face grew
dark, then he put the thought from him. He trusted her. Only a week
before she had given him her word, and he knew she would not lie to
him. And, besides, the thing was impossible. Gaston would never be
caught napping a second time, and there were also the six men who
formed her guard. She would never be able to escape the vigilance of
seven men. But it was the trust he had in her that weighed most with
him. He had never trusted a woman before, but this woman had been
different. The others who had come and gone so lightly had not even
left a recollection behind them; they had faded into one concrete cause
of utter boredom. There had never been any reason to trust or mistrust
them, or to care if they came or went. Satiety had come with possession
and with it indifference. But the emotion that this girl's uncommon
beauty and slender boyishness had aroused in him had not diminished
during the months she had been living in his camp. Her varying moods,
her antagonism, her fits of furious rage, and, lastly, her unexpected
surrender, had kept his interest alive. He had grown accustomed to her.
He had come to looking forward with a vague, indefinite pleasure, on
returning from his long expeditions, to seeing the dainty little figure
curled up among the cushions on the big divan. Her presence seemed to
pervade the atmosphere of the whole tent, changing it utterly. She had
become necessary to him as he had never believed it possible that a
woman could be. And with the change that she had made in his camp there
had come a change in himself also.
For the first time a shadow had risen between him and the man whose
friendship had meant everything to him since, as a lad of fifteen, he
had come under the influence of the young Frenchman, who was three
years his senior. He realized that since the night of Raoul's arrival
he had been seething with insensate jealousy. He had relied on the
Western tendencies that prompted him to carry off the difficult
situation, but his ingrained Orientalism had broken through the
superficial veneer. He was jealous of every word, every look she gave
Saint Hubert. Pride had prevented an open rupture with the Vicomte this
morning, but he had ridden away filled with a cold rage that had
augmented every hour and finally driven him back earlier than he had
intended, riding with a recklessness that had been apparent even to his
men. The sight of Raoul sitting alone absorbed in his work had in part
allayed his suspicions, and he had gone on into the other room with a
feeling of new expectancy that had changed to a sudden chill at its
emptiness. The vacant room had brought home to him abruptly all that
the girl meant to him. A latent anxiety crept into his eyes.
He went out under the awning and clapped his hands, and a servant
answered the summons almost immediately. He gave an order and waited,
his hands thrust into the folds of his waist-cloth and his teeth
clenched on a cigarette that he had forgotten to light.
Saint Hubert joined him. "What do you think?" he asked, with a touch of
diffidence.
"I don't know what to think," replied the Sheik shortly.
"But is there any real danger?"
"There is always danger in the desert, particularly when that devil is
abroad." He motioned to the south with an impatient jerk of his head.
Saint Hubert's breath whistled sharply through his teeth. "My God! You
don't imagine----"
But the Sheik only shrugged his shoulders and turned to Yusef, who had
come up with half-a-dozen men. There was a rapid interchange of
questions and answers, some brief orders, and the men hurried away in
different directions, while Ahmed Ben Hassan turned again to Saint
Hubert.
"They were seen by three of the southern patrols this morning, but of
course it was nobody's business to find out if they had come back or
not. I will start at once--in about ten minutes. You will come with me?
Good! I have sent for reinforcements, who are to follow us if we are
not back in twelve hours." His voice was expressionless, and only Raoul
de Saint Hubert, who had known him since boyhood, could and did
appreciate the significance of a fleeting look that crossed his face as
he went back into the tent.
For a moment the Vicomte hesitated, but he knew that not even he was
wanted inside that empty tent, and a half-bitter, half-sad feeling that
the perfect friendship and confidence that had existed between them for
twenty years would never again be the same came to them, the regretful
sense of inevitable change, the consciousness of personal relegation.
Then fear for Diana drove out every other consideration, and he went to
his own quarters with a heavy heart.
When he came back in a few minutes with Henri following him the camp
had undergone a transformation. With the promptness of perfect
discipline the hundred men who had been chosen to go on the expedition
were already waiting, each man standing by his horse, and the Sheik,
quiet and impassive as usual, was superintending the distribution of
extra ammunition. A groom was walking The Hawk slowly up and down, and
Yusef, whose gloomy eyes had been fixed reproachfully on his chief,
chafing against the order to remain behind to take command of the
reinforcements should they be needed, went to him and took the horse's
bridle from him and brought him to the Sheik. Even as he held the
stirrup Saint Hubert could see that he was expostulating with an
unusual insistence, begging for permission to accompany them. But the
Sheik shook his head, and the young man stood sullenly aside to avoid
The Hawk's hoofs as he reared impatiently.
Ahmed Ben Hassan motioned Saint Hubert to his side and in silence the
cavalcade started at the usual swift gallop. The silence impressed
Raoul, who was accustomed to the Arab's usual clamour. It affected his
sensitive temperaments, filling him with a sinister foreboding. The
silent band of stern-faced horsemen riding in close and orderly
formation behind them suggested something more than a mere relief
party. The tradition of reckless courage and organised fighting
efficiency that had made the tribe known and feared for generations had
been always maintained, and under the leadership of the last two
holders of the hereditary name to so high a degree that the respect in
which it was held was such that no other tribe had ventured to dispute
its supremacy, and for many years its serious fighting capacities had
not been tested.
Even Ibraheim Omair had inherited a feud that was largely traditional.
Only once during the lifetime of the last Ahmed Ben Hassan had he dared
to come into open conflict, and the memory of it had lasted until now.
Skirmishes there had been and would always be inevitably sufficient to
keep the tribesmen in a state of perpetual expectancy, and for this
Ahmed Ben Hassan preserved the rigid discipline that prevailed in his
tribe, insisting on the high standard that had kept them famous. The
life-work that his predecessor had taken over from his father the
present Ahmed Ben Hassan had carried on and developed with autocratic
perseverance. The inborn love of fighting had been carefully fostered
in the tribe, the weapons with which they were armed were of the newest
pattern. Raoul knew with perfect certainty that to the picked men
following them this hasty expedition meant only one thing--war, the war
that they had looked forward to all their lives, precipitated now by an
accident that gave to a handful of them the chance that hundreds of
their fellow-tribesmen were longing for, a chance that sent them
joyfully behind their chief, careless whether the reinforcements that
had been sent for arrived in time or not. The smallness of their
numbers was a source of pleasure rather than otherwise; if they won
through to them would be the glory of victory; if they were annihilated
with them would rest the honour of dying with the leader whom they
worshipped, for not one of them doubted that Ahmed Ben Hassan would not
survive his bodyguard, the flower of his tribe, the carefully chosen
men from whose ranks his personal escort was always drawn. With them he
would crush his hereditary enemy or with them he would die.
The short twilight had gone and a brilliant moon shone high in the
heavens, illuminating the surrounding country with a clear white light.
At any other time the beauty of the scene, the glamour of the Eastern
night, the head-long gallop in company with this band of fierce
fighting men would have stirred Saint Hubert profoundly. His artistic
temperament and his own absolute fearlessness and love of adventure
would have combined to make the expedition an exciting experience that
he would not willingly have foregone. But the reason for it all, the
peril of the girl whom he loved so unexpectedly, changed the whole
colour of the affair, tinging it with a gravity and a suspense that
left a cold fear in his heart. And if to him, what then to the man
beside him? The question that Ahmed Ben Hassan had negatived so
scornfully a week before had been answered differently in the swift
look that had crossed his face this evening. He had not spoken since
they started, and Saint Hubert had not felt able to break the silence.
They had left the level country and were in amongst the long,
successive ranges of undulating ground, the summits standing out silver
white in the gleaming moonlight, the hollows filled with dark shadow,
like black pools of deep, still water. And at the bottom of one of the
slopes the Sheik pulled up suddenly with a low, hissing exclamation. A
white shape was lying face downwards, spread-eagled on the sand, almost
under The Hawk's feet, and at their approach two lean, slinking forms
cantered away into the night. The Sheik and Henri reached the still
figure simultaneously and Saint Hubert almost as quickly. He made a
hurried examination. The bullet that had stunned Gaston had glanced
off, leaving an ugly cut, and others that had hit him at the same time
had ploughed through his shoulder, breaking the bone and causing
besides wounds that had bled freely. He had staggered more than a mile
before he had fainted again from loss of blood. He came to under Saint
Hubert's handling, and lifted his heavy eyes to the Sheik, who was
kneeling beside him.
"Monseigneur--Madame--Ibraheim Omair," he whispered weakly, and
relapsed into unconsciousness.
For a moment the Sheik's eyes met Raoul's across his body, and then
Ahmed Ben Hassan rose to his feet. "Be as quick as you can," he said,
and went back to his horse. He leaned against The Hawk, his fingers
mechanically searching for and lighting a cigarette, his eyes fixed
unseeingly on the group around Gaston. The valet's broken words had
confirmed the fear that he had striven to crush since he discovered
Diana's absence.
He had only seen Ibraheim Omair once when, ten years before, he had
gone with the elder Ahmed Ben Hassan to a meeting of the more powerful
chiefs at Algiers, arranged under the auspices of the French
Government, to confer on a complicated boundary question that had
threatened an upheaval amongst the tribes which the nominal protectors
of the country were afraid would be prejudicial to their own prestige,
as it would have been beyond their power to quell. He had chafed at
having to meet his hereditary enemy on equal terms, and only the
restraining influence of the old Sheik, who exacted an unquestioning
obedience that extended even to his heir, had prevented a catastrophe
that might have nullified the meeting and caused infinitely more
complications than the original boundary dispute. But the memory of the
robber Sheik remained with him always, and the recollection of his
bloated, vicious face and gross, unwieldy body rose clearly before him
now.
Ibraheim Omair and the slender daintiness that he had prized so
lightly. Diane! His teeth met through the cigarette in his mouth. His
senseless jealousy and the rage provoked by Raoul's outspoken criticism
had recoiled on the innocent cause. She, not Saint Hubert, had felt the
brunt of his anger. In the innate cruelty of his nature it had given
him a subtle pleasure to watch the bewilderment, alternating with
flickering fear, that had come back into the deep blue eyes that for
two months had looked into his with frank confidence. He had made her
acutely conscious of his displeasure. Only last night, when his lack of
consideration and his unwonted irritability had made her wince several
times during the evening and after Saint Hubert had gone to his own
tent, he, had looked up to find her eyes fixed on him with an
expression that, in his dangerous mood, had excited all the brutality
of which he was capable, and had filled him with a desire to torture
her. The dumb reproach in her eyes had exasperated him, rousing the
fiendish temper that had been hardly kept in check all the previous
week. And yet, when he held her helpless in his arms, quivering and
shrinking from the embrace that was no caress, but merely the medium of
his anger, and the reproach in her wavering eyes changed to mute
entreaty, the pleasure he had anticipated in her fear had failed him as
it had before, and had irritated him further. The wild beating of her
heart, the sobbing intake of her breath, the knowledge of his power
over her, gave him no gratification, and he had flung her from him
cursing her savagely, till she had fled into the other room with her
hands over her ears to shut out the sound of his slow, deliberate
voice. And this morning he had left her without a sign of any kind, no
word or gesture that might have effaced the memory of the previous
night. He had not meant to, he had intended to go back to her before he
finally rode away, but Saint Hubert's refusal to accompany him had
killed the softer feelings that prompted him, and his rage had flamed
up again.
And now? The longing to hold her in his arms, to kiss the tears from
her eyes and the colour into her pale lips, was almost unbearable. He
would give his life to keep even a shadow from her path, and she was in
the hands of Ibraheim Omair! The thought and all that it implied was
torture, but no sign escaped him of the hell he was enduring. The
unavoidable delay seemed interminable, and he swung into the saddle,
hoping that the waiting would seem less with The Hawk's restless,
nervous body gripped between his knees, for though the horse would
stand quietly with his master beside him, he fretted continually at
waiting once the Sheik was mounted, and the necessity for soothing him
was preferable to complete inaction.
Saint Hubert rose to his feet at last, and, leaving behind Henri and
two Arabs, who were detailed to take the wounded man back to the camp,
the swift gallop southward was resumed. On, over the rising and falling
ground along which Gaston had stumbled, blind and faint with loss of
blood and the pain of his wounds, past the dead body of The Dancer,
ghostly white in the moonlight, lying a little apart from the
semicircle of Arabs that proved the efficiency of Gaston's shooting
where Diana and he had made their last stand. The Sheik made no sign
and did not check the headlong gallop, but continued on, The Hawk
taking the fallen bodies that lay in his path in his stride, with only
a quiver of repugnance and a snort of disgust. Still on, past the
huddled bundles of tumbled draperies that marked the way significantly,
avoiding them where the moonlight illuminated brightly, and riding over
them in the deep hollows, where once Raoul's horse stumbled badly and
nearly fell, recovering himself with a wild scramble, and the Vicomte
heard the dead man's skull crack under the horse's slipping hoof.
The distant howling of jackals came closer and closer until, topping
one long rise and descending into a hollow that was long enough and
wide enough to be fully lit by the moon, they came to the place where
the ambush had been laid. Instinctively Ahmed Ben Hassan knew that
amongst the jostling heaps of corpses and dead horses lay the bodies of
his own men. Perhaps amongst the still forms from which the jackals,
whose hideous yelling they had heard, had slunk away, there might be
one left with life enough to give some news. One of his own men who
would speak willingly, or one of Ibraheim Omair's who would be made to
speak. His lips curled back from his white teeth in a grin of pure
cruelty.
The silence that had prevailed amongst his men broke suddenly as they
searched quickly among the dead. The Sheik waited impassively, silent
amidst the muttered imprecations and threats of vengeance of his
followers as they laid beside him the six remains of what had been
Diana's escort, slashed and mutilated almost beyond recognition. But it
was he who noticed that the last terrible figure stirred slightly as it
was laid down, and it was into his face, grown suddenly strangely
gentle, that the dying Arab looked with fast-filming eyes. The man
smiled, the happy smile of a child that had obtained an unexpected
reward, and raised his hand painfully in salute, then pointed mutely to
the south.
The Sheik caught his follower's nerveless fingers as they fell in his
own strong grasp, and with a last effort the Arab drew his chief's hand
to his forehead and fell back dead.