For Love of a Bedouin Maid

"It is not true, it cannot be true," she cried; "you are deceiving me for your own ends. Why should my father slay him? No, I believe you not."

Buonaparte took no notice of her words. He merely stepped to the open window and called out, "Roustan, bring up the prisoners."

The Arab girl sprang to her feet and advanced to him. "Prisoners?" she asked wonderingly. "Who are they? Why are they here?"

"You say you disbelieve me. They bring you proof of what I have just told you."

Even while he spoke the tramp of men could be heard outside, and, in another moment, Roustan entered with the three Arab soldiers and their guards.

Buonaparte cross-examined them in Halima's presence, and she herself put such questions to them as she chose. They told her of the capture of St. Just by members of her father's tribe and all that had followed, to his final fall from the rock. They were so evidently the witnesses of truth that Halima could not fail to be convinced that St. Just was dead.

She waved her hand to them as a signal that they were to go, and Buonaparte dismissed them.

Then the tears, that her excitement had kept back, poured forth. The girl staggered to the divan and, burying her head in its cushions, wept long and passionately.

As on a similar occasion, Buonaparte sought not to check her tears, but sat near, waiting patiently till her grief should spend itself. Meanwhile he fingered mechanically St. Just's charm, which he had taken from Yusuf, and meant to give to Halima.

At last the force of her weeping died away, and she raised her tear-stained face to his, a look of piteous entreaty on it.

At a loss for words of consolation, Buonaparte handed her the jewel.

"It was St. Just's," he said. "Now you have a right to it."

She reached out her hand and took it. At the same time, Buonaparte seated himself upon the divan and drew her to him. Then he kissed her, while he whispered tenderly in her ear, "I love you, Halima, I love you. My Queen, my heart's desire, tell me you love me too."

But she had St. Just's death too freshly in her mind. She shook her head sadly. "No, no," she murmured; "not to-night. Perhaps, to-morrow I will tell you."

Now Buonaparte, always imperious, could and would brook no resistance. For reply, he crushed her to himself. Violent was his embrace and masterful his manner. And, she, in her inmost heart already yielding, made but a faint resistance. And, at that moment, the light above the divan flickered out and darkness fell upon the scene.

CHAPTER XII

To return to St. Just who, when last seen, was lying unconscious in the tent of the Arab Sheik; the fever that had robbed him of his senses soon spent its force, and, with a lowering of his temperature, he returned to consciousness. Accustomed to the hardships of a campaign in the field, and with some experience of wounds, and by no means impatient or given to complaining, he could not but chafe at his slow progress towards recovery. He seemed to gain no strength. No doubt this was due in great measure to his want of European comforts, medical attendance, and the diet suitable to an invalid.

When, at last, he was able to get about again, which, was not till December had ended and a new year had dawned, he found, somewhat to his surprise, that the sheik, if harsh, was just in all his dealings. One night he and the sheik were sitting over the camp fire under the shadow of the very rock which had been the scene of St. Just's narrow escape from death, when the sheik spoke concerning that adventure.

"If I had wished to kill you, I could easily have done so. You must not suppose that my men are, as a rule, the bad marksmen they proved themselves on that occasion. If you had been killed, I had avenged the affront your General had put upon me, and, indirectly, upon the tribe, by trying to bribe me to become his ally. If you survived the shots, you could carry my answer, and, possibly, save the life of one of my own tribe, whom your General might slay for being the bearer of unpalatable news. That you would be hit fatally I expected; and how Mahmoud, who, though but eighteen, is a good marksman, came to miss, I know not, though he only failed by chance.

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