The Sheik

She sat up slowly, a puzzled look coming into her face. "What could happen to him?" she asked wonderingly.

He dragged back the flap of the tent and pointed out into the darkness. "Over there in the south-west, there is an old Sheik whose name is Ibraheim Omair. His tribe and mine have been at feud for generations. Lately I have learned that he has been venturing nearer than he has ever before dared. He hates me. To capture my personal servant would be more luck than he could have hoped for."

He dropped the flap and began walking up and down again. There was a sinister tone in his voice that made Diana suddenly comprehend the little Frenchman's peril. Ahmed Ben Hassan was not the man to be easily alarmed on any one's behalf. That he was anxious about Gaston was apparent, and with her knowledge of him she understood his anxiety argued a very real danger. She had heard tales before she left Biskra, and since then she had been living in an Arab camp, and she knew something of the fiendish cruelty and callous indifference to suffering of the Arabs. Ghastly mental pictures with appalling details crowded now into her mind. She shuddered.

"What would they do to him?" she asked shakily, with a look of horror.

The Sheik paused beside her. He looked at her curiously and the cruelty deepened in his eyes. "Shall I tell you what they would do to him?" he said meaningly, with a terrible smile.

She gave a cry and flung her arms over her head, hiding her face. "Oh, do not! Do not!" she wailed.

He jerked the ash from his cigarette. "Bah!" he said contemptuously. "You are squeamish."

She felt sick with the realisation of what could result to Gaston from her action. She had had no personal feeling with regard to him. On the contrary, she liked him—she had not thought of him, the man, when she had stampeded his horse and left him on foot so far from camp. She had looked upon him only as a jailer, his master's deputy.

The near presence of this hostile Sheik explained many things she had not understood: Gaston's evident desire daring their ride not to go beyond a certain distance, the special activity that had prevailed of late amongst the Sheik's immediate followers, and the speed and silence that had been maintained during the headlong gallop across the desert that evening. She had known all along the Arab's obvious affection for his French servant, and it was confirmed now by the anxiety that he did not take the trouble to conceal—so unlike his usual complete indifference to suffering or danger.

She looked at him thoughtfully. There were still depths that she had not fathomed in his strange character. Would she ever arrive at even a distant understanding of his complex nature? There was a misty yearning in her eyes as they followed his tall figure up and down the tent. His feet made no sound on the thick rugs, and he moved with the long, graceful stride that always reminded her of the walk of a wild animal. Her new-found love longed for expression as she watched him. If she could only tell him! If she had only the right to go to him and in his arms to kiss away the cruel lines from his mouth! But she had not. She must wait until she was called, until he should choose to notice the woman whom he had taken for his pleasure, until the baser part of him had need of her again. He was an Arab, and to him a woman was a slave, and as a slave she must give everything and ask for nothing.

And when he did turn to her again the joy she would feel in his embrace would be an agony for the love that was not there. His careless kisses would scorch her and the strength of his arms would be a mockery. But would he ever turn to her again? If anything happened to Gaston—if what he had suggested became a fact and the servant fell a victim to the blood feud between the two tribes? She knew he would be terribly avenged, and what would her part be? She wondered dully if he would kill her, and how. If the long, brown fingers with their steely strength would choke the life out of her. Her hands went up to her throat mechanically. He stopped near her to light a fresh cigarette, and she was trying to summon up courage to speak to him of Gaston when the covering of the doorway was flung open and Gaston himself stood in the entrance.

"Monseigneur—" he stammered, and with his two hands outstretched, palm uppermost, he made an appealing gesture.

The Sheik's hand shot out and gripped the man's shoulder. "Gaston! Enfin, mon ami!" he said slowly, but there was a ring in his low voice that Diana had never heard before.

For a moment the two men stared at each other, and then Ahmed Ben Hassan gave a little laugh of great relief. "Praise be to Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate," he murmured.

"To his name praise!" rejoined Gaston softly, then his eyes roved around the tent towards Diana, and there was no resentment in them, but only anxiety.

"Madame is–" he hesitated, but the Sheik cut him short.

"Madame is quite safe," he said dryly, and pushed him gently towards the door with a few words in rapid Arabic. He stood some time after Gaston had gone to his own quarters looking out into the night, and when he came in, lingered unusually over closing the flap. Diana stood hesitating. She was worn out and her long riding-boots felt like lead. She was afraid to go and afraid to stay. He seemed purposely ignoring her. The relief of Gaston's return was enormous, but she had still to reckon with him for her attempted flight. That he said no word about it at the moment meant nothing; she knew him too well for that. And there was Silver Star, the finest of all his magnificent horses—she had yet to pay for his death. The strain that she had gone through since the morning was tremendous, she could not bear much more. His silence aggravated her breaking nerves until she felt that her nerves would go. He had moved over to the writing-table and was tearing the wrapping off a box of cartridges preparatory to refilling the magazine of his revolver. The little operation seemed to take centuries. She started at each separate click. She gripped her hands and passed her tongue over her dry lips. If he would not speak she must, she could endure it no longer.

"I am sorry about Silver Star," she faltered, and even to herself her voice sounded hoarse and strange. He did not answer, but only shrugged his shoulders as he dropped the last cartridge into its place.

The gesture and his uncompromising attitude exasperated her. "You had better have shot me," she said bitterly.

"Perhaps. You would have been easier replaced. There are plenty of women, but Silver Star was almost unique," he retorted quickly, and she winced at the cold brutality of his tone.

A little sad smile curved her lips. "Yet you shot your horse to get me back," she said in a barely audible voice.

He flung round with an oath. "You little fool! Do you know so little of me yet? Do you think that I will let anything stand between me and what I want? Do you think that by running away from me you will make me want you less? By Allah! I would have found you if you had got as far as France. What I have I keep, until I tire of it—and I have not tired of you yet." He jerked her to him, staring down at her passionately, and for a moment his face was the face of a devil. "How shall I punish you?" He felt the shudder he expected go through her and laughed as she shrank in his arms and hid her face. He forced her head up with merciless fingers. "What do you hate most?—my kisses?" and with another mocking laugh he crushed his mouth to hers in a long suffocating embrace.

Then he let her go suddenly, and, blind and dizzy, she reeled from him and staggered. He caught her as she swayed and swept her into his arms. Her head fell back against his shoulder and his face changed at the sight of her quivering features. He carried her into the adjoining room and laid her on the couch, his hands lingering as he drew them from her. For a moment he stood looking down with smouldering eyes on the slight, boyish figure lying on the bed, the ferocity dying out of his face. "Take care you do not wake the devil in me again, ma belle," he said sombrely.

Alone Diana turned her face into the pillows with a moan of anguish. Back in the desert a few hours ago, under the shining stars, when the truth had first come to her, she had thought that she was happy, but she knew now that without his love she would never be happy. She had tasted the bitterness of his loveless kisses and she knew that a worse bitterness was to come, and she writhed at the thought of what her life with him would be.

"I love him! I love him! And I want his love more than anything in Heaven and earth."

CHAPTER VI

Diana was sitting on the divan in the living-room of the tent lingering over her petit dejeuner, a cup of coffee poised in one hand and her bright head bent over a magazine on her knee. It was a French periodical of fairly recent date, left a few days before by a Dutchman who was touring through the desert, and who had asked a night's hospitality. Diana had not seen him, and it was not until the traveller had been served with dinner in his own tent that the Sheik had sent the usual flowery message conveying what, though wrapped in honeyed words, amounted practically to a command that he should come to drink coffee and let himself be seen. Only native servants had been in attendance, and it was an Arab untinged by any Western influence who had received him, talking only Arabic, which the Dutchman spoke fluently, and placing at his disposal himself, his servants and all his belongings with the perfunctory Oriental insincerity which the traveller knew meant nothing and accepted at its own value, returning to the usual set phrases the customary answers that were expected of him. Once or twice as they talked a woman's subdued voice had reached the Dutchman's ears from behind the thick curtains, but he knew too much to let any expression betray him, and he smiled grimly to himself at the thought of the change that an indiscreet question would bring to the stern face of his grave and impassive host. He was an elderly man with a tender heart, and he wondered speculatively what the girl in the next room would have to pay for her own indiscretion in allowing her voice to be heard. He left the next morning early without seeing the Sheik again, escorted for some little distance by Yusef and a few men.

Diana read eagerly. Anything fresh to read was precious. She looked like a slender boy in the soft riding-shirt and smart-cut breeches, one slim foot in a long brown boot drawn up under her, and the other swinging idly against the side of the divan. She finished her coffee hastily, and, lighting a cigarette, leaned back with a sigh of content over the magazine.

Two months had slipped away since her mad flight, since her dash for freedom that had ended in tragedy for the beautiful Silver Star and so unexpectedly for herself. Weeks of vivid happiness that had been mixed with poignant suffering, for the perfect joy of being with him was marred by the passionate longing for his love. Even her surroundings had taken on a new aspect, her happiness coloured everything. The Eastern luxury of the tent and its appointments no longer seemed theatrical, but the natural setting of the magnificent specimen of manhood who surrounded himself by all the display dear to the heart of the native. How much was for his own pleasure and how much was for the sake of his followers she had never been able to determine. The beauties and attractions of the desert had multiplied a hundred times. The wild tribesmen, with their primitive ways and savagery, had ceased to disgust her, and the free life with its constant exercise and simple routine was becoming indefinitely dear to her. The camp had been moved several times—always towards the south—and each change had been a source of greater interest.

And since the night that he had carried her back in triumph he had been kind to her—kind beyond anything that she had expected. He had never made any reference to her fight or to the death of the horse that he had valued so highly; in that he had been generous. The episode over, he wished no further allusion to it. But there was nothing beyond kindness. The passion that smouldered in his dark eyes often was not the love she craved, it was only the desire that her uncommon type and her utter dissimilarity from all the other women who had passed through his hands had awakened in him. The perpetual remembrance of those other woman brought her a constant burning shame that grew stronger every day, a shame that was only less strong than her ardent love, and a wild jealousy that tortured her with doubts and fears, an ever-present demon of suggestion reminding her of the past when it was not she who lay in his arms, nor her lips that received his kisses. The knowledge that the embraces she panted for had been shared by les autres was an open wound that would not heal. She tried to shut her mind to the past. She knew that she was a fool to expect the abstinence of a monk in the strong, virile desert man. And she was afraid for the future. She wanted him for herself alone, wanted his undivided love, and that he was an Arab with Oriental instincts filled her with continual dread, dread of the real future about which she never dared to think, dread of the passing of his transient desire. She loved him so passionately, so completely, that beyond him was nothing. He was all the world. She gave herself to him gladly, triumphantly, as she would give her life for him if need be. But she had schooled herself to hide her love, to yield apathetically to his caresses, and to conceal the longing that possessed her. She was afraid that the knowledge that she loved him would bring about the disaster she dreaded. The words that he had once used remained continually in her mind: "If you loved me you would bore me, and I should have to let you go." And she hid her love closely in her heart. It was difficult, and it hurt her to hide it from him and to assume indifference. It was difficult to remember that she must make a show of reluctance when she was longing to give unreservedly. She dropped the end of the cigarette hissing into the dregs of the coffee and turned a page, and, as she did so, she looked up suddenly, the magazine dropping unheeded on the floor. Close outside the tent the same low, vibrating baritone was singing the Kashmiri love song that she had heard last the night before she left Biskra. She sat tense, her eyes growing puzzled.

"Pale hands I loved beside the Shalimar. Where are you now? Who lies beneath your spell?"

The voice came nearer and he swept in, still singing, and came to her. "Pale hands, pink tipped," he sang, stopping in front of her and catching her fingers in his up to his lips, but she tore them away before he kissed them.

"You do know English?" she cried sharply, her eyes searching his.

He flung himself on the divan beside her with a laugh. "Because I sing an English song?" he replied in French. "La! la! I heard a Spanish boy singing in 'Carmen' once in Paris who did not know a word of French beside the score. He learned it parrot-like, as I learn your English songs," he added, smiling.

She watched him light a cigarette, and her forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. "It was you who sang outside the hotel in Biskra that night?" she asked at last, more statement than question.

"One is mad sometimes, especially when the moon is high," he replied teasingly.

"And was it you who came into my bedroom and put the blank cartridges in my revolver?"

His arm stole round her, drawing her to him, and he lifted her head up so that he could look into her eyes. "Do you think that—I would have allowed anybody else to go to your room at night?—I, an Arab, when I meant you for myself?"

"You were so sure?"

He laughed softly, as if the suggestion that any plan of his could be liable to miscarriage amused him infinitely, and the smouldering passion flamed up in his dark eyes. He strained her to him hungrily, as if her slim body lying against his had awakened the sleeping fires within him. She struggled against the pressure of his arm, averting her head.

"Always cold?" he chided. "Kiss me, little piece of ice."

She longed to, and it almost broke her heart to persevere in her efforts to repulse him. A wild desire seized her to tell him that she loved him, to make an end once and for all of the misery of doubt and fear that was sapping her strength from her, and abide by the issue. But the spark of hope that lived in her heart gave her courage, and she fought down the burning words that sought utterance, forcing indifference into her eyes and a mutinous pout to her lips.

His black brows drew together slowly. "Still disobedient? You said you would obey me. I loathe the English, but I thought their word–"

She interrupted him with a quick gesture, and, turning her face to his, for the first time kissed him voluntarily, brushing his tanned cheek with swift, cold lips.

He laughed disdainfully. "Bon Dieu! Has the hot sun of the desert taught you no better than that? Have you learned so little from me? Has the vile climate of your detestable country frozen you so thoroughly that nothing can melt you? Or is there some man in England who has the power to turn you from a statue to a woman?" he added, with an angry snarl.

She clenched her hands with the pain of his words. "There is no one," she muttered, "but I—I don't feel like that."

"You had better learn," he said thickly. "I am tired of holding an icicle in my arms," and sweeping her completely into his masterful grasp he covered her face with fierce, burning kisses.

And for the first time she surrendered to him wholly, clinging to him passionately, and giving him kiss for kiss with an absolute abandon of all resistance. At last he let her go, panting and breathless, and leaped up, drawing his hand across his eyes.

"You go to my head, Diane," he said, with a laugh that was half anger, and shrugging his shoulders moved across the tent to the chest where the spare arms were kept, and unlocking it took out a revolver and began to clean it.

She looked at him bewildered. What had he meant? How could she reconcile what he said with the advice that he had given her before? Was he totally inconsistent? Did he, after all, want the satisfaction of knowing that he had made her love him—of flattering himself on the power he exercised over her? Did he care that he was able to torture her heart with a refinement of cruelty that took all and gave nothing? Did he wish her to crawl abjectly to his feet to give him the pleasure of spurning her contemptuously, or was it only that he wanted her senses merely to respond to his ardent, Eastern temperament? Her face grew hot and shamed. She knew the fiery nature that was hidden under his impassive exterior and knew the control he exercised over himself, knew, too, that the strain he put upon himself was liable to be broken with unexpected suddenness. It was an easy thing to rule his wild followers, and she guessed that the relaxation that he looked for in the privacy of his own tent meant more to him than he would ever have admitted, than perhaps he even know. The hatred and defiance with which she had repelled him had provoked and amused him, but it had also at times angered him.

He was very human, and there must have been moments when he wanted a willing mate rather than a rebellious prisoner. She gave a quick sigh as she looked at him. He was so strong, so vigorous, so intensely alive. It was going to be very difficult to anticipate his moods and be subservient to his temper. She sighed again wearily. If she could but make him and keep him happy. She ruffled her loose curls, tugging them with a puzzled frown, a trick that was a survival of her nursery days, when she clutched frantically at her red-gold mop to help her settle any childish difficulty.

She knelt up suddenly on the cushions of the divan. "Why do you hate the English so bitterly, Monseigneur?" She had dropped almost unconsciously into Gaston's mode of address for some time; it was often awkward to give him no name, and she shrank from using his own; and the title fitted him.

He looked up from his work, and, gathering the materials together, brought them over to the divan. "Light me a cigarette, cherie, my hands are busy," he replied irrelevantly.

She complied with a little laugh. "You haven't answered my question."

He polished the gleaming little weapon in his hand for some time without speaking. "Ma petite Diane, your lips are of an adorable redness and your voice is music in my ears, but—I detest questions. They bore me to a point of exasperation," he said at last lightly, and started humming the Kashmiri song again.

She knew him well enough to know that all questions did not bore him, but that she must have touched some point connected with the past of which she was ignorant that affected him, and to prove her knowledge she asked another question. "Why do you sing? You have never sung before."

He looked at her with a smile of amusement at her pertinacity. "Inquisitive one! I sing because I am glad. Because my friend is coming."

"Your friend?"

"Yes, by Allah! The best friend a man ever had. Raoul de Saint Hubert."

She flashed a look at the bookcase with a jerk of her head, and he nodded. "Coming here?" she queried, and the dismay she felt sounded in her voice.

He frowned in quick annoyance at her tone. "Why not?" he said haughtily.

"No reason," she murmured, sinking down among the cushions again and picking up the magazine from the floor. The advent of a stranger—a European—was a shock, but she felt that the Sheik's eyes were on her and she determined to show no feeling in his presence. "What time will you be ready to ride?" she asked indifferently, with a simulated yawn, flirting over the pages.

"I can't ride with you to-day. I am going to meet Saint Hubert. His courier only came an hour ago. It is two years since I have seen him."

Diana slipped off the couch and went to the open doorway. A detachment of men were already waiting for him, and, close by the tent, Shaitan of the ugly temper was biting and fidgeting in the hands of the grooms. She scowled at the beautiful, wicked creature's flat-laid ears and rolling eyes. She would have backed him fearlessly herself if the Sheik had let her, but she was nervous for him every time he rode the vicious beast. No one but the Sheik could manage him, and though she knew that he had perfect mastery over the horse, she never lost the feeling of nervousness, a sensation the old Diana had never, never experienced, and she wished to-day that it had been any other horse but Shaitan waiting for him.

She went back to him slowly. "It makes my head ache, to stay in all day. May Gaston not ride with me?" she asked diffidently, her eyes anywhere but on his face. He had not allowed her to ride with any one except himself since her attempted escape, and to her tentative suggestions that the rides with the valet might be resumed he had given a prompt refusal. He hesitated now, and she was afraid he was going to refuse again, and she looked up wistfully. "Please, Monseigneur," she whispered humbly.

He looked at her for a moment with his chin squarer than usual. "Are you going to run away again?" he asked bluntly.

Her eyes filled slowly with tears, and she turned her head away to hide them. "No, I am not going to run away again," she said very low.

"Very well, I will tell him. He will be delighted, le bon Gaston. He is your very willing slave in spite of the trick you played him. He has a beautiful nature, le pauvre diable. He is not an Arab, eh, little Diane?" The mocking smile was back in his eyes as he turned her face up to his in the usual peremptory way. Then he held out the revolver he had been cleaning with sudden seriousness. "I want you to carry this always now when you ride. Ibraheim Omair is still in the neighbourhood."

She looked at it blankly.

"But–" she stammered.

He knew what was in her mind, and he stooped and kissed her lightly. "I trust you," he said quietly, and went out.

She followed him to the door, the revolver dangling from her hand, and watched him mount and ride away. His horsemanship was superb and her eyes glowed as they followed him. She went back into the tent and slipped the revolver into the holster he had left lying on a stool, and, tucking it and Saint Hubert's novel, which she took from the bookcase, under her arm, went into the bed-room and, calling to Zilah to pull off her riding-boots, threw herself on the bed to laze away the morning, and to try and picture the author from the book he had written.