A Son of the Sahara Part 10

"There is one thing, my Sultan. Sell Leonora. I hate her. She's a great fat toad, always plotting and planning to steal your heart from me."

"I couldn't do that. I'm not quite like your desert men, remember. I can't sell a woman who has once pleased me. But, on my return, I'll find her a nice husband, if that will satisfy you."

There was a note in his voice that brooked no argument; and the girl, reared for the harem, was quick to notice it.

She gave a sharp glance at her owner. It seemed that a man she did not know stood behind her Sultan, indulgent master as he had proved. A man she had no hold over.

CHAPTER II

In one of the hotels in the Island of Grand Canary dinner had just been served. Around the door of the large dining-hall the manager, the head waiter and several underlings hovered, with an air of awaiting the arrival of some important personage.

Presently two people appeared in the doorway.

One was a middle-aged woman with grey hair and a prim expression. She was wearing a plain black silk evening dress, and she had the look of a retired governess. Her companion was of quite another type. She was a slender, graceful girl of medium height, with a mop of short, golden curls dancing round a small, frank face, that gave her the look of some lovely, delicate schoolboy. She wore a simple white silk frock, and her only mark of wealth was a large diamond hanging from a thin platinum chain about her slender neck; a gem in itself worth a fortune.

Evidently she was the personage expected. As she appeared the manager went forward to meet her. She smiled at him in a friendly, affable manner. With him at her side, she and her companion went up the big room, towards a specially reserved table, the head-waiter and a little group of others following behind.

As she came up the room, a man seated at one of the tables in the center of the room said to his neighbour:

"Who is that girl? The whole hotel is falling over itself to wait on her."

The speaker was a short, thick-set man, with a red face and fishy eyes.

"That's Pansy Langham, the millionairess," his neighbour replied. "She came over in her yacht from Teneriffe this afternoon. Barclay her name was before she came into her money."

"A millionaire, is she? That's the second one of the species in Grand Canary then. For there's a French millionaire staying in a villa at the back here. Le Breton, his name is. But what's brought the girl to these parts? There's not much here to attract a woman with money."

"She's here for her health, I believe."

"Not lungs, surely! She looks healthy enough."

"No, she had an accident about a couple of months ago. Some half-mad horse mauled her horribly, all but killed her. I remember reading about the case in the papers. They say she's a very decent sort, in spite of her millions. Gives an awful lot away in charity."

As the girl approached the table, the red-faced man screwed an eyegla.s.s into one fishy eye and surveyed her from head to foot.

"She's not bad looking," he said in a condescending manner, as if it were his prerogative to criticise every woman who crossed his horizon.

"But she's not a patch on the red-haired woman in the villa at the back here. Now, she's what I call a beauty."

He did not trouble to lower his voice, and his words reached Pansy.

She glanced in his direction and wrinkled her pretty nose, as if she were smelling a bad smell. And with no more notice than that, she pa.s.sed on to her own table.

CHAPTER III

Just off the main road between the Port and the city of Las Palmas, Grand Canary, a villa stood. It was situated on a hill; a white, flat-roofed building, set in a pleasant garden. Long windows opened on a lawn surrounded by trees.

Out from one of the windows a flood of light streamed and mingled with the silver of the night. The apartment it came from was elaborately furnished, in an ornate French style, with gilded furniture, bevelled mirrors, and satin-covered chairs and lounges.

On one of the latter a woman lolled back amongst an array of soft cus.h.i.+ons. She was big and voluptuous-looking, with a dead-white skin, a ma.s.s of flaming red hair, and eyes green as the emerald necklace she wore.

She had on an extremely low-cut, black satin dress, that suited her style and colouring. And she made a striking, if somewhat bizarre, picture.

But attractive and unique as she looked, the man sitting with her appeared more interested in the view from the window than in his companion.

From there, a glint of moonlit sea showed between the vaguely moving trees; a peaceful stretch that spread away to the purple, misty horizon.

He was a big man of about thirty, well groomed and handsome, with smooth black hair, close-clipped moustache, and dark, smouldering eyes that had a latent searching look at the back of them. He was in evening attire, with black pearl studs in his pleated dress s.h.i.+rt.

For some time the two had been sitting in silence; the man's gaze on the sea; the woman's on the man, in a hungry, anxious manner.

"You've got one of your restless moods on to-night, Raoul," she said presently.

"I get them frequently nowadays. Nothing ever satisfies me for long."

She smiled at him, a soft, slow smile.

"Yet I have satisfied you longer than most, for you are still here with me."

"It's not you so much, Lucille, as business that keeps me here."

"I believe you have no heart at all," she cried, a catch of pain in her voice. "You look upon all women as animals."

"You are a most handsome animal, you must agree," he replied.

"You talk as if you'd bought me."

"I don't know that I ever put it quite so crudely as that."

"Put it as crudely as you like," she cried in a sudden gust of temper.

"You have taken all from me and given me nothing in return."

He made no reply. In a slightly amused manner his glance rested on her emerald necklace.

"You may look," she went on pa.s.sionately. "But I want more than gifts.

I want love, not just to be the creature of your pa.s.sions."

"Then you want too much. There's no such thing as love between men and women. There's only pa.s.sion."

"You are cruel," she moaned.

"Cruel! Merely because I refuse to be enslaved by any one woman, eaten up in mind and body and soul, as some of the men I know are? I wasn't brought up to look upon women as superior beings, and I've never met one yet to make me want to change my sentiments. They are here for my convenience and pleasure, and nothing more."