A Son of the Sahara Part 56

At that moment she was wondering why Rayma shrieked because the Sultan had not come. There seemed to her more reason to shriek if he did come.

CHAPTER XX

On one of the terraces of his palace the Sultan sat and brooded, his face hard and savage, as he glowered at the scene ahead of him; a harmless scene where night shadows settled on a scented garden with the glint of a lake beyond.

Never in his life had such an indignity been put upon him. Never had anyone dared dispute his right to do what he pleased. Never! Until this English girl had come into his life.

And she had struck him. The Sultan! As if he were some erring menial whose ways had annoyed her.

Under the recollection the man's untamed soul writhed.

She had done as she liked all her life. All that money of hers had given her ideas no woman ought to have. Now she had to learn that he was her master.

She was in the harem now. And there she could stay. A spell there would cool her temper and make her more amenable to his wishes.

The trees in the garden sighed faintly. The soft wind brought the scent of roses and the splash of a fountain.

His mind went back to another garden, in far-away Grand Canary. The echoes of a girl's voice whispered:

"Put your ear quite close. It's not a matter that can be shouted from the house-tops."

She had shouted loud enough that she hated him. She had not whispered that fact.

A spasm of pain crossed his face.

Why did she fight against him? This slender, lovely, helpless girl, whom he could break with one hand. She fought bravely, with all the odds against her. And she had dared to do what no one else in the place dared do. What no one had ever done in the whole of his wild, unbridled life. She had dared to strike him, fair and square, with all her strength, across the mouth.

Then suddenly his anger melted. A smile came and played about his scarred lips.

Surely no man could be angry for long with a girl so brave and helpless.

He deserved it for his deception. Just as he had deserved her scorn and contempt over Lucille. She was always giving him what he deserved, this little English flower of his.

More than he deserved, a struggling conscience breathed.

For he had never deserved those three words she had once whispered in his ear:

"I love you."

CHAPTER XXI

All the following day Rayma waited for the Sultan's coming. Pansy waited, also. By now she realised more fully what she had done: struck and infuriated the man who held her father's life in his hand.

However, nothing was seen of the Sultan either that day or the next.

For Pansy the days were the longest she had ever spent in her life.

She could not doze away her time as the other girls did, with coffee and sherbet and cigarettes; their greatest exertion a bath, or making sweetmeats over a charcoal brazier, or doing intricate embroidery. She kept out of their way as much as possible, in her own room, or wandering aimlessly in the garden, looking at walls impossible for her to scale, wondering what had happened to her father and her friends, and what would happen to herself. But even the garden was barred to her except in the very early morning, and the brief s.p.a.ce after sunset.

If she tried to go at other times there were twenty women to stop her.

The order was the Sultan's, she was told, lest to escape him she should wander in the tropic heat and make herself ill.

All her meals had to be taken in the harem, and for bathing there was only the harem bathroom. That was a vast underground tank, approached by marble steps, cool and still and dim, its silence only broken by the dip of water.

There the girls disported themselves several times a day. But Pansy was not used to company when she bathed.

And to avoid them, she rose very early, when she was sure of having the great marble tank to herself.

During the afternoon of the third day the Sultan came.

Pansy was not in the harem at the time, but lying on the lounge in her own room.

Sara's entrance roused her.

"My pearl, the Sultan is here," she said cajolingly. "And he desires to see you."

"I prefer to stay where I am," was the cold response.

The woman looked at her, speculating on the relations between this girl and the Sultan. They had once been so fond of one another, always together. And now the girl had been sent to the harem, and for three days the Sultan had not come near her.

"It's useless to resist, my pearl," Sara explained. "If you don't come when the Sultan commands, servants will be sent to fetch you."

Pansy had no wish to be dragged into her captor's presence.

Since she had to go, she might as well go with dignity.

However, she did not go very far. Only just beyond the door of her own quarters. Once there she sank down quickly on a pile of cus.h.i.+ons, in her usual position, half sitting, half kneeling; a position that made the scantiness of her garment not quite so obvious.

At once she knew who the man in the white burnoose was, although she had never seen him in anything but civilised attire before. He was sitting on an ottoman near the fountain, with the girls cl.u.s.tered around him, fawning on him like dogs round a loved master.

Pansy turned a slender, disdainful shoulder on the scene.

But if she did not look in the direction of the group, there was one at least who kept a sharp suspicious eye on her.

By the Sultan's side Rayma sat, with her pointed chin resting upon his knee.

"Why haven't you come sooner to see that new slave of yours, Casim beloved?" she asked, pointing a slim finger at the distant girl.

"I've had other things than women to think about," he replied evasively.

A bitter reminiscent smile curved his lips as he spoke. Some words of Pansy's were in his mind.

"So long as it's 'women,' it's all right. The trouble starts when it comes to 'woman.'"