A Son of the Sahara Part 60

The last few minutes had been a haze to the girl; a blur of great negroes with whips; of Rayma, sobbing and helpless; of Raoul Le Breton, cruel, as she had always felt he might be.

He had come back into her life suddenly, that lover with the strong arms and the deep, caressing voice, the big, half-tamed, arrogant man, whom from the first she had liked and had never been afraid of.

"What dare I hope? What dare I think?" his voice was saying. "Dare I think that you don't quite hate me? Look at me, my little slave, and let me see what is in your eyes."

But Pansy did not look at him. She was too full of shame and confusion, despite Leonora's a.s.surance; a shame and confusion that the Sultan guessed at, for he stayed caressing her golden curls with a soothing touch.

For a time there was silence.

Through the room the wind strayed, its soft, rose-ladened breath mingling with the subtle scent of sandalwood. Somewhere in the garden an owl hooted. A peevish wail in the night, came the cry of jackals prowling around the city walls.

Under that firm, strong, soothing hand, Pansy's shame subsided a little. For the girl there was always magic in his touch, except when anger raged within her. There was no anger now, only a sense of her own helplessness, and the knowledge of the lives he held in his power.

Under the silence and his soothing hand, a question trembled to her lips, born of her own helplessness and the dire straits of her father and friends.

"If ... if I marry you, will you send my father and friends safely back to Gambia?" she asked, in a low voice.

He laughed tenderly.

"If I were as big a villain as you think me, I'd say 'yes,' and then break faith with you, Pansy--as you broke faith with me. If I sent them back, my little flower, do you know what would happen? Your English friends would complain to the French Government. An expedition would be sent up here, and they would dole out to me the fate your father doled out to mine."

His words made Pansy realise for the first time that his summary abduction of his father's party had brought him foul of two Governments.

Horrified, she gazed at him; her father and friends all forgotten at the thought of the fate awaiting her captor.

They would shoot him, this big, fierce man. All fire would die out of those flas.h.i.+ng eyes. That handsome face would be stiff and stark in death. Never again would that hard mouth curve into lines of tenderness when he smiled at her. There would be no strength left in his arms. No deep, pa.s.sionate, caressing voice. No untamed, masterful man, using all his power to bend her to his will.

It was one thing for Pansy to want to kill him herself, but quite another for other people to set about it.

At that moment she realised that, in spite of everything, she did not hate the Sultan Casim Ammeh.

And what was more he knew it too. For he bent over her, laughing softly.

"So, Heart's Ease, you don't quite hate me," he said. "That fact will keep me patient for quite a little time. And you will be whispering 'yes' in my ear, as I would have you whisper it--of your own free will, as you whispered 'I love you,' on that sweet night six months ago."

He bent still lower, and kissed the little face that watched him with such strained anxiety.

"Good night, my darling," he said fondly.

Long after he had gone Pansy lay trying to crush the truth back into its hiding-place in her heart. And his voice, tender and triumphant, seemed to echo back mockingly from the jewelled ceiling.

For surely she could not love a man so cruel, so barbaric, so profligate as the Sultan Casim Ammeh.

CHAPTER XXIV

The next morning Pansy awoke to find herself back in her gilded prison, and Alice beside her with the customary morning tea, a dish of fruit and a basket of flowers, all as if the last ten days had never been.

She knew now the flowers were from the Sultan. But she did not tell Alice to take them away. Instead, as she drank her tea and ate some fruit, she looked at them in a meditating manner.

And Alice looked at her mistress in an inquisitive way, wondering what had happened to her during the last few days.

"De Sultan, he no sell you den, Miss Pansy?"

"No," Pansy replied in an absent manner.

"Since you go I lib wid de oder servants in anoder part ob de palace.

Dere be hundreds ob dem," the girl continued, her eyes round with awe at her captor's wealth and power.

She spoke, too, as if anxious for an exchange of confidences.

However, Pansy said nothing. She stayed with her gaze on the flowers, despising herself for having been so upset at the thought of the Sultan's demise.

That morning Alice dressed her in her usual civilised attire. In spite of this, Pansy found she was still a prisoner, still within the precincts of the harem. The rose garden was hers to wander in at will.

But the guards were still stationed outside one of the sandalwood doors, as they had been on the day of her arrival at the palace.

However, one of the two other doors was unlocked.

Pansy opened it, hoping some way of escape might lay beyond. A dim flight of stairs led downwards. She descended, only to find herself in the harem.

The girls and women greeted her with an awed and servile air. To them now she was the Sultan's first wife; the most envied and most honoured woman in the province of El-Ammeh.

Curious glances were cast at her attire. Leonora appeared most at her ease. For she fingered Pansy's garments with soft, slow, indolent hands.

"It's quite ten years since I've seen a woman dressed as you are," she remarked. "Not since I lived in Tangier, before my uncle sold me to an Arab merchant."

Pansy knew Leonora's history. It did not sound a pretty one to civilised ears.

Sold at the age of fourteen, she had been handed from one desert chief to another, until finally she had appeared in the slave market of El-Ammeh and had taken the Sultan's fancy.

"What an awful life you've had," Pansy said, pity in her voice.

Leonora's languid eyes opened with surprise.

"Me! Oh, no. I'm beautiful, and most of my masters have been kind.

But none so kind and generous as the Sultan Casim. Besides, now my travels are at an end. When the Sultan tires of a slave, he does not sell her. She is given in marriage to one of his officers, with a good dowry. And she is then a woman with an established position. He is always generous to a woman who has pleased him. How lucky for you to be picked for his first wife! You'll find him almost always kind.

I've been here more than a year and I know. He is never harsh without a reason. He is never hard and unjust like some of the masters I've known."

As Pansy listened to this eulogy on her captor, she was surprised and ashamed of herself for having a sc.r.a.p of liking left for him. All her instincts revolted at his doings, but much as she tried she could not make them revolt at the man himself.

"He was hard enough last night," she remarked.

"But he had a reason. Rayma would have shamed and injured you. She could not see what I saw--that the Sultan has eyes and thoughts and heart for no one but you now. She is a stupid girl, that Rayma.

Because he loved her for a month or two, she thought he would love her for ever. He was her first master. He bought her but a few weeks before he last went to Paris. And he is so angry now that he will sell her again, not give her in marriage to one of his officers, making her a woman of importance."

Leonora's remarks made Pansy glance sharply round the big hall, suddenly aware that Rayma was not present. Already she saw the Arab girl having to face that dreadful sea of eyes, as she, herself, had faced it.

"Where is Rayma?" she asked quickly.