A Son of the Sahara Part 67

In the darkness she paused, out of breath, hoping he would not see her.

A vain hope. His eyes had learnt to pierce the gloom. She was in his arms almost before she knew it.

There was a brief, uneven struggle, as Pansy fought against a man who knew no law except his own desires.

Weak and weeping she collapsed against him, on a heart that leapt to meet her.

There was a stone seat near. On it the Sultan seated himself, the girl in his arms. And in the scented, sighing silence he tried to soothe the tears his methods had roused.

And trembling she lay against the pa.s.sion and power that held her, refusing to be comforted.

"There's nothing to weep about, my darling," he whispered. "Sooner or later you have to learn that I'm your master. Just as you've taught me that all women are not ripe fruit, willing and anxious to fall into my hands. And I must have some closer tie between us since love alone won't keep you from running away from me."

Pansy's tears fell all the faster. For now it seemed her own doings were responsible for this crisis.

He sat on, waiting until the storm was over.

The tremors of the slight form that lay against his heart, so helpless yet so anxious not to do wrong, struck through the fire and pa.s.sion in the man, to what lay beneath--true love and protection.

Presently he kissed the strained, tear-stained face pillowed against his shoulder.

"It's like old times to be sitting in the moonlight and among the roses, with you in my arms," he said, all at once.

"Do you remember, Pansy, that sweet night in Grand Canary? But you were not weeping then. Why are you now, my little slave? Because a Sultan loves you more than his life? More than anything that has been in his life. You're not very flattering. But then, you never were."

He paused for a moment, watching her tenderly.

"Yet you paid me the greatest compliment I ever had in my life. When you said you loved me. There could be no sweeter music that those words. And the choicest gift life has ever given me was a kiss from your lips, given willingly."

He bent his head.

"Won't you give me another, Pansy?"

But the girl's strained face was turned away from the proud, pa.s.sionate one so close to her own.

"No, my little flower? Will you make a thief of your Sultan? Will you give him nothing willingly now? I know I don't deserve it. But still--I want it. And my wants have been my only law so far."

Again he paused, stroking her curls with a loving hand.

"Just now, as man and woman together, Pansy, I know I don't deserve you. I know I'm not worthy of you. But I want my soul, although I've only a blackened body to offer it. And the soul will have to do the best it can with the grimy accommodation. For I must have you, my darling. You've taken everything out of my life, but a desire for you."

From a tangle of trees in an adjacent garden a nightingale burst into song, filling the night with liquid melody. At the sound the Sultan's arms tightened around the slender figure he held.

"No man appreciates virtue so much as the one who has had his fill of vice," he continued presently. "And I was born into it, steeped and sodden in it from my earliest recollection, until I didn't realise it was vice until I met you. And then it seemed to me I had run off the lines, and pretty badly."

As he sat talking and caressing her, Pansy's sobs died down. There was always magic in his touch, happiness within his arms. With throbbing heart she lay against him, watching him anxiously.

He smiled into the tired, purple eyes.

"No, perhaps, I won't be a thief," he said. "Perhaps I shall climb up and up with many a stumble to the clear heights where you are, my darling. What would you say if you saw me there? 'Here is a poor wretch who has climbed painfully upwards to touch the feet of his ideal,' you would say to yourself. And to me you would say, 'As a reward, will you come and have breakfast with me?' And I should come, like a shot. And I should want lunch and tea and dinner and--you.

Just you, my soul, always and for ever."

After this outburst, he was quiet.

Pa.s.sive within his arms Pansy waited for the last hopeless struggle for right against wrong.

He sat on, as if at peace with himself and the world. The restless look that always lurked in his eyes had gone; in its place was one of happiness and contentment.

Pansy's s.h.i.+vers roused him from his reverie. Not s.h.i.+vers of fear, but of chilliness. A heavy dew had started falling, bringing a sudden coolness into the night.

"Why, Heart's Ease," he said, full of concern. "I'm keeping you out here when you ought to be indoors. But with you in my arms, I forget everything but you."

Getting to his feet, he took her back to the gilded room. The lamps had burnt out. It was a place of deep shadows, and here and there the silver of the moon patched its golden richness.

Once within its dimness Pansy started struggling again.

He took the slim white hands into one of his own, and kissed them.

"There's no need for you to fight against me with weak little hands,"

he whispered. "There's another fighting for you, far stronger than you are. A new Raoul Le Breton of your making, Pansy. A man strong enough to wait until we're really married."

Laying his burden on a couch, he bent his head until his ear almost touched the girl's lips.

"Say 'Yes,' Pansy, and I'll go, 'nicely and quietly like a good boy,'

still remembering 'your reputation,'" he said in a teasing tone.

Into his ear "Yes" trembled.

He kissed the lips that at last had consented to his wishes.

"Good night, my little girl, and if you go on at this rate you'll make a white man of me yet."

Long after he had gone Pansy stayed brooding on his words. The battle between them was over at last.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

On one of the terraces of his palace the Sultan sat at breakfast. As he lingered in the sweet cool air of early morning, he pondered on the happenings of the night before.

At last he had wrung a reluctant consent from his cherished prisoner.

There was a flaw in his victory that he tried not to see. That "Yes"

would not have come except that the girl had been absolutely cornered.

The word had not come from her lips spontaneously as those three words, "I love you," had.

He tried to forget this fact, as he thought out the best means of bringing about a speedy wedding.

There was no minister of her faith in El-Ammeh. The nearest Christian Mission lay at least two hundred miles distant. It would be risky work bringing a white missionary to his city. The safest course would be to take her down to a mission station and marry her there. No one would know then where they had come from. And the journey back would make a delightful honeymoon.