The Sheik Part 19

"Thirty-six years ago my father, who was as great a wanderer as I am, was staying here in the desert with his friend the Sheik Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san. A chance acquaintance some years before over the purchase of some horses had ripened into a very intimate friends.h.i.+p that was unusual between a Frenchman and an Arab. The Sheik was a wonderful man, very enlightened, with strong European tendencies. As a matter of pure fact he was not too much in sympathy with the French form of administration as carried on in Algeria, but he was not affected sufficiently by it to make any real difficulty. The territory that he regarded as his own lay too much to the south, and he kept his large and scattered tribe in too good order for any interference to be possible. He was unmarried, and the women of his own race seemed to have no attraction for him. He was wrapped up in his tribe and his horses. My father had come for a stay of some months. My mother had recently died and he wanted to get away from everything that reminded him of her. One evening, shortly after his arrival at the camp, a party of the Sheik's men who had been absent for some days in the north on the chief's affairs arrived, bringing with them a woman whom they had found wandering in the desert. How she had got there, or from what direction she had come, they did not know. They were nearer civilisation than Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san's camp at the time, but with true native tendency to avoid responsibility they thought that the disposal of her was a matter more for their Sheik than themselves. She could give no account of herself, as, owing to the effects of the sun or other causes, she was temporarily out of her mind. Arabs are very gentle with any one who is mad--'Allah has touched them!' She was taken to the tent of one of the headmen, whose wife looked after her. For some days it was doubtful whether she would recover, and her condition was aggravated by the fact that she was shortly to become a mother. She did regain her senses after a time, however, but nothing could make her say anything about herself, and questions reduced her to terrible fits of hysterical crying which were prejudicial in her state of health. She seemed calmest when she was left quite alone, but even then she started at the slightest sound, and the headman's wife reported that she would lie for hours on her bed crying quietly to herself. She was quite young--seemingly not more than nineteen or twenty. From her accents my father decided that she was Spanish, but she would admit nothing, not even her nationality. In due course of time the child was born, a boy."

Saint Hubert paused a moment and nodded towards the Sheik. "Even after the child's birth she refused to give any account of herself. In that she was as firm as a rock; in everything else she was the frailest, gentlest little creature imaginable. She was very small and slender, with quant.i.ties of soft dark hair and beautiful great dark eyes that looked like a frightened fawn's. I have heard my father describe her many times, and I have seen the water-colour sketch he made of her--he was quite an amateur. Ahmed has it locked away somewhere. She nearly died when the baby was born, and she never recovered her strength. She made no complaint and never spoke of herself, and seemed quite content as long as the child was with her. She was a child herself in a great number of ways. It never seemed to occur to her that there was anything odd in her continued residence in the Sheik's camp. She had a tent and servants of her own, and the headman's wife was devoted to her. So were the rest of the camp for that matter. There was an element of the mysterious in her advent that had taken hold of the superst.i.tious Arabs, and the baby was looked upon as something more than human and was adored by all the tribe. The Sheik himself, who had never looked twice at a woman before in his life, became pa.s.sionately attached to her. My father says that he has never seen a man so madly in love as Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san was with the strange white girl who had come so oddly into his life. He repeatedly implored her to marry him, and even my father, who has a horror of mixed marriages, was impelled to admit that any woman might have been happy with Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san. She would not consent, though she would give no reason for her refusal, and the mystery that surrounded her remained as insolvable during the two years that she lived after the baby's birth as it had been on the day of her arrival. And her refusal made no difference with the Sheik. His devotion was wonderful. When she died my father was again visiting the camp. She knew that she was dying, and a few days before the end she told them her pitiful little history. She was the only daughter of one of the oldest n.o.ble houses in Spain, as poor as they were n.o.ble, and she had been married when she was seventeen to Lord Glencaryll, who had seen her with her parents in Nice. She had been married without any regard to her own wishes, and though she grew to love her husband she was always afraid of him. He had a terrible temper that was very easily roused, and, in those days, he also periodically drank a great deal more than was good for him, and when under the influence of drink behaved more like a devil than a man. She was very young and _gauche_, failing often to do what was required of her from mere nervousness. He was exigent and made no allowance for her youth and inexperience, and her life was one long torture. And yet in spite of it all she loved him. Even in speaking of it she insisted that the fault was hers, that the trouble was due to her stupidity, glossing over his brutality; in fact, it was not from her, but from inquiries that he made after her death, that my father learned most of what her life had been. It seems that Lord Glencaryll had taken her to Algiers and had wished to make a trip into the desert. He had been drinking heavily, and she did not dare to upset his plans by refusing to go with him or even by telling him how soon her child was going to be born. So she went with him, and one night something happened--what she would not say, but my father says he has never seen such a look of terror on any woman's face as she hurried over that part of her story. Whatever it was she waited until the camp was asleep and then slipped out into the desert, mad with fear, with no thought beyond a blind instinct of flight that drove her panic-stricken to face any danger rather than remain and undergo the misery she was flying from. She remembered hurrying onward, terrified by every sound and every shadow, frightened even by the blazing stars that seemed to be watching her and pointing out the way she had taken, until her mind was numb from utter weariness and she remembered nothing more until she awoke in the headman's tent.

She had been afraid to say who she was lest she should be sent back to her husband. And with the birth of the child she became more than ever determined to preserve her secret. The boy should be spared the suffering she had herself endured, he should not be allowed to fall into the hands of his father to be at his mercy when the periodical drinking fits made him a very fiend of cruelty. She made my father and the Sheik swear that not until the boy grew to manhood should Lord Glencaryll be told of his existence. She wrote a letter for her husband which she gave into my father's keeping, together with her wedding ring, which had an inscription inside of it, and a miniature of Glencaryll which she had worn always hidden away from sight. She was very contrite with the Sheik, begging his forgiveness for the sorrow she had caused him and for keeping from his knowledge the fact that she was not free. She loved her husband loyally to the end, but the last few days that she lived the Sheik's devotion seemed to wake an answering tenderness in her heart. She was happiest when he was with her, and she died in his arms with his kisses on her lips. She left her boy in his keeping, and Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san adopted him formally and made him his heir, giving him his own name--the hereditary name that the Sheik of the tribe has borne for generations. His word was law amongst his people, and there was no thought of any opposition to his wishes; further, the child was considered lucky, and his choice of successor was received with unanimous delight. All the pa.s.sionate love that the Sheik had for the mother was transferred to the son. He idolised him, and the boy grew up believing that Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san was his own father.

With the traits he had inherited from his mother's people and with his desert upbringing he looked, as he does now, pure Arab. When he was fifteen my father induced the Sheik to send him to Paris to be educated. With his own European tendencies the Sheik had wished it also, but he could not bring himself to part with the boy before, and it was a tremendous wrench to let him go when he did. It was then that I first saw him. I was eighteen at the time, and had just begun my military training, but as my regiment was stationed in Paris I was able to be at home a good deal. He was such a handsome, high-spirited lad.

Men mature very young in the desert and in many ways he was a great deal older than I was, in spite of my three years' seniority. But, of course, in other ways he was a perfect child. He had a fiendish temper and resented any check on his natural lawless inclinations. He loathed the restrictions that had to be put upon him and he hated the restraint of town life. He had been accustomed to having his own way in nearly everything, and to the constant adulation of the tribesmen, and he was not prepared to give to anybody else the obedience that he gave willingly to the Sheik. There were some very stormy times, and I never admired my father in anything so much as his handling of that young savage. His escapades were nerve-racking and his _beaux yeux_ led him into endless sc.r.a.pes. The only threat that reduced him to order was that of sending him home to the Sheik in disgrace. He would promise amendment and take himself off to the Bois to work off his superfluous energy on my father's horses--until he broke out again. But in spite of his temper and his _diableries_ he was very lovable and everybody liked him.

"After a year with us in Paris my father, always mindful of his real nationality, sent him for two years to a tutor in England, where I had myself been. The tutor was an exceptional man, used to dealing with exceptional boys, and Ahmed did very well with him. I don't mean that he did much work--that he evaded skilfully and spent most of his time hunting and shooting. The only thing that he studied at all seriously was veterinary surgery, which he knew would be useful to him with his own horses, and in which his tutor was level-headed enough to encourage him. Then at the end of two years he came back to us for another year.

He had gone to the desert every summer for his holidays, and on each occasion the Sheik let him return with greater reluctance. He was always afraid that the call of civilisation would be too much for his adopted son, especially as he grew older, but although Ahmed had changed very much from the wild desert lad who had first come to us, and had developed into a polished man of the world, speaking French and English as fluently as Arabic, with plenty of means to amuse himself in any way that he wished--for the Sheik was very rich and kept him lavishly supplied with money--and though in that last year he was with us he was courted and feted in a way that would have turned most people's heads, he was always secretly longing for the time when he would go back to the desert. It was the desert, not civilisation that called loudest to him. He loved the life and he adored the man whom he thought was his father. To be the son and heir of Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san seemed to him to be the highest pinnacle that any man's ambition could reach. He was perfectly indifferent to the flattery and attention that his money and his good looks brought him. My father entertained very largely and Ahmed became the fas.h.i.+on--'_Le bel Arabe_' he was called, and he enjoyed a _succes fou_ which bored him to extinction--and at the end of the year, having written to the Sheik for permission to go home, he shook the dust of Paris off his feet and went back to the desert. I went with him. It was my first visit and the first time that I had experienced Ahmed _en prince_. I had never seen him in anything but European clothes, and I got quite a shock when I came up on deck the morning that we arrived at Oran and found an Arab of the Arabs waiting for me. The robes and a complete change of carriage and expression that seemed to go with them altered him curiously and I hardly recognised him. Some of his men were waiting for him on the quay and their excitement was extraordinary. I realised from the deference and attention that the French officials paid to Ahmed the position that the old Sheik had made for himself and the high esteem in which he was held. We spent the rest of the day in arranging for the considerable baggage that he had brought with him to be forwarded by the camel caravan that had been sent for the purpose, and also in business for the Sheik in Oran. We spent the night in a villa on the outskirts of the town belonging to an old Arab who entertained us lavishly, and who spent the evening congratulating Ahmed heartily on having escaped from the clutches of the odious French, by no means abashed when Ahmed pointed out that there was an odious Frenchman present, for he dismissed me with a gesture that conveyed that my nationality was my misfortune and not my fault, and in impressing on him the necessity of immediately acquiring a wife or two and settling down for the good of the tribe--all this in the intervals of drinking coffee, listening to the most monotonous native music and watching barbaric dances. There was one particularly well-made dancing girl that the old man tried to induce Ahmed to buy, and he made a show of bargaining for her--not from any real interest he took in her, but merely to see the effect that it would have on me. But I refused to be drawn, and as my head was reeling with the atmosphere I escaped to bed and left him still bargaining. We started early next morning, and were joined a few miles out of the town by a big detachment of followers.

The excitement of the day before was repeated on a very much larger scale. It was a novel experience for me, and I can hardly describe my feelings in the midst of that yelling horde of men, galloping wildly round us and firing their rifles until it seemed hardly possible that some accident would not happen. It was Ahmed's att.i.tude that impressed me most. He took it all quietly as his due, and when he had had enough of it stopped it with a peremptory authority that was instantly obeyed, and apologised for the exuberant behaviour of his children. It was a new Ahmed to me; the boy I had known for four years seemed suddenly transformed into a man who made me feel very young. In France I had naturally always rather played elder brother, but here Ahmed was on his own ground and the roles seemed likely to be reversed. The arrival at the Sheik's camp was everything that the most lavish scenic producer could have wished. Though I had heard of it both from my father and Ahmed I was not quite prepared for the splendour with which the Sheik surrounded himself. With Eastern luxury was mingled many European adjuncts that added much to the comfort of camp life. The meeting between the Sheik and Ahmed was most touching. I had a very happy time and left with regret. The charm of the desert took hold of me then and has never left me since. But I had to return to my medical studies. I left Ahmed absorbed in his life and happier than I had ever seen him in Paris. He was nineteen then, and when he was twenty-one my father had the unpleasant task of carrying out Lady Glencaryll's dying wishes. He wrote to Lord Glencaryll asking him to come to Paris on business connected with his late wife, and, during the course of a very painful interview, put the whole facts before him. With the letter that the poor girl had written to her husband, with the wedding-ring and the locket, together with the sketch that my father had made of her, the proofs of the genuineness of the whole affair were conclusive.

Glencaryll broke down completely. He admitted that his wife had every justification for leaving him, he spared himself nothing. He referred quite frankly to the curse of which he had been the slave and which had made him irresponsible for his actions when he was under its influence.

He had never known himself what had happened that terrible night, but the tragedy of his wife's disappearance had cured him. He had made every effort to find her and it was many years before he gave up all hope. He mourned her bitterly, and wors.h.i.+pped her memory. It was impossible not to pity him, for he had expiated his fault with agony that few men can have experienced. The thought that he had a son and that son her child almost overwhelmed him. He had ardently desired an heir, and, thinking himself childless, the fact that his t.i.tle and his old name, of which he was very proud, would die with him had been a great grief. His happiness in the knowledge of Ahmed's existence was pathetic, he was consumed with impatience for his son's arrival.

Nothing had been said to Ahmed in case Lord Glencaryll should prove difficult to convince and thereby complicate matters, but his ready acceptance of the affair and his eagerness to see his son made further delay unnecessary, and my father sent for Ahmed. The old Sheik let him go in ignorance of what was coming. He had always dreaded the time when his adopted son would have to be told of his real parentage, fearful of losing him, jealous of sharing his affection and resenting anybody's claim to him over his own. And so, with the only instance he ever gave of want of moral courage, he sent Ahmed to Paris with no explanation, and left to my father the task of breaking to him the news. I shall never forget that day. It had been arranged that Ahmed should be told first and that afterwards father and son should meet. Ahmed arrived in the morning in time for _dejeuner_, and afterwards we went to my father's study, and there he told him the whole story as gently and as carefully as he could. Ahmed was standing by the window. He never said a word the whole time my father was speaking, and when he finished he stood quite still for a few moments, his face almost grey under the deep tan, his eyes fixed pa.s.sionately on my father's--and then his fiendish temper broke out suddenly. It was a terrible scene. He cursed his father in a steady stream of mingled Arabic and French blasphemy that made one's blood run cold. He cursed all English people impartially. He cursed my father because he had dared to send him to England. He cursed me because I had been a party to the affair. The only person whom he spared was the Sheik; who after all was as much implicated as we were, but he never once mentioned him. He refused to see his father, refused to recognise that he was his father, and he left the house that afternoon and Paris that night, going straight back to the desert, taking with him Gaston, who had arranged some time before to enter his service as soon as his time in the cavalry was up.

A letter that Lord Glencaryll wrote to him, addressed to Viscount Caryll, which is, of course, his courtesy t.i.tle, begging for at least an interview, and which he gave to us to forward, was returned unopened, and scrawled across the envelope: _'Inconnu._ Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san.' And since that day his hatred of the English had been a monomania, and he has never spoken a word of English. Later on, when we used to travel together, his obvious avoidance of English people was at times both awkward and embarra.s.sing, and I have often had to go through the farce of translating into French or Arabic remarks made to him by English fellow-travellers, that is, when he condescended to notice the remarks, which was not often. From the day he learned the truth about himself for two years we saw nothing of him. Then the old Sheik asked us to visit him. We went with some misgivings as to what Ahmed's reception of us would be, but he met us as if nothing had happened. He ignored the whole episode and has never referred to it. It is a closed incident. The Sheik warned us that Ahmed had told him that any reference to it would mean the breaking off of all relations with us.

But Ahmed himself had changed indescribably. All the lovable qualities that had made him so popular in Paris were gone, and he had become the cruel, merciless man he has been ever since. The only love left in him was given to his adopted father, whom he wors.h.i.+pped. Later I was allowed back on the old footing, and he has always been good to Gaston, but with those three exceptions he has spared n.o.body and nothing. He is my friend, I love him, and I am not telling you more than you know already."

Saint Hubert broke off and looked anxiously at Diana, but she did not move or meet his gaze. She was sitting with her hand still clasped over the Sheik's and the other one shading her face, and the Vicomte went on speaking: "It is so easy to judge, so difficult to understand another person's temptations. Ahmed's position has always been a curious one.

He has had unique temptations with always the means of gratifying them."

There was a longer pause, but still Diana did not move or speak.

"The curse of Ishmael had taken hold of me by then and I wandered continually. Sometimes Ahmed came with me; we have shot big game together in most parts of the globe. A few times he stayed with us in Paris, but never for long; he always wearied to get back to the desert.

Five years ago the old Sheik died; he was an exceptionally strong man, and should have lived for years but for an accident which crippled him hopelessly and from which he died a few months afterwards. Ahmed's devotion during his illness was wonderful. He never left him, and since he succeeded to the leaders.h.i.+p of the tribe he has lived continuously amongst his people, absorbed in them and his horses, carrying on the traditions handed down to him by his predecessor and devoting his life to the tribe. They are like children, excitable, pa.s.sionate and headstrong, and he has never dared to risk leaving them alone too long, particularly with the menace of Ibraheim Omair always in the background. He has never been able to seek relaxation further afield than Algiers or Oran----" Saint Hubert stopped abruptly, cursing himself for a tactless fool. She could not fail to realise the significance of those visits to the gay, vicious little towns. The inference was obvious. His thoughtless words would only add to her misery. Her sensitive mind would shrink from the contamination they implied. If Ahmed was going to die, she would be desolate enough without forcing on her knowledge the unworthiness of the man she loved. He pushed his chair back impatiently and went to the open doorway. He felt that she wanted to be alone. She watched him go, then slipped to her knees beside the couch.

She had realised the meaning of Raoul's carelessly uttered words and they had hurt her poignantly, but it was no new sorrow. He had told her himself months ago, callously, brutally, sparing her nothing, extenuating nothing. She pressed her cheek against the hand she was holding. She did not blame him, she could only love him, no matter what his life had been. It was Ahmed as he was she loved, his faults, his vices were as much a part of him as his superb physique and the alternating moods that had been so hard to meet. She had never known him otherwise. He seemed to stand alone, outside the prescribed conventions that applied to ordinary men. The standards of common usage did not appear compatible with the wild desert man who was his own law and followed only his own precedent, defiant of social essentials and scornful of criticism. The proud, fierce nature and pa.s.sionate temper that he had inherited, the position of despotic leaders.h.i.+p in which he had been reared, the adulation of his followers and the savage life in the desert, free from all restraint, had combined to produce the haughty unconventionalism that would not submit to the ordinary rules of life. She could not think of him as an Englishman. The mere accident of his parentage was a factor that weighed nothing. He was and always would be an Arab of the wilderness. If he lived! He _must_ live!

He could not go out like that, his magnificent strength and fearless courage extinguished by a treacherous blow that had not dared to meet him face to face--in spite of the overwhelming numbers--but had struck him down from behind, a coward stroke. He must live, even if his life meant death to her hopes of happiness; that was nothing compared with his life. She loved him well enough to sacrifice anything for him. If he only lived she could bear even to be put out of his life. It was only he that mattered, his life was everything. He was so young, so strong, so made to live. He had so much to live for. He was essential to his people. They needed him. If she could only die for him. In the days when the world was young the G.o.ds were kind, they listened to the prayers of hapless lovers and accepted the life that was offered in place of the beloved whose life was claimed. If G.o.d would but listen to her now. If He would but accept her life in exchange for his. If----!

if----!

Her fingers crept up lightly across his breast, fearful lest even their tender touch should injure his battered body, and she looked long and earnestly at him. His crisp brown hair was hidden by the bandages that, dead white against his tanned face, swathed his bruised head. His closed eyes with the thick dark lashes curling on his cheek, hiding the usual fierce expression that gleamed in them, and the relaxation of the hard lines of his face made him look singularly young. That youthful look had been noticeable often when he was asleep, and she had watched it wondering what Ahmed the boy had been like before he grew into the merciless man at whose hands she had suffered so much.

And now the knowledge of his boyhood seemed to make him even dearer than he had been before. What sort of man would he have been if the little dark-eyed mother had lived to sway him with her gentleness? Poor little mother, helpless and fragile!--yet strong enough to save her boy from the danger that she feared for him, but paying the price of that strength with her life, content that her child was safe.

Diana thought of her own mother dying in the arms of a husband who adored her, and then of the little Spanish girl slipping away from life, a stranger in a strange land, her heart crying out for the husband whom she still loved, turning in ignorance of his love for consolation in the agony of death to the lover she had denied, and seeking comfort in his arms. A sudden jealousy of the two dead women shook her. They had been loved. Why could not she be loved? Wherein did she fail that he would not love her? Other men had loved her, and his love was all she longed for in the world. To feel his arms around her only once with love in their touch, to see his pa.s.sionate eyes kindle only once with the light she prayed for. She drew a long sobbing breath. "Ahmed, _mon bel Arabe_," she murmured yearningly.

She rose to her feet. She was afraid of breaking down, of giving way to the fear and anxiety that racked her. She turned instinctively to the help and sympathy that offered and went to Saint Hubert, joining him under the awning. Usually at night the vicinity of the Sheik's tent was avoided by the tribesmen, even the sentry on guard was posted at some little distance. Kopec curled up outside the doorway kept ample watch.

But to-night the open s.p.a.ce was swarming with men, some squatting on the ground in circles, others cl.u.s.tered together in earnest conversation, and far off through the palm trees she caught an occasional glimpse of mounted men. Yusef and the headmen acting under him were taking no risks, there was to be no chance of a surprise attack.

"You must be very tired, Raoul," she said, slipping her hand through his arm, for her need was almost as much for physical as mental support. The frank touch of her hand sent a quiver through him, but he suppressed it, and laid his own hand over her cold fingers.

"I must not think of that yet. Later on, perhaps, I can rest a little.

Henri can watch; he is almost as good a doctor as I am, the incomparable Henri! Ahmed and I have always quarrelled over the respective merits of our servants."

He felt her hand tighten on his arm at the mention of the Sheik's name and heard the smothered sigh that she choked back. They stood in silence for a while watching the s.h.i.+fting groups of tribesmen. A little knot of low-voiced men near them opened up, and one of their number came to Saint Hubert with an inquiry.

"The men are restless." Raoul said when the Arab had gone back to his fellows with all the consolation the Vicomte could give him. "Their devotion is very strong. Ahmed is a G.o.d to them. Their anxiety takes them in a variety of ways. Yusef, who has been occupied with his duties most of the day, has turned to religion for the first time in his life, he has gone to say his prayers with the pious Abdul, as he thinks that Allah is more likely to listen if his pet.i.tions go heavenward in company with the holy man's."

Diana's thoughts strayed back to the story that Saint Hubert had told her. "Does Lord Glencaryll know that you see Ahmed?" she asked.

"Oh yes. He and my father became great friends. He often stays with us in Paris. We are a link between him and Ahmed. He is always hungry for any news of him, and still clings to the hope that one day he will relent. He has never made any further effort to open up relations with him because he knows it would be useless. If there is to be any _rapprochement_ between them it must come from Ahmed. They have almost met accidentally once or twice, and Glencaryll has once seen him. It was at the opera. He was staying in Paris for some months and had a box. I had gone across from our own box on the other side of the house to speak to him. There were several people with him. I was standing beside him, talking. Ahmed had just come into our box opposite and was standing right in the front looking over the theatre. Something had annoyed him and he was scowling. The likeness was unmistakable.

Glencaryll gave a kind of groan and staggered back against me. 'Good G.o.d! Who is that?' he said, and I don't think he knew he was speaking out loud.

"A man next him looked in the direction he was looking and laughed.

'That's the Saint Huberts' wild man of the desert. Looks fierce, doesn't he? The women call him "_le bel Arabe_." He certainly wears European clothes with better grace than most natives. He is said to have a peculiar hatred of the English, so you'd better give him a wide berth, Glencaryll, if you don't want to be bow-stringed or have your throat cut, or whatever fancy form of death the fellow cultivates in his native habitat. Raoul can tell you all about him.'

"There was not any need for me to tell him. Fortunately the opera began and the lights went down, and I persuaded him to go away before the thing was over."

Diana gave a little s.h.i.+ver. She felt a great sympathy coming over her for the lonely old man, hoping against hope for the impossible, that she had not felt earlier in the evening. He, too, was wearing his heart out against the inflexible will of Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san.

She s.h.i.+vered again and turned back into the tent with Saint Hubert.

They halted by the couch and stood for a long time in silence. Then Diana slowly raised her head and looked up into Raoul's face, and he read the agonised question in her eyes.

"I don't know," he said gently. "All things are with Allah."

CHAPTER X

The night grew hotter and the atmosphere more oppressive. Wrapped in a thin silk kimono Diana lay very still on the outside of the wide couch in the inner room, propped high with pillows that the shaded light of the little reading-lamp beside her might fall on the book she held, but she was not reading.

It was Raoul's latest book, that he had brought with him, but she could not concentrate her mind on it, and it lay idle on her knee--while her thoughts were far away. It was three months since the night that Saint Hubert had almost given up hope of being able to save the Sheik's life--a night that had been followed by days of suspense that had reduced Diana to a weary-eyed shadow of her former vigorous self, and had left marks on Raoul that would never be effaced. But thanks to his great strength and splendid const.i.tution the Sheik had rallied and after the first few weeks convalescence had been rapid. When the terrible fear that he might die was past it had been a wonderful happiness to wait on him. With the determination to live for the moment, to which she had forced herself, she had banished everything from her mind but the joy of being near him and of being necessary to him. It had been a very silent service, for he would lie for hours with closed eyes without speaking, and something that she could not master kept her tongue-tied in his presence when they were alone. Only once he had referred to the raid. As she bent over him to do some small office his fingers closed feebly round her wrist and his eyes, with a searching apprehension in them, looked into hers for the first time since the night when she had fled from his curses.

"Was it--in time?" he whispered slowly, and as she nodded with crimson cheeks and lowered eyes he turned his head away without another word, but a shudder that he was too weak to control shook him.

But the happiness of ministering to him pa.s.sed very swiftly. As he grew stronger he managed so that she was rarely alone with him, and he insisted on her riding twice every day, sometimes with Saint Hubert, sometimes with Henri, coolly avowing a preference for his own society or that of Gaston, who was beginning to get about again. Later, too, he was much occupied with headmen who came in from the different camps, and as the days pa.s.sed she found herself more and more excluded from the intimacy that had been so precious. She was thrown much into the society of Raoul de Saint Hubert. All that they had gone through together had drawn them very closely to each other, and Diana often wondered what her girlhood would have been like if it had been spent under his guardians.h.i.+p instead of that of Sir Aubrey Mayo. The sisterly affection she had never given her own brother she gave to him, and, with the firm hold over himself that he had never again slackened, the Vicomte accepted the role of elder brother which she unconsciously imposed on him.

It was hard work sometimes, and there were days when he dreaded the daily rides, when the strain seemed almost more than he could bear, and he began to make tentative suggestions about resuming his wanderings, but always the Sheik pressed him to stay.

Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san's final recovery was quick, and the camp soon settled down into normal conditions. The reinforcements were gone back to the different camps from which they had been drawn. There was no further need of them. Ibraheim Omair's tribe, with their leader dead, had broken up and scattered far to the south; there was no chief to keep them together and no headman strong enough to draw them round a new chieftain, for Ibraheim had allowed no member of his tribe to attain any degree of wealth or power that might prove him a rival; so they had split up into numerous small bands lacking cohesion. In fulfilling the vow made to his predecessor Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san had cleared the desert of a menace that had hung over it for many years.

The relations between the Sheik and Saint Hubert had gone back to what they had been the night of Raoul's arrival, before his candid criticism had roused the Sheik's temper and fired his jealousy. The recollection of the miserable week that had preceded the raid had been wiped out in all that had followed it. No shadow could ever come between them again since Raoul had voluntarily stood on one side and sacrificed his own chance of happiness for his friend's.

And with the Sheik's complete recovery his att.i.tude towards Diana had reverted to the cold reserve that had chilled her before--a reserve that was as courteous as it was indifferent. He had avoided her as much as had been possible, and the continual presence of Saint Hubert had been a barrier between them. Unostensibly but effectually he had contrived that Raoul should never leave them alone. Though he included her in the general conversation he rarely spoke to her directly, and often she found him looking at her with his fierce eyes filled with an expression that baffled her, and as each time the quick blood rushed into her face his forehead drew together in the heavy frown that was so characteristic. During meals it was Raoul that kept the conversation from lapsing with ready tact and an eloquent flow of words, ranging over many subjects. In the evening the men became immersed in the projection of Saint Hubert's new book, for details of which he was drawing on the Sheik's knowledge, and long after Diana left them she could hear the two voices, both deep and musical, but Raoul's quicker and more emphatic, continuously rising and falling, till at last Raoul would go to his own tent and Gaston would come--noiseless and soft-toned as his master. Ordinarily the Sheik dispensed with him at night, but since his wound, the valet, as soon as he had himself recovered, had always been in attendance. Some nights he lingered talking, and others the Sheik dismissed him in a few minutes with only a curt word or two, and then there would be silence, and Diana would bury her face in her pillow and writhe in her desperate loneliness, sick with longing for the strong arms she had once dreaded and the kisses she had once loathed. He had slept in the outer room since his illness, and tossing feverishly on the soft cus.h.i.+ons of the big empty bed in which she lay alone Diana had suffered the greatest humiliation she had yet experienced. He had never loved her, but now he did not even want her. She was useless to him. She was less than nothing to him. He had no need of her. She would lie awake listening wearily to the tiny chimes of the little clock with the bitter sense of her needlessness crus.h.i.+ng her. She was humbled to the very dust by his indifference. The hours of loneliness in the room that was redolent with a.s.sociations of him were filled with memories that tortured her.

In her fitful sleep her dreams were agonies from which she awakened with shaking limbs and shuddering breath, and waking, her hand would stretch out groping to him till remembrance came with cruel vividness.

In the daytime, too, she had been much alone, for as soon as the Sheik was strong enough to sit in the saddle the two men had ridden far afield every day, visiting the outlying camps and drawing into Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san's own hands again the affairs that had had to be relegated to the headmen.

At last Raoul had announced that his visit could be protracted no longer and that he must resume his journey to Morocco. He was going up to Oran and from there to Tangier by coasting steamer, collecting at Tangier a caravan for his expedition through Morocco. His decision once made he had speeded every means of getting away with a despatch that had almost suggested flight.

To Diana his going meant the hastening of a crisis that could not be put off much longer. The situation was becoming impossible. She had said good-bye to him the night before. She had never guessed the love she had inspired in him, and she wondered at the sadness in his eyes and his unaccustomed lack of words. He had wanted to say so much and he had said so little. She must never guess and Ahmed must never guess, so he played the game to the end. Only that night after she had left them the voices sounded in the adjoining room for a very short time. And this morning he and Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san had ridden away at daybreak. She had not been asleep; she had heard them go, and almost she wished Raoul back, for with his presence the vague fear that a.s.sailed her seemed further away. The camp had seemed very lonely and the day very long.

She had ridden with Gaston, and hurried over her solitary dinner, and since then she had been waiting for the Sheik to come back. In what mood would he come? Since Raoul's announcement of his departure he had been more than usually taciturn and reserved. The book she held slipped at length on to the floor, and she let it he unheeded. The usual stillness of the desert seemed to-night unusually still-sinister even--and the silence was so intense that the sudden squeal of a stallion a little distance away made her start with madly racing heart Earlier in the evening a tom-tom had been going persistently in the men's lines, and later a native pipe had shrilled thinly in monotonous cadence; but she had grown accustomed to these sounds; they were of nightly occurrence and they soothed rather than irritated her, and when they stopped the quiet had become intensified to such a degree that she would have welcomed any sound. To-night her nerves were on edge. She was restless and excited, and her thoughts were chaos.

She was alone again at his mercy. What would his att.i.tude be? Her hands clenched on her knees. At times she lay almost without breathing, straining to hear the faintest sound that would mean his return, and then again lest she should hear what she listened for. She longed for him pa.s.sionately, and at the same time she was afraid, He had changed so much that there were moments when she had the curious feeling that it was a stranger who was coming back to her, and she both dreaded his coming and yearned for it with a singular combination of emotions. She looked round the room where she had at once suffered so much and been so happy with troubled eyes. She had never been nervous before, but to-night her imagination ran riot. There was electricity in the air which acted on her overstrung nerves. The little shaded lamp threw a circle of light round the bed, but left the rest of the room dim, and the dusky corners seemed full of odd new shadows that came and went illusively. Hangings and objects that were commonly familiar to her took on fantastic shapes that she watched nervously, till at last she brushed her hand across her eyes with a laugh of angry impatience. Was the love that had changed her so completely also making her a coward?

Had even her common-sense been lost in the one great emotion that held her? She understood perfectly the change that had taken place in her.

She had never had any illusions about herself, and had never attempted to curb the obstinate self-will and haughty pride that had characterized her. She thought of it curiously, her mind going back over the last few months that had changed her whole life. The last mad freak for which she had paid so dearly had been the outcome of an arrogant determination to have her own way in the face of all protests and advice. And with a greater arrogance and a determination stronger than her own Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san had tamed her as he tamed the magnificent horses that he rode. He had been brutal and merciless, using no half measures, forcing her to obedience by sheer strength of will and compelling a complete submission. She thought of how she had feared and hated him with pa.s.sionate intensity, until the hatred had been swamped by love as pa.s.sionate and as intense. She did not know why she loved him, she had never been able to a.n.a.lyse the pa.s.sion that held her so strongly, but she knew deep down in her heart that it went now far past his mere physical beauty and superb animal strength. She loved him blindly with a love that had killed her pride and brought her to his feet humbly obedient. All the love that had lain dormant in her heart for years was given to him. Body and soul she belonged to him. And the change within her was patent in her face, the haughty expression in her eyes had turned to a tender wistfulness, with a curious gleam of expectancy that flickered in them perpetually; the little mutinous mouth had lost the scornful curve. And with the complete change in her expression she was far more beautiful now than she had ever been. But with her love was the fear of him that she had learned during the first hours of her captivity, the physical fear that she had never lost, even during the happy weeks that had preceded the coming of Saint Hubert, and the greater fear that was with her always, and that at times drove her, with wide-stricken eyes, wildly to pace the tent as if to escape the shadow that hung over her--the fear of the time when he should tire of her. The thought racked her, and now, as always, she tried to put it from her, but it continued, persistently haunting her like a grim spectre. Always the same thought tortured her--he had not taken her for love. No higher motive than a pa.s.sing fancy had stirred him. He had seen her, had wished for her and had taken her, and once in his power it had amused him to break her to his hand. She realised all that. And he had been honest, he had never pretended to love her. Often when the humour took him he could be gentle, as in those last few weeks, but gentleness was not love, and she had never seen the light that she longed for kindle in his eyes. His caresses had been pa.s.sionate or careless with his mood. She did not know that he loved her. She had not been with him during the long hours of his delirium and she had not heard what Raoul de Saint Hubert had heard. And since his recovery his att.i.tude of aloofness had augmented her fear. There seemed only one construction to put on his silence, and his studied and obvious avoidance of her. The pa.s.sing fancy had pa.s.sed. It was as if the fleeting pa.s.sion he had had for her had been drained from him with the blood that flowed from the terrible wound he had received. He was tired of her and seeking for a means to disembarra.s.s himself of her. Vaguely she felt that she had known this for weeks, but to-night was the first time that she had had courage to be frank with herself. It must be so.

Everything pointed to it; the curious expression she had seen in his eyes and his constant heavy frown all confirmed it. She flung her arm across her eyes with a little moan. He was tired of her and the bottom had fallen out of her world. The instinct to fight for his love that had been so strong in her the day that Ibraheim Omair had captured her had died with the death of all her hopes. Her spirit was broken. She knew that her will was helpless against his, and with a fatalism that she had learned in the desert she accepted the inevitable with a crushed feeling of hopelessness.

She wondered numbly what would become of her. It did not seem to matter much. Nothing mattered now that he did not want her any more. The old life was far away, in another world. She could never go back to it. She did not care. It was nothing to her. It was only here in the desert, in Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san's arms, that she had become alive, that she had learned what life really meant, that she had waked both to happiness and sorrow.