Night filled the harem with shadows and scent. The silver lamps cast a soft glow through the huge hall, glinting on wide ottomans and piles of cushions, on little tables set with coffee and sherbet, sweets and fruit and cigarettes.
There were perhaps thirty women in the great room, but the majority of them were the attendants of the half-dozen girls lolling on couches and cushions around the splashing fountain.
Full length on a wide ottoman Leonora was stretched, her dark eyes fixed spitefully on an adjacent lounge where the Arab girl lay, her face hidden in the cushions, her golden form almost buried in her wealth of black hair.
"See, Rayma, it's night again," Leonora said, malice in her soft, drawling voice. "Night! And still our lord Casim has not come to visit you."
There was a sob from the other girl, but no reply.
"How you jeered at me, Rayma, when you stole his heart from me," Leonora went on. "But now it seems another has stolen his heart from you, since he no longer comes to see you. Another whom I shall welcome as a sister."
At the taunt Rayma sat up suddenly, with a wild gesture pushing the mass of black hair back from her face.
"For weeks and weeks he has not been here," she wailed. "Oh, my heart it breaks for love of him."
Leonora laughed, but an elderly woman sitting near laid a soothing hand on the distraught girl.
"Hush, Rayma, my pearl," she said. "Haven't I often told you our Sultan has had thoughts for nothing but vengeance of late?"
"Would vengeance keep him away from me all these weeks? It's more than vengeance. It's love. Love for some other girl."
Rayma clutched at the woman with slim, jewelled hands.
"Tell me, Sara, you come and go at will through the palace. Is there one?"
"My pearl, if there was one, wouldn't she be here in the harem?" Sara answered diplomatically.
"Yes, and so she would," Rayma replied more quietly. "And I could measure my beauty against hers."
Then she started rocking herself to and fro, in an agony of grief.
"Did he but come, my love, my Lord Casim, his heart would be mine again," she sobbed.
Then she stopped wailing suddenly, and faced the old woman anxiously.
"Sara, tell me quickly, have these weeks of weeping made me less beautiful?"
However, she did not wait for any reply.
Her gaze went to the arches, where night looked in at her mockingly.
"Look. It is night," she cried. "And my heart is hungry for love. For the love of my Lord Casim. For his arms. His kisses. Again it is night. And he has not come."
Then through the vaulted room piercing shriek after piercing shriek rang—the shrieks of a lovesick girl in the throes of hysteria.
As Sara sat patting Rayma's hands and trying to soothe her, she thought of the milk-white maid with the wide blue eyes and the golden curls, whom the Sultan himself had brought unconscious to his palace, and who was lodged—as no other slave girl had ever been—in his own private suite. And who treated her master—as no other slave had ever treated him—as if she were his equal, even his superior, making him wait on her. A task the Sultan seemed to find pleasure in!
On the terrace of her quarters, Pansy sat at dinner with her host. Three days had passed since her rescue from the slave-market; three delightful days for the girl, assured of her own safety, her father's coming freedom and the welfare of her friends. During the time, Le Breton had been with her almost constantly. From breakfast time until after dinner always at her disposal, ready to fall in with her wishes so long as they did not entail too much exertion on her part.
She was anxious to be on "The Sultan," and off for a long gallop, but this he vetoed firmly.
"It would cause too much of a sensation," he had said. "In this country women don't ride about on horseback. We should have the whole city at our heels."
Pansy had no desire for this to happen, lest the Sultan Casim should learn she had fallen into the hands of a friend, and snatch her away from her rescuer, so she did not urge further. But it was on account of her health, and not the idea of a crowd of his own subjects, that made Le Breton refuse this indulgence; for fear she should not be strong enough to stand the shaking.
He was quite willing to take her rowing on the lake, to play croquet with her, or a game of billiards; but most of all willing to sit at her side in the peaceful, scented garden, or in the cool gallery, or thesalon, watching her; an occupation that Pansy, with an extensive knowledge of men and their ways, knew the ultimate end of. An end she was doing her best to keep at bay.
But, in spite of everything, she had the feeling of being a prisoner. The iron grilles at either end of the long gallery were never unlocked; nor was the gate into the paddock.
There was never a boat at the foot of the steps leading to the lake except when Le Breton was with her.
She had explored her quarters further. Beyond thesalonthere was a combined billiard-room and library, and its one exit led into a sort of big alcove dressing-room. Beyond that was her host's bedroom, as to her dismay she had discovered on opening the door. For she had found him there in shirt sleeves and trousers with a dark-faced valet, who, on seeing her, had melted away discreetly.
Pansy would have melted away also, but it was too late. In a perfectly unperturbed manner, Le Breton had crossed to her side.
"So, Pansy, you've come to pay me a visit?" he said teasingly. "That's hardly the sort of thing I'd expected of you."
"I'd no idea——" she began in a confused manner.
"There's no need to make excuses. You'll find all the roads here lead to Mecca. And I'm always pleased to see you," he broke in, in the same teasing strain. "If you'd kept your promise, we should be quite a staid married couple by now. And you'd be free to come and go in my apartments. Think of it, Pansy."
Pansy thought of it, and her face went crimson.
Her blushes made him laugh.
To the sound of his laughter, soft and mocking, she retreated, and she did not explore in that direction again.
She explored by way of her own bedroom instead, only to find that led into his study. And after that she did no more exploring. For it seemed that all roads did lead to Mecca. Whichever way she turned, Raoul Le Breton was there, coming between her and the man she feared and hated—the Sultan Casim Ammeh.
"I feel like a prisoner," she remarked on one occasion.
They were sitting by the lake, under the shade of fragrant trees, with the blue water lapping the marble steps and the sun setting over the desert. A gilded world, where a golden sunset edged the golden sand, one flaming yellow sea above another.
"You're a novelty here," he replied. "A pearl of great price. If I didn't keep you well guarded, there would be a hundred ready to steal you. And I flatter myself that, on the whole, you'd rather be with me."
He paused, watching her with dark, smouldering eyes.
"Am I right, Heart's Ease?" he finished tenderly.
Pansy coloured slightly under the ardour of his gaze.
Had he been as other men were, she would not have hesitated in her reply. She would have said in her own impulsive, truthful way:
"I'd rather be with you than anyone in the whole wide world."
But now his colour and religion were constantly before her. And pride kept any such confession from her lips.
So instead she said:
"No one could have been kinder than you, Raoul. I can never be grateful enough."
His kindness had been before her that night when she dressed for dinner. Pansy had no clothes except the ones in which he had brought her. But, within three days, there was an elaborate wardrobe at her disposal; the frocks fashioned like those she had worn in Grand Canary.
In one of these dresses she now sat at dinner with him; a misty robe of chiffon, but there were no diamonds sparkling like dew upon it. All her jewels had been left behind in the dim, gilded room in the palace of El-Ammeh.
When dinner was over, as they sat together in thesalon, Le Breton remarked on the fact.
"They've stolen all your pretty jewels, Pansy," he said. "You must let me give you some others."
"You've done quite enough for me already," she replied promptly. "I can manage without jewels until I get back to England."
At her words his eyes narrowed.
"Couldn't you be content to stay here?" he asked in a rather abrupt manner.
"For a few weeks, perhaps, then I should be craving change and variety. 'The Light of the Harem' act isn't one that would satisfy me for long."
Then Pansy was sorry she had spoken. She remembered that he had admitted to having a harem, probably somewhere in this very house. But she had spoken with the idea of letting him see his case was hopeless; of saving him the pain of refusal.
"Considering how ill you've been, the 'Light of the Harem act,' as you call it, would be the best sort of life for you for some time to come."
"How do you know I've been ill?" she asked quickly.
Le Breton saw he had made a slip, but he covered it up smartly.
"Gossip told me," he said coolly.
There was silence for a time, during which he sat with his gaze on her.
"Why don't you smoke?" Pansy asked suddenly, anxious to get something between herself and him.
"When you're about I don't need any soothing syrups," he replied.
He was approaching dangerous ground again. To ward him off Pansy rose and went to the piano. Seating herself there, she wandered from one item to another, with scarcely a pause between.
But the feeling of his eyes never off her made her stop all at once and laugh hysterically.
A crisis had to be faced sooner or later. Things might as well come to a head now as to-morrow or next week.
At that moment Pansy remembered the man who had held her with such fierce strength and passion in the moon-lit garden of the villa. And she wondered, not without a touch of alarm, how he would take her refusal.
She got up and went to his side.
"I must give you something else to do than just watching me. It makes me nervous," she said.
From a box on a table near she took a cigarette and placed it between his lips. Then she struck a match and held it towards him.
In a lazy, contented manner, he let her do it. But when the cigarette was lighted, he did not give her time to draw her hand away.
He caught her wrist, and drawing her hand a little closer, blew out the match. When this was done, he did not let her hand go. Instead, he took one or two puffs at the cigarette, all the time watching her closely.
"I didn't give you my hand 'for keeps,'" she said. "I want it back again, please."
It was hint enough for any man, but Le Breton did not take it.
In a deliberate manner, and with her still a prisoner, he got to his feet, and put the cigarette on the table.
Pansy did not try to free herself. The situation had to be faced.
When the cigarette was laid down, he took the other delicate wrist into his keeping. Then he drew the girl right up to him, until her hands were resting on his chest.
"Pansy, suppose I ask you to redeem your promise?" he said.
"Oh no, I couldn't," she answered, a trifle breathlessly.
"Why not? I'm exactly the same man now that I was when you promised to marry me. A much better man, if you only knew it. Thanks to meeting you."
"I didn't know anything about you then."
"But you knew you loved me."
"I do now, Raoul," she said.
"Does the fact of my Arab blood make marriage between us impossible?"
There was no reply.
In her silence Le Breton read his answer.
His hands tightened on her wrists, and a baulked look crossed his face.
So the black barrier was one that neither love nor gratitude would make her cross willingly.
There were some bitter moments for him, as he realised this. For all his wealth and power, for all his scheming, despite the fact that Pansy confessed to loving him, she refused to be his wife. It seemed that nothing he could do would bring her into his arms in the willing way he wanted.
Pansy was the first to speak.
In that crushing grip on her wrists, she read an agony of pain and disappointment, that her one desire now was to soothe.
"It's not you, Raoul. It's the idea," she said in a low voice.
"So the idea of marrying me is repugnant. And yet you love me?"
She nodded.
Loosing her wrists he turned to the table, and took another cigarette. This, however, he lighted for himself.
Pansy watched him, marvelling at the cool way he had taken her refusal.
Considering the fire and temper in the man and his air of never having been thwarted in any way, it was hardly what she had expected. She put it down to the fact that she was completely at his mercy, alone and helpless in this barbaric city. Her heart ached at the thought that through no fault of his own she could only give him pain in return for all his kindness.
Going to his side, she laid a slim hand on his sleeve.
"Raoul, I hope you know you're awful nice about things," she said.
He glanced at her. At the beautiful eyes raised to his with infinite gentleness in their velvety depths.
And he laughed.
"Am I?" he said.
Then he laughed again. And his mirth was a mingling of bitterness and savagery.
Pansy saw nothing of her host until the following afternoon. Almost immediately after his declaration Le Breton left her. Most of his time had been spent in contemplating the truth now before him. His scheming had failed. A sense of gratitude had not made the girl forget his colour.
After a sleepless night, he was up and away, riding madly along one of the sandy tracks that served his kingdom as roads, in a vain endeavour to escape from his chagrin and disappointment, and trying to decide on his next move.
He was surprised at his own hesitation. Having failed to attain his object, he was astonished that he should pause before doing what was obviously the only course left open to him. Just take the girl, whether she liked it or not.
But he knew why he hesitated.
Pansy loved him in her own way, as she might love a man of her own nationality. If he took her in his high-handed fashion, that love might be swept from him. And the idea was one that he could not bear to contemplate.
He returned from his wild ride still undecided on the next move.
In this frame of mind he came upon Pansy, in the midst of a solitary afternoon tea, set in a shady corner of the tennis court.
She greeted him as if the episode of the previous afternoon had never been.
"What have you been doing with yourself all day?" she asked, as she handed him a cup of tea.
"I've been trying to ride off my disappointment," he replied.
Pansy, too, had been fighting a battle of her own. Most of her night had been spent in arguing with temptation.
She was rich and independent. Why shouldn't she marry the man she loved, even if it were going against all the canons of her society? She was wealthy enough to defy society. She owed more than her life to him. Gratitude as well as love urged her towards him. Why should she make him suffer through no fault of his own? Why should she suffer herself? Why should she shut herself up from the man she loved because he happened to be a—a——
"A nigger."
The echo of Dennis's voice shouted the word at her, as it had seemed to shout that night in the London hotel, when Le Breton's name had been mentioned.
Pansy looked at her host as he lolled beside her; a picture of strength and handsomeness.
She wished his dark blood were more in evidence. That he did not look exactly like some of the big French, Spanish, and Italian men she had seen occasionally in various places on the continent. So absolutely European was he that it was impossible to think he was half-Arab.
"I wish you weren't so nice and handsome, Raoul," she said impulsively.
He cast a quick, speculative glance at her.
Perhaps, after all, a little more patience was all that was needed—patience combined with his own presence.
When tea was over, Pansy got up in a restless way.
"I feel I must do something active, or else go mad," she remarked.
The feeling was one he could sympathise with.
"We'll have a game of tennis then, if you promise to go easy."
Pansy remembered the way he had played that afternoon in Grand Canary.
"You'll simply mop the floor with me," she said.
"I'll play you left-handed."
Only too anxious to get away from her own thoughts and the temptation they brought, Pansy turned towards the court.
When the game started he handled his opponent carefully, putting the balls where she could get them without any effort.
At the end of the first set Pansy objected to his methods.
"You're not really trying, you're only playing with me," she said.
"It wouldn't be fair for me to pit all my strength against yours, would it now?" he asked.
"Well, do make a game of it. If you go on like this, I could sit down comfortably in the middle of the court and win. You needn't put the balls on my racket. I can stretch an inch or so around without fatal results."
The next game was more strenuous. But, as it went on, Pansy, getting excited, forgot caution. A long stretch and an upward spring to intercept one of her opponent's balls, brought cutting, knife-like pains tearing at her chest.
The racket dropped from her grip. She stood, white and swaying, her hand on her heart.
In a moment he had vaulted the net, and was at her side, his arm about her, concern on his face.
"It's nothing," she gasped.
"It's that accursed bullet," he said, conscience-stricken. "When Edouard extracted it, he warned me you'd feel the effects for some time."
He spoke without thinking, the sight of her suffering making him forget his double rôle.
At the moment Pansy was too full of pain to grasp what he had said.
Half leading, half carrying her, he took her to the nearest chair, settling her there with a cushion at her head.
With white lips she smiled at him; her only desire to allay his concern.
"There's nothing to worry about," she said faintly. "I'm a long way from being dead."
"It's all my fault," he said hoarsely.
"Oh no, you always said I mustn't be too strenuous," she contradicted.
Le Breton let it stay at that, aware that he had said more than he intended to say, and hoping the girl had not grasped all that lay within his comment.
For some minutes Pansy sat quiet, and, as her pain receded, her companion's sentence came more to the fore.
"It's that accursed bullet. When Edouard extracted it he warned me you'd feel the effects for some time."
From Alice, Pansy had learnt that the bullet had been extracted on the day she was brought into her enemy's camp.
Then Raoul must have been there! With the Sultan's forces!
But why hadn't he told her? Why had he pretended that he only hadguessedshe was the girl captured? Why had he never mentioned Dr. Edouard before? Why had Dr. Edouard never mentioned him?
It looked as if he had not wanted her to know.
But why hadn't he wanted her to know?
As Pansy pondered on the problem, mingled with the sweetness of the roses came another scent she knew—one that had greeted her every morning during her stay in the palace.
Above the screening trellis of roses, a tree grew, covered with great bunches of pink flowers, like apple blossom but more vivid, filling the air with fragrance.
Pansy had seen the flower before; among the blossoms that used to come to her every morning in the dim, gilded chamber.
"Still only a few flowers, Pansy?"
Le Breton's remark in the orange groves at Telde suddenly flashed across her mind. She remembered also his array of Arab servants, how obsequious they had been to their master on that occasion; and his wealth and magnificence; a splendour that was almost regal.
Close to where she sat, the tea-table stood.
Among the assortment of cakes were one or two of a kind she had seen previous to her rescue. Tiny, diamond-shaped dainties, made from layers of sponge cake and marzipan with chocolate icing on the top.
Often, in those long, hopeless days in the gilded prison, a similar morsel was all she had been able to eat for her tea.
Sixteen years ago a boy of about fourteen had sworn to kill her father. He would be thirty now. The same age as——! And the Sultan spoke French too!
They were little things, but they all pointed in one and the same direction. And, as Pansy brooded on them, an incredulous expression came to her eyes, and, with it, a look as if she were fighting to keep some horrible, impossible truth at bay.
Her gaze went to Le Breton.
"A great, big, fine man, awful good-looking."
Alice's description of the Sultan Casim Ammeh came back to her. Words that fitted her host exactly.
As she looked at him, from the paddock came the stamp of a horse's hoof.
She was here. Her favourite horse was here. Raoul Le Breton was here. All of them in this desert city hundreds of miles from civilisation. Such a combination could not be unless——
"If I were a king in Babylon and you were a Christian slave. Or to get down to more modern times. If I were a barbaric Sultan somewhere in Africa and you a girl I'd fancied and caught and carried off..."
His own words came echoing through her head; condemning words.
Then she recollected with what unpleasant emphasis he had said "au revoir," on parting with her that night on her yacht.
All at once Pansy's miracle exploded.
She wondered how she could have been such a fool as not to have guessed sooner.
This was the Sultan Casim Ammeh! This man standing before her!
He caught her gaze and smiled; it seemed to the girl, mockingly.
"Well, Heart's Ease, are you feeling better?" he asked. "After this you'll agree with me that 'The Light of the Harem' act is the most suitable life for you just at present."
It seemed to Pansy that he was gibing her.—At her trust, her belief, her incredulous folly.
What a blind fool she had been! It was all as plain as daylight now. Raoul Le Breton was the Sultan Casim Ammeh. It was her father's enemy she had confessed to loving; had wept in front of, clung to, trusted, displaying a weakness that had fallen to no man's lot, save her father's.
At the thought Pansy's soul writhed within her.
How could she have been such a fool! How he must have laughed at her!
Raoul Le Breton had condemned her to the unspeakable ordeal of the slave market in order to torture her father.
He had done it! Raoul Le Breton! The man she loved.
Pansy did not love him now. She hated him.
For a moment she was too stunned by her discovery to say or do anything.
Then she said in a voice that wild anger stifled somewhat:
"Soyouare the Sultan Casim Ammeh."
As Pansy spoke she got to her feet, her eyes blazing.
There was no mistaking what was on her face. She had guessed the truth.
On realising this, he made no attempt at further deception.
"Iam the Sultan Casim Ammeh," he said, smiling. "And, my little slave,youare my most cherished possession. More to me than my kingdom."
His cool confession staggered her.
As he stood there, unabashed and unrepentant, she looked round quickly, in search of something to strike him with. For the knowledge of his deceit and duplicity had made her beside herself with rage.
Since there was no weapon at hand, she set off rapidly across the lawn, heedless of where she went, her only desire to get away from him.
She had not gone very far, however, before he was at her side.
"Where are you going, Pansy?" he asked with a masterful air.
That he should dare to follow her; dare to call her by her name enraged her beyond all bounds. And his words added to her fury. They made her realise there was nowhere she could go to escape him.
Like a whirlwind she turned upon him.
"I wish ... I wish I could kill you," she gasped.
There was a tennis racket lying at her feet. As if to carry out this design, she stooped and picked it up; her only desire now to send it crashing into the mocking, masterful face.
But he guessed her intention. In a moment he had grasped the racket and wrested it away.
"No, Pansy," he said. "No one has ever struck me, and you're not going to. For I don't quite know what the consequences might be."
There was a brief, tense silence.
As he looked at the girl, it seemed that Fate had decided the next move for him.
"We may as well come to an understanding," he went on. "I hate your father, but I love you. And you've got to have me, whether you like it or not. I'd prefer to marry you in your English way. But if you won't consent to that, then—I shall take you, in mine. The choice is with you."
There was only one part of his ultimatum that Pansy thoroughly grasped. And there seemed no limit to his audacity.
"I'd rather die than marry you," she flamed. "For I hate you. Do you hear? I hate you more than anything on this earth."
He heard right enough, and his face blanched at her words.
Then, before he had recovered from this blow, Pansy struck him across the mouth, with all her strength, bringing blood to the lips that dared to talk of love toher.
There was a new slave in the Sultan's harem, a dazed girl who looked as if she moved in dreams. She was not reclining on a lounge or cushions, as the other girls around the fountain were. She half sat, half knelt upon her cushions, her slim bare legs beneath her, her hands lying listlessly on her knee, staring straight ahead as if in a trance.
Since that episode on the tennis court, Pansy felt as if she were living in the midst of some wild story, in which Raoul Le Breton and the Sultan Casim Ammeh had got mixed.
The Sultan wanted to marry her. And she had refused.
Then——!
Then, infuriated with the sense of her own helplessness and his complete power, she had struck him.
She could see him now, with the blood oozing on his lips, his face white with rage, his eyes flaming, looking as if he could kill her. And she had wished he would. Then there would have been an end of it all. She would have done with him, herself, her own folly, and the hatred that raged like a fire within her.
But he had not touched her.
White with passion he had just stood and looked at her. And she had looked back, waiting for the end that had not come.
Instead, three women had come. And she had been taken out of his presence. Through the bigsalonand along dim passages, past silk-clad, jewelled guards, and into a little room, with an ottoman and cushions and a tiny window, all fretted like lace, impossible to get out of.
Then the women had undressed her. They were three to one. It was useless to struggle: dignity seemed all that was left to her.
There was not much of that even when the women had done with her. They put her into a white silk slip that reached only to her knees, and with nothing more than a strap of pearls on either shoulder. They would have heaped more pearls upon her, string upon string about her neck. But she would not have that. She tore them off, so angrily that the slender threads snapped and they fell like frozen tears upon the marble floor, as her amber beads had fallen that night in his villa!
What a minor thing Lucille Lemesurier was now! Forgivable when she had learnt his race and religion. Not like this gigantic deception. A deception that had forced her into saying she loved the Sultan Casim Ammeh—the man who had tortured her father.
Leaving the women grovelling after the scattered pearls Pansy had rushed from the room, her only desire to seek some way of escape.
She had gone in her short slip and short curls, looking like some lovely, rebellious child.
Her steps had taken her into a big room like a hall, where a crowd of women were gathered; half a dozen of them, girls dressed in a similar style to herself.
Then Pansy's strength went from her suddenly.
She realized where she was. In the Sultan's harem! And she knew there would be no escape.
Sara had come to her, and had led her towards a pile of cushions set by a fountain where the other girls were. And the woman had said sharp words to the assembly, who had risen as if to crowd around her—words that had kept them at bay.
When she was seated they had stayed looking at her, most of them with curiosity and friendliness. But there was one face that Pansy, for all her numbness, saw was hostile; the face of a beautiful, golden-skinned girl.
There was one girl, too, who was more than specially friendly, who said to her in a soft, cooing voice:
"Where do you come from, sister, for your skin is whiter than mine?"
Pansy did not answer Leonora's question. She was wondering herself where she came from. From another world, it seemed.
It was incredible that she, Pansy Langham, could be a slave in a Sultan's harem, garbed as these other slave girls were. Incredible that only that afternoon she had been playing tennis with Raoul Le Breton, as she might have played with any man in her own place in England.
What ages ago it was! Yet perhaps it was only an hour. Like a beautiful dream that had vanished.
There was no Raoul Le Breton. No big, masterful man whom she had had to love, in spite of everything. There was only this barbaric Sultan who hated her father. Who, because she refused to marry him, had sent her to this strange room. His harem!
And she was his slave! She Pansy Langham, who had never obeyed any will except her own.
Her hands clenched.
How she hated him! He was so supremely master.
Any moment he might come to pick whichever of his slaves he fancied. And—he might pick her.
The ignominy of it! Just to be a man's chattel. And, hitherto, all men had beenherabject and willing slaves.
Heedless alike of Leonora's cooing advances, and Rayma's dark scowls, Pansy sat down.
The shadows gathered. The lamps were lit. Then dinner time came. A conglomeration of sweets and fruit and dainties set out on silver trays, with only a spoon to eat with.
Again Leonora's voice broke into Pansy's broodings.
"Come, won't you eat, my sister?" she coaxed, pushing one of the trays closer.
But Pansy felt as if she could never eat a bite again.
Rayma ate nothing either.
With angry eyes, she studied the newcomer.
Pansy was very beautiful in her way, but no more beautiful than Rayma was in hers. And what was more, she was not perfect. There was an ugly red scar on one of her milk-white arms. And the Lord Casim hated flaw or blemish on a woman.
Would this new slave's presence bring him to the harem?
If he came——!
Rayma clenched her little white teeth.
Then there would be a battle royal between this white girl and herself for his favors. But she would not let his heart go lightly.
Stretched full length on her couch, her elbows on the soft cushions, her pointed chin in the cup of her hands, the Arab girl lay watching her rival and waiting.
The evening wore on. The lamps burnt low, and started to flare and crackle, without any sign of the Sultan coming.
Presently, shriek after shriek, echoing through the vaulted hall, roused Pansy from her broodings, making her look round in a quick, startled manner. The shrieks were familiar. Muffled they had reached her every evening in that dim, gilded chamber.
"It's only Rayma," Leonora said indifferently. "She has hysterics every night because the Sultan does not come. He has not been to the harem now for three months or longer. Not since he left the city on some foray. She fears some other girl has stolen his heart from her."
Leonora paused, her great eyes on the new-comer.
"Is it you, my sister?" she finished inquisitively. "For, if so, I shall love you."
But Pansy had nothing to say.
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.
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."
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 space 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 cushions, 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 clustered 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.'"
Certainly for him the trouble had started when it came to "woman"; when this slender, wayward, golden-haired girl came into his life. For she had robbed all other women of their sweetness.
With longing his gaze rested on Pansy.
What a fool he was not to take her.—To let her whim come between himself and his desires.
But there was something more than a girl's whim had he but realised it; a feeble new self that Pansy was responsible for: the man he might have been but for his profligate training.
Rayma saw where his gaze was. To get his eyes away from Pansy, she took one of his hands and pressed it on her bosom.
"When first I came here, my lord," she whispered, "there was nothing else you could think of."
His attention came back to her.
"You were very pretty, Rayma," he said a trifle absently.
"And am I not beautiful still?" she asked quickly.
"You're always a picture," he answered.
He talked as if to a spoilt child who bored him.
Rayma hitched herself closer, until her soft breast pressed against his knee. But he remained silent, without look or caress, his gaze still on the distant girl.
He was wondering whether he would take Pansy out of her present surroundings, or if a spell in the harem might not make her realise to the fullest her own helplessness and his complete supremacy.
Leonora watched her master, her dark eyes full of joy and malice.
"There are some people who never know when they're not wanted," she remarkedsotto voce, and to no one in particular.
Rayma cast a venomous look at her. But Leonora only smiled at her dagger-like glances.
"Can she dance, this new slave of yours?" the Arab girl asked suddenly.
"She dances very nicely," he answered in an indifferent manner.
"As well as I do?" she asked jealously.
He thought of the snake-like writhing Rayma called "dancing."
"She dances quite differently from you."
"Let us both dance before you then, so that you may judge which is the better of us," she said quickly.