In his study Sir George Barclay sat alone. Sixteen years had passed since, in far-away Gambia, he had had to condemn to death the marauding Arab chief. In a few weeks' time he would be returning to the country, not in any minor capacity, but as its Governor.
Although his thoughts just then were in Gambia, the incident of the shooting of the Sultan Casim Ammeh had long since gone from his mind. And he never gave a thought nowadays to the boy who, unavailingly, had come to the Arab chief's rescue. But he still carried the mark of the youngster's sword upon his cheek.
The passing years had changed Barclay very little. His hair was grey, his face thinner, and a studious look now lurked in the grey eyes where tragedy had once been. For, in his profession, Barclay had found some of the forgetfulness he had set out in search of.
As he sat at his desk the door opened suddenly. The manner of opening told him that the daughter he imagined to be a thousand or more miles away was home again. For no one, save this cherished legacy from his lost love, would enter his study with such lack of ceremony.
He looked round quickly, as a slim girl in ermine and purple velvet entered.
"Why, Pansy, my darling, I thought you were in Grand Canary," he said, rising quickly to greet her.
"So I was, father, five days ago. And then ... and then——!"
She paused, and laughing in a rather forced manner, kissed him affectionately.
"Father, will you take me out to Gambia with you?" she finished.
There was very little George Barclay ever refused his daughter. On this occasion, he did make some sort of stand.
"Gambia is no place for you, my darling. There's nothing there to amuse and interest a young girl."
"Perhaps not," Pansy said as she took off her hat and gloves, watching him with a rather set smile. "But I don't care where I go so long as I can be with you and get away from myself."
Her words made Barclay look at her sharply.
To want to get away from one's self was a feeling he could understand and sympathise with, only too well. But to hear such a sentiment on his daughter's lips surprised and hurt him.
"My little girl, what has happened?" he asked gently.
Pansy laughed again, but there was a sharp catch of pain in her mirth.
"I think my heart is broken, that's all," she said with a would-be casual air.
Barclay did not wait to hear any more at that moment. He drew her down on to a couch and sat there with his arm about her.
"My poor little girl," he whispered. "Tell me all about it."
Pansy laid her head on his shoulder, and smiled at him with lips that trembled woefully.
"It's nobody's fault but my own, Daddy," she said. "I brought it on myself with my silly, impetuous ways. And it serves me right for hankering after strange men, and not being content with my old father."
For all her light talk Barclay knew something serious had happened. To him his daughter was but a new edition of a well-read book; the girl was her mother over again.
There was a brief pause as Sir George sat watching his child, stroking her curls with a thin, affectionate hand, wondering what tragedy had come into this bright, young life.
"Hearts are silly things, aren't they?" Pansy said suddenly. "Soft, flabby, squashy sort of things that get hurt easily if you don't keep a sharp eye on them. And I'd so many things to keep an eye on that I forgot all about mine. Hearts ought not to be left without protection. They should have iron rails put round them to keep all trespassers off, like the rails we put round the trees in the park to keep the cattle from hurting them."
There was a further pause, and a little sniff. Then Pansy said:
"Father, lend me your handkerchief, I know it's a nice big one. I believe I'm going to cry. For the first time since it happened. It must be seeing you again. And I shall cry a lot on your coat, and perhaps spoil it. But, since it's me, I know you won't mind."
Sir George drew out a handkerchief.
"I was walking along in heaven with my head up and my nose in the air," the sweet, hurt voice explained, "blissfully happy because he was there. There was a hole in the floor of heaven and I never saw it. And I fell right through, crash, bang, right down to earth again. A rotten old earth with all the fun gone out of it. And I'm awfully sore and bruised, and the shock has injured my heart. It has never been the same since and will never be the same again, because ... because, I did love him, awfully."
As she talked Sir George watched her with affection and concern, his heart aching for this slim, beautiful daughter of his, to whom love had come as a tragedy.
"Oh, Daddy," she said, tears choking her voice, "why is life so hard?"
Then the storm broke.
Sir George listened to her sobs, as with a gentle hand he stroked the golden curls. All the time he wondered who was responsible for her tears, who had broken the heart of his cherished daughter.
He went over the multitude of men she knew. But he never gave one thought to the savage boy who, sixteen years before, had scarred his face—the Sultan Casim Ammeh.
In a fashionable London hotel a little party of three sat at dinner. The dining-room was a large place, full of well-dressed people. It was bright with electric light, and under a cover of greenery a band played not too loudly.
Among the crowd of diners none seemed better known than the girl with the short, golden curls who sat with the thin, studious-looking man and the fresh-faced, fair-haired boy. Very often lorgnettes were turned in her direction; for, when in town, no girl was more sought after than Pansy Langham.
As Pansy sat with her father and Captain Cameron a man who had been sitting at the far end of the room came to their table, greeting all three with the air of an old acquaintance.
Afterwards he turned to Cameron.
"Well, and how's tennis? Are you still champion in your own little way?" he asked.
"To tell you the truth, Dennis," Cameron answered, "in Grand Canary one man gave me a thorough licking. And he was a rank outsider too!"
"How pleased you must have felt. Who was your executioner?"
"A man of the name of Le Breton. A French millionaire."
Dennis laughed in a disparaging manner.
"French he calls himself, does he? That's like his cheek. I met him once in Paris, a haughty sort of customer who thinks the whole world is run for him. He's a half-breed really, for all his money and his high-handed ways."
The conversation had taken a turn that held a fearsome interest for Pansy. But to hear Raoul Le Breton described as a half-breed was a shock and surprise to her.
"Mr. Le Breton a half-caste!" she exclaimed.
Dennis glanced at her.
"Where did you drop across him?" he asked sharply.
"In Grand Canary also."
"Well, the less you have to do with 'sich' the better," he said in a brotherly way. "He's a hot lot. The very devil. No sort of a pal for a girl like you."
"I thought he was French," Pansy said in a strained voice.
"He poses as such, but he isn't. He's a nigger cross, French-Arab. And what's more he's a Mohammedan."
"You're a trifle sweeping, Dennis," Sir George interposed. "If you'd dealt with coloured people as much as I have, you'd know there was a great difference between a nigger and an Arab. An Arab in his own way is a gentleman. And his religion has a great resemblance to our own. He is not a naked devil-worshipper like the negro."
Pansy welcomed her father's intervention. At that moment her world was crashing into even greater ruins around her.
Raoul Le Breton a half-caste! The man she loved "a nigger"!
Pansy did not hide from herself the fact that she still loved Le Breton, but this last piece of news about him put him quite beyond the pale.
Also it put a new light on the affair of Lucille Lemesurier.
He was of a different race, a different religion, a different colour, with a wholly different outlook.
After the first gust of temper was over, Pansy had wanted to find some excuse for Le Breton over the affair of the French actress.
It is easy to find excuses for a person when one is anxious to find them. And now it seemed she had one.
He was a Mohammedan. His religion allowed him four wives, and as many other women as he pleased. No wonder he had been angry at the fuss she had made over Lucille Lemesurier! According to his code he had done no wrong.
Now Pansy wanted to apologise for her rudeness in invading his villa; for her temper, and the scene that followed.
The fault was all hers. She ought to have found out more about him before letting things go so far. She had liked him, and she had troubled about nothing else.
She ought never to have encouraged him. For when they had breakfasted together that morning among the red roses, she knew he was in love with her.
"There are lots of things about myself I haven't told you."
Le Breton's remark came back to her mind.
No wonder he had wanted to marry her at once! Before she found out anything about him.
Pansy tried to feel angry with her erstwhile lover. But, phantom-like, the strength of his arms was around her, his handsome, sunburnt face was close to her own, his voice was whispering words of love and longing, his lips on hers in those passionate kisses that made her forget everything but himself.
Her eyes went round the room, a brave, tortured look in them.
Were there other women there, suffering as she was suffering? Suffering, and who yet had to go on smiling? The world demanded her smiles, and it should have them, although her heart was bleeding at the tragedy of her own making.
Not only her heart, but Raoul's. Because she had encouraged him.
She must not blame him. For the odds were all against him. She must try and see things from his point of view—the point of view of a polygamist.
That night when Pansy got back home, she wrote the following note:—
"Dear Mr. Le Breton,
I owe you an apology. Only to-night I have learnt that you are of another race, another religion than mine. It makes things look quite different. You see things from the point of view of your race, I, of mine. I am sorry I did not know all this sooner; I should have acted very differently. I should not have come to your villa that night and made a stupid fuss, for one thing. About such matters men of your race and religion are quite different from men of my own. I am sorry for all that occurred. For my own bad temper and the annoyance I must have caused you. But I did not know anything about you then.
Yours regretfully,Pansy Langham.
P.S.—I shall be calling at Grand Canary in about ten days' time with my father, Sir George Barclay. I am going out to Africa with him. If you care to come on board during the evening I should like to see you and say how sorry I am.
P. L."
One day when Le Breton returned from one of the mad rides he frequently indulged in, in a vain effort to assuage the pain and chagrin that raged within him, he found among a pile of letters put aside for his inspection, one with an English stamp.
Letters from that country rarely came his way. But it was not the novelty that attracted him, making him pick it out from the others, but the writing.
He had seen it once before, on a note that had turned his heaven into hell, when for the first time he had learnt what it was to be rejected by a woman.
He tore the envelope open, eager for the contents.
What had the girl to say to him? Why had she written?
With a wild throb of hope, he drew out the message.
Once he had called Pansy a little creature of rare surprises. But none equalled the surprise in store for him now.
It was not the apologies in the note he saw; nor a girl's desire to try and see things from his point of view; nor the fact that, despite everything, she was unable to break away from him.
He saw only one thing.
She was Sir George Barclay's daughter! The girl he loved to distraction was the child of his father's murderer!
Astounded he stared at the note. He could not believe it. Yet it was there, written in Pansy's own hand.
"With my father, Sir George Barclay."
Pansy, the child of the man he hated! That brave, kind, slim, teasing girl, who for one brief week had filled him with a happiness and love and contentment such as he had once deemed impossible.
As he brooded on the note a variety of emotions raged within him.
A vengeance that had rankled for sixteen years fought with a love that had grown up in a week.
Then he pulled himself together, as if amazed at his own indecision.
He took the note, with its pathos and pleading; a girl's endeavour to meet the view of the man she loved, whose outlook was quite beyond her. Deliberately he tore it across and across, into shreds, slowly and with a cruel look on his face, as if it were something alive that he was torturing, and that gave him pleasure to torture.
For Le Breton had decided what his course was to be. The vengeance he had promised long years ago should be carried out, with slight alterations. He had a way now of torturing Sir George Barclay that would be punishment beyond any death. And Pansy was the tool he intended to use. What was more, she was to pay the penalty of her father's crime. For he would mete out to her the measure he had promised sixteen years ago.
However, this decision did not prevent Le Breton from going to Pansy's yacht the evening of its arrival in Grand Canary.
After dinner he made his way along the quay towards the white vessel with its flare of light that stood out against the dark night.
Evidently he was expected. On inquiring for Miss Langham, he was shown into the cabin where he had had his previous interview with her; and with the feeling that things would go his way, if he had but a little patience: a virtue he had never been called upon to exercise where a woman was concerned.
Le Breton's feelings as he stayed on in the pretty cabin would be difficult to describe. Everything was redolent of the girl, touching his heart with fairy fingers; a heart he had hardened against her.
But, as he waited there, he despised himself for even having momentarily contemplated letting a woman come between him and his cherished vengeance.
Once in Africa Sir George Barclay would prove an easy and unsuspecting prey. According to custom, the Governor should tour his province. That tour would bring him within six hundred miles of Le Breton's desert kingdom. The latter intended to keep himself well posted in his enemy's movements. And he knew exactly the spot where he would wait for the Governor and his suite—the spot where sixteen years before the Sultan Casim Ammeh had been shot.
He, Le Breton, would wait near there with a troop of his Arab soldiers. Unsuspecting, the Governor would walk into the trap. The whole party would be captured with a completeness and unexpectedness that would leave no trace of what had happened. With his prisoners he would sweep back to the desert.
Once in El-Ammeh, the daughter should be sold as a slave in the public market, to become the property of any Arab or negro chief who fancied her. And her father should see her sold. But he should not be killed afterwards. He should live on to brood over his child's fate—a torture worse than any death.
"Put your ear quite close. It's not a matter that can be shouted from the house-tops."
Like a sign from the sea, the echo of Pansy's voice whispered in his ear, a breath from his one night in heaven.
But he would not listen. Vengeance had stifled love—vengeance he had waited sixteen years for.
He glanced round with set, cold face.
It seemed to him no other woman could look so lovely and desirable as the girl entering.
Pansy was wearing a flounced dress of some soft pink silky material that spread around her like the petals of a flower. The one great diamond sparkled on her breast—a dewdrop in the heart of a half-blown rose.
On seeing her Le Breton caught his breath sharply. This girl the daughter of his father's murderer! This lovely half-blown English rose! What a trick Fate had played him!
Then, ashamed of his momentary craving, he faced her, a cruel smile on his lips.
There was a brief silence.
Pansy looked at him, thinking she had never seen him so handsome, so proud, so aloof, so hard as now. He stood watching her coldly with no word of welcome, no greeting on his lips.
He was the first to speak. And he said none of the things Pansy was expecting and was prepared for.
"Why did you tell me your name was Langham?" he asked in a peremptory manner.
"It is Langham," she answered, with some surprise.
"How is it, then, that you say Sir George Barclay is your father?"
"He is my father. Langham was my godfather's name, my own second name. I had to take it when I inherited his money. That was his one stipulation."
Another pause ensued.
There was a hurt look in Pansy's soft eyes as she watched Le Breton. As he looked back at her a hungry gleam came to his hard ones.
"What have you learnt about me?" he demanded presently.
"That you're half Arab."
He had almost expected her to say she had discovered he was the Sultan Casim Ammeh, her own and her father's sworn enemy.
"Is that all?" he asked, with a savage laugh.
"It's quite enough to account for everything," Pansy replied.
"Even for your coming into my arms and letting me kiss and caress you," he said, with biting sarcasm.
Pansy flushed.
"I didn't know anything about you then. And you know I didn't," she said with indignation.
"Or you wouldn't have listened to a word of love from me."
Much as he tried to hate the girl, now that he was with her he could not keep the word "love" off his lips.
Pansy felt she was not shining. She wanted to apologise, but he seemed determined to be disagreeable. What was more, she had a feeling she was dealing with quite a different man from the Raoul Le Breton who had won and broken her heart within a week. She put it down to her own treatment of him and it made her all the more anxious for an understanding. She could not bear to see him looking at her in that hard, cruel way, as if she were his mortal enemy—someone who had injured him past all forgiveness.
"It's not that I want to talk about at all," she said desperately.
"What do you want to talk about, then?" he asked, his cruel smile deepening.
"I want to say how sorry I am that I was angry with you that night. But I ... I didn't know you were ... are——"
Pansy stopped before she got deeper into the mire.
She was going to say "a coloured man," but with him standing before her, her lips refused to form the words.
However, Le Breton finished the sentence for her.
"'A nigger.' Don't spare my feelings. I've had it cast up at me before by you English."
"You know I wouldn't say anything so cruel and untrue."
Again there was silence.
Le Breton watched her, torturing himself with the thought of what might have been.
"If you'd kept your word, you'd be my wife now. The wife of 'a nigger,'" he said presently.
"Don't be so cruel. I never thought you'd be like this," she cried, her voice full of pain.
"And I never thought you would break your word."
"In any case, I couldn't have married you, considering you're a Mohammedan," she said, goaded out of all patience by his unfriendly attitude.
"Religion is nothing to me nowadays. I was quite prepared to change to yours."
"You couldn't have done that. There would be your ... your wives to consider."
"I have no wife by my religion or yours."
"But that woman at your villa, wasn't she——" Pansy began.
"I've half a dozen women in one of my—houses; but none of them are my wives. You're the only woman I've ever asked for in marriage. You!"
He laughed in a cruel, hard way, as if at some devil's joke.
Pansy's hand went to her head—a weary, hopeless gesture.
He was beyond her comprehension, this man who calmly confessed to having a half a dozen women in one of his houses, to a woman he would have made his wife.
"I'm sorry," she said in a dreary tone, "but I can't understand you. I'd no idea there were men who seemed just like other men and yet behaved in this ... this extraordinary fashion."
"I'm not aware that my behaviour is extraordinary. Every man in my country has a harem if he can afford it."
Deliberately he put these facts before the girl in his desire to hurt and hate her as he hated her father. But the look of suffering on her face hurt him as much as he was hurting her. And he hated himself more than he hated her, because uprooting the love he had for her out of his heart was proving such a difficult task.
"It's a harem, is it?" Pansy said distastefully. "Now I'm beginning to understand. But I don't want to hear anything more about it. I see now it was a mistake my asking you here. But I wanted you to know—to know——"
She floundered and stopped and started again, anxious to be fair with him in spite of everything.
"I wanted you to understand that the fact of your religion and race made your behaviour seem quite different from what it would have been were you a ... a European. I want you to see that I know you have your point of view, that I can't in all fairness blame you for doing what is not wrong according to your standpoint, even if it is according to mine."
With his cold, cruel smile deepening, he watched her floundering after excuses for him, endeavouring to see his point of view, to be just and fair.
"You're very magnanimous," he said, with biting scorn.
"And you are very unkind," she flashed, suddenly out of patience. "You're making everything as hard for me as you possibly can. You're doing it deliberately; and you look as if you enjoyed hurting me. I never thought you'd be like this, Raoul. I would have liked to part as friends since ... since anything else is impossible."
His name on her lips made a spasm cross Le Breton's face.
As he stood there fighting against himself he knew he was still madly in love with the girl he was determined to hate, and he despised himself for his own weakness.
Pansy watched him, a look of suppressed suffering shadowing her eyes.
She would have given all she possessed—her cherished freedom, her vast riches, her life—to have had him as she once thought him, a man of her own colour, not with this dreadful black barrier between them; a tragedy so ghastly that the fact of Lucille Lemesurier now seemed a laughing matter. He was lost to her for ever. No amount of love or understanding could pull down that barrier.
"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm sorry we ever dropped across one another."
Le Breton made no reply. Cold and unsmiling, he watched her.
There was a brief silence.
Outside, the sea sobbed and splashed like tears against the vessel's side. But all the tears in the world could not wash the black stain from him.
As they stood looking at one another, a verse came and sang like a dirge in Pansy's head:
What are we waiting for? Oh, my heart,Kiss me straight on the brow and part:Again! Again, my heart, my heartWhat are we waiting for, you and I?A pleading look—a stifled cry—Good-bye for ever. Good-bye, good-bye.
"Good-bye," she said again.
Then he smiled his cold, cruel smile.
"No, Pansy. I say—au revoir."
Ignoring her outstretched hand, he bowed. Then, after one long look at her, he turned and was gone.
As the door closed behind him Pansy blinked back two tears.
It had hurt her horribly to see him so set and cold, with that cruel look in his eyes where love once had been.
She wished that "The Sultan" had killed her that day in the East End of London; or that Raoul Le Breton had been drowned that night in the sea. Anything rather than that they should have met to make each other suffer.
Over El-Ammeh great stars flashed, like silver lamps in the purple dome above the desert city. Their light gave a faint, misty white tinge to the scented blueness of the harem garden. There, trees sighed softly, moving vague and shadow-like as a warm breeze stirred them. The walled pleasance was filled with the scent of flowers, of roses, magnolia, heliotrope, mimosa and a hundred other blossoms, for night lay heavy upon the garden.
In sunken ponds the stars were mirrored, rocking gently on the surface of the ruffled water. Close by one of the silvered pools, a man's figure showed, big and white, in flowing garments. Against him a slender girl leant.
Rayma's eyes rivalled the stars as she gazed up at her sultan and owner. Yet in their dark depths a touch of anxiety lurked.
A fortnight ago, the Sultan had returned to El-Ammeh. The first week had been one of blissful happiness for the Arab girl. For her master had returned more her lover than ever. But, as the days went on, doubts crept into her heart, vague and haunting. At times it seemed to her he was not quite the same man who left her for Paris. For he had a habit now that he had not had before he went away—a disconcerting habit of looking at her with unseeing eyes, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
This mood was on him now.
Although the night called for nothing but love and caresses, none had fallen to her lot. Although she rested against him, she might not have been there for all the notice he took. He appeared to have forgotten her, as he gazed in a brooding, longing manner at the soft, velvety depths of the purple sky—sky as deeply, softly purple as pansies.
Rayma pressed closer to her lord and sultan, looking at him with love-laden, anxious eyes.
"Beloved," she whispered softly, "are your thoughts with some woman in Paris?"
With a start, his attention came back to her. In the starlight he scanned her little face in a fierce, hungry, disappointed manner. For the slight golden girl who now rested upon his heart brought him none of the contentment he had known when Pansy had been there.
"No, little one," he said gently. "I prefer you to all the women I met in Paris."
Her slim arms went round his neck in a clinging passionate embrace.
"Oh, my lord," she whispered, "such words are my life. At times I think you do not love me as you once did. You seem not quite the same. For, often, although your arms are around me, you forget that I am there!"
A bitter expression crossed his face.
He did not forget that she was there. Although he had come back to the desert girl he had once loved, it was not her he wanted, but the girl who had scorned and flouted him, his enemy's daughter. And he tried to forget her in the slim, golden arms that held him, with such desire and passion.
"No, Rayma, I'm not quite the same," he said, stroking the little face that watched him with such love and longing. "For sixteen years and more I have waited to avenge my father's death. And now——"
He broke off, and laughed savagely.
"And now—my father's murderer is almost within my grip. Next week I start out with my men to capture him."
Revenge was a sentiment the Arab girl could understand.
"Oh, my lord," she whispered, "little wonder that your mind wanders from me, even though I am within your arms. I wept when you went to Paris. But I would speed you on this quest for vengeance."
The Sultan made no reply.
Deep down in his own heart he knew his excuse was a false one. It was not vengeance that came between him and Rayma—but Pansy.
And now he hated the English girl, for she had robbed all other women of their sweetness.
Over the old fort near the river the British flag drooped limply. Many years had passed since it had last hung there. Nowadays, the place was not used. The country was too peaceful to need forts, and the district officer lived in a corrugated iron bungalow just beyond the remains of the stockade.
It was getting on towards evening. The mist still rose from forest and shadow valley, as it had risen sixteen years before when Barclay first came to these parts. And in the stunted cliffs another generation of baboons swarmed.
On the roof of the old fort Pansy stood with her father, watching as she had often watched during her months in Africa, the sunset that each night painted the world with glory.
A golden mist draped the horizon, its edge gilded sharply and clearly. Across the golden curtain swept great fan-like rays of rose and green and glowing carmine, all radiating from a blurred mass of orange hung on the world's edge where the sun sank slowly behind the veil of gold.
The mist rolled up from the wide shallow valley, in banks and tattered ribbons, rainbow tinted. And the lakes that, in the dry season, marked the course of the shrunken river, gleamed like jewels in the flood of light poured out from the heavens.
The constant change and variety of the last few months had eased Pansy's pain a little.
With her father she had toured the colony. She had slept under canvas, in native huts, and iron bungalows. And there were half-a-dozen officers on the governor's staff, all anxious to entertain his daughter.
But for the nights, Pansy would have enjoyed herself immensely.
"Give me the nights, Pansy, and the days I'll leave to you."
Very often Raoul Le Breton's words came back to her, as she lay sleepless. It seemed that he had her nights now, that man she loved yet could not marry. Often her heart ached with a violence that kept her awake until the morning.
Pansy tried to make her nights as short as possible. She was always the last to bed and the first to rise, often up and dressed before Alice—her plump, pretty, mulatto maid, a Mission girl Pansy had engaged for her stay in Africa—appeared with the early morning tea. And whenever it was possible, she was out and away on her old racehorse, with some member of her father's staff.
And the day that followed was generally full of novelty and interest. There were new people to see; a wild country to travel through; some negro chief to interview; a native village to visit.
As the journey continued, the Europeans grew fewer. Until that day, it was nearly a week since Pansy had seen a white face, except those of her father's suite.
Only that afternoon the furthermost point of the tour had been reached. A mile or so beyond was French territory.
With her father Pansy often went over the maps of the district and the country that lay around it. She knew that beyond the British possessions lay a sparsely populated and but little known district; vast areas, scarcely explored, of scrub and poor grass, that led on to the Back of Beyond, the limitless expanse of the burning Sahara.
But, interested as Pansy always was in all connected with her father's province, and all that lay about it, she was not thinking of any of these things as she stood on the roof with him, but of her old playmate, Captain Cameron.
The Governor, his staff, and the district officer were going the next day to visit some rather important negro chief. Pansy was to have been one of the party, but on reaching their journey's end, Cameron had suddenly developed a bad attack of malaria.
"I don't think I'll go to-morrow, father," she was saying. "I don't like leaving Bob. I know his orderly can look after him all right. But he says he feels better when I'm about, so I promised to stay and hold his hand."
"Just as you like," Sir George answered. "In any case the pow-pow will be very similar to a dozen others you've seen. And Bob needs keeping cheerful."
"He takes it very philosophically," Pansy answered.
"It's the only way to take life," her father answered, a trifle sadly.
Pansy rubbed a soft cheek against his in silent sympathy.
She loved and understood her quiet, indulgent father more than ever. But the dead girl he still grieved for was only a misty memory to his child.
"Yes, Daddy, I've learnt that too," she said. "It's no use grousing about things. It's far better to laugh in the teeth of Fate."
George Barclay's arm went round his daughter.
She had followed out her own precepts, this brave, bright girl of his.
As she went about his camp, no one would have guessed her life was a tragedy. And even he knew no more than she had told him on her unexpected return from Grand Canary.
She was fighting her battle alone, as he in past years had fought his, in her own unselfish way, refusing to let her shadows fall on those about her.
About five miles away from the old fort, deep in the forest, there was a large grassy glade, an unfrequented spot.
Within it now were encamped what looked to be a large party of Arab merchants. There were about a hundred of them, and they had come early that morning, with horses, and camels, and mules, and bales of merchandise. And they outnumbered Barclay's party by nearly three to one. His following were not more than forty, including thirty Hausa soldiers.
Immediately on arriving in the glade, two of the Arabs, with curios, had been dispatched to the English camp, outwardly to sell their goods, but, in reality, as spies.
They had hardly gone, before the rest of the party put aside its peaceful air. Out of their bales weapons were produced; guns of the latest pattern and vicious-looking knives.
In his tent the Sultan Casim Ammeh sat, in white burnoose, awaiting the return of his spies. With him was Edouard, his French doctor, who was watching his royal master with an air of concern.
"I shall be glad when this thing is through and done with," he remarked presently, his voice heavy with anxiety. "And all I hope is that the English don't get hold of you. There'll be short shrift for you, if you're caught meddling with their officials."
"They'd shoot me, as Barclay shot my father," the Sultan replied grimly. "But I'm willing to risk that in order to get hold of him."
"I wish we were safely back in El-Ammeh," the doctor said.
"You've never experienced either a deep love or a deep hate, Edouard. The surface of things has always satisfied you. You're to be envied."
"Well I hope that love will never run you into the dangers that this revenge of yours is likely to," Edouard replied, getting up.
He went from the tent, leaving the Sultan alone, awaiting the return of his spies.
It was nearly midday when they got back to the glade. At once they were taken into the royal presence.
"What have you learnt?" the Sultan demanded.
The Arabs bowed low before their ruler.
"Your Highness, the English party has broken up," one replied. "The chief and his officers, with half the soldiers, have gone to a village that lies about half way between here and the fort. And the white lady, his daughter, is left behind, with but fifteen men to guard her."
As Le Breton listened, the task he had set himself appeared even easier than he had imagined.
At the head of his men he would waylay and capture the governor and his party on their return from the village. When this was accomplished he would send off a contingent to seize Pansy.
With this idea in view, he summoned a couple of native officers into his presence.
When they appeared, he gave them various instructions about the matter on hand, and, finally, his plans concerning Pansy.
"No shot must be fired in the presence of the English lady," he finished. "At all costs she must be captured without injury."
With deference the Arab officers listened to his instructions, then they bowed and left the royal presence.
Not long afterwards the glade was practically empty save for the tents and camels and mules.
At the head of his men the Sultan Casim Ammeh had gone in quest of the vengeance he had waited quite sixteen years for.
In the guard-house of the old fort where George Barclay had once housed his wounded Arab prisoners, Captain Cameron sat propped up with pillows in a camp bed. It was a cool, dim, white-washed room with thick stone walls, tiny windows high up near the ceiling, and a strong wooden door, that was barred from the inside.
Beside him Pansy sat, pouring out the tea that his orderly had just brought in, and trying to coax an appetite that malaria had left capricious.
Cameron's fever had burnt itself out in twenty-four hours as such fevers will, but it had left the young man very weak and washed out, scarcely able to stand on his legs.
As Pansy sat talking and coaxing, trying to make a sick man forget his sickness, into the stillness of the drowsy afternoon there came a sound that neither of them expected. The thunder of horses' hoofs, like a regiment sweeping towards them.
As far as Cameron knew there were no horses in the district except their own, and they numbered only about half a dozen, not enough to produce anything like that amount of sound.
"What on earth can that be?" he asked, suddenly alert.
Almost as he spoke there was a further sound. A sound of firing. Not a single shot, but a volley. It was followed immediately by cries and screams, and a hubbub of native voices.
Cameron had seen active service. That sound made him forget all about his fever. He knew it for a surprise attack. But who had attacked them, and why, he could not imagine; for the district was peaceful.
Barefooted and in pyjamas, he scrambled out of bed. Swaying, he fumbled under his pillow, and producing a revolver, slipped it into his pocket. Then he staggered across to the door, Pansy at his heels.
When they looked out, it appeared that the stockade was filled with white-robed figures on horseback, lean, brown, hawk-faced men whom Pansy immediately recognised for Arabs. The surprised Hausa soldiers had been driven into one corner of the compound, and back to back were fighting valiantly against overwhelming odds.
Cameron did not wait to see any more. Already a score or more of the wild horsemen were sweeping on towards the old fort where the two stood.
Quick as thought he shut the guardroom door. With hands that shook with fever, he stooped and picked up one of the two iron bars that held it in position.
"Lend me a hand, Pansy," he said sharply.
But Pansy did not need any telling. Already she had seized the other end of the heavy bar. It was in position just as the horde outside reached the guard-house. There was a rattle of arms, the sound of horses being brought sharply to a halt. Then orders shouted in a wild, barbaric language.
There followed a shower of heavy blows upon the door.
When the second iron bar was in position, the boy and the girl stood for a moment and looked at one another.
Pansy was the first to speak.
"What has happened?" she asked.
"It looks like a desert tribe out on some marauding expedition," he replied in as cool a voice as he could muster. "But I'm sure I don't know what they're doing down as far as here."
"My father?" Pansy said quickly.
Cameron made no reply. He hoped the Governor's party had not fallen foul of the marauders. But the fate of Sir George and his staff was not the one that troubled him now. All his thoughts were for the girl he loved, to keep her from falling into the hands of that barbaric horde. And fall she must, dead or alive, before so very long. Strong as the door was, it would not be able to withstand the assaults the Arabs could put upon it.
With a casual air Cameron examined his revolver, to make sure that the five cartridges were complete.
Then he glanced at the girl.
She caught his eye, and smiled bravely. She had grasped the situation also.
"We all have to die sooner or later," she remarked. "I hope it'll be sooner in my case."
Cameron's young face grew even whiter and more drawn; this time with something more than fever—the thought of the task before him.
"Four shots for them, Pansy, and the fifth for you," he answered hoarsely.
"Yes, Bob, whatever you do, don't forget the fifth."
As they talked, thundering blows were falling on the door, filling the room with constantly recurring echoes. But the wood and iron withstood the assault. The noise stopped suddenly. From outside, voices could be heard, evidently discussing what had better be done next.
Pansy and Cameron crossed to the far side of the room, and stood there side by side, their backs against the wall, waiting.
When the blows came again they were different; one heavy, ponderous thud that made the door creak and groan, with a pause between each blow.
"They've got a battering-ram to work now, a tree trunk or something," Cameron remarked. "That good old door won't be able to stand the strain much longer."
Then he glanced at the girl, longing in his eyes.
"Let me give you one kiss, Pansy. A good-bye kiss," he whispered. "It's years since I've kissed you. You're such a one for keeping a fellow at arm's length nowadays."
With death knocking at the door Pansy could not refuse him; this nice boy she had always liked, yet never loved.
She thought of the man who had feasted so freely on her lips that night in the moonlit garden in Grand Canary. She wanted no man's kisses but his, no man's love but his, and his race and colour barred him out from her for ever.
"Kiss me if you like, Bob, for old time's sake. But——"
She broke off, listening to the noises from outside, the heavy, regular thud on the iron-bound door, that had now set the stone walls trembling.
"Now, I shall die a young maid instead of an old one, that's all," she said suddenly.
Cameron watched her, pain on his face; this girl who could face death with a courage that equalled his own.
Then he kissed her tenderly.
"Good-bye, Pansy, little pal," he said hoarsely.
Afterwards there was silence in the room. Between the heavy blows flies droned. Droned as if all were well with the world. As if nothing untoward were happening.
Pansy listened to them, a strained look on her face.
So they would go on droning after she was dead.
How painful the thought would once have been. But the world had grown so tragic since she had met and parted with Raoul Le Breton. Life had become so dreary. There was a constant gnawing pain at her heart now, a pain that Pansy hoped would not follow her from this world into another.
There was a crash of falling timber.
The door gave way suddenly, letting in a flood of wild, white-clad men.
If Cameron thought of anything beyond getting his four shots home among the swarming crowd, it was to wonder why they did not fire, instead of rushing towards him and the girl.
But he did not give much time to the problem.
Within four seconds, four shots had been fired at the onrushing Arabs. And with ruthless joy Cameron noted that four of them fell.
Then he turned his weapon on the girl beside him. Now that her turn had come, Pansy smiled at him bravely with white lips.
But, as Cameron turned, a shot grazed his hand, fired by the leader of the Arabs, who appeared to have grasped what the Englishman was about to do.
The bullet did not reach Pansy's brain as Cameron intended. For the pain of his wound sent his hand slightly downwards just as he pulled the trigger.
His bullet found a resting-place in her heart, it seemed. With a faint gasp she fell as if dead at his feet, a red stain on the front of her white dress.
This contretemps left the onrushing horde aghast. They halted abruptly. In silence they stood staring at the limp form of the prostrate girl, the fear of death upon their swarthy faces.