"How many rifles did the Frenchman bring to that son of darkness?" he said harshly.
She turned her head, surprised at the question, and met his bloodshot eyes fixed on hers, half-menacing, half-admiring, and looked away again hastily. "I do not know."
His fingers tightened on her wrist. "How many men had Ahmed Ben Hassan in the camp in which he kept you?"
"I do not know."
"I do not know! I do not know!" he echoed with a sudden savage laugh. "You will know when I have done with you." He crushed her wrist until she winced with pain, and turned her head away further that she might not see his face. Question after question relating to the Sheik and his tribe followed in rapid succession, but to all of them Diana remained silent, with averted head and compressed lips. He should not learn anything from her that might injure the man she loved, though he tortured her, though her life paid the price of her silence, as it probably would. She shivered involuntarily. "Shall I tell you what they would do to him?" She could hear the Sheik's voice plainly as on the night when she had asked him what Gaston's fate would be at the hands of Ibraheim Omair. She could hear the horrible meaning he had put into the words, she could see the terrible smile that had accompanied them. Her breath came faster, but her courage still held. She clung desperately to the hope that was sustaining her. Ahmed must come in time. She forced down the torturing doubts that whispered that he might never find her, that he might come too late, that when he came she might be beyond a man's desire.
Ibraheim Omair ceased his questioning. "Later you will speak," he said significantly, and drank more coffee. And his words revived the agonising thoughts she had crushed down. Her vivid imagination conjured up the same ghastly mental pictures that had appalled her when she had applied them to Gaston, but now it was herself who was the central figure in all the horrors she imagined, until the shuddering she tried to suppress shook her from head to foot, and she clenched her teeth to stop them chattering.
Ibraheim Omair kept his hold upon her, and presently, with a horrible loathing, she felt his hand passing over her arm, her neck, and down the soft curves of her slim young body, then with a muttered ejaculation he forced her to face him.
"What are you listening for? You think that Ahmed Ben Hassan will come? Little fool! He has forgotten you already. There are plenty more white women in Algiers and Oran that he can buy with his gold and his devil face. The loves of Ahmed Ben Hassan are as the stars in number. They come and go like the swift wind in the desert, a hot breath—and it's finished. He will not come, and if he does, he will not find you, for in an hour we shall be gone."
Diana writhed in his grasp. The hateful words in the guttural voice, pronounced in vile French, the leering, vicious face with the light of admiration growing in the bloodshot eyes, were all a ghastly nightmare. With a sudden desperate wrench she freed herself and fled across the tent—panic-stricken at last. But in her blind rush she tripped, and with a swiftness that seemed incompatible with his unwieldiness Ibraheim Omair followed her and caught her in his arms. Struggling he carried her to the divan. For a moment he paused, and instinctively Diana lay still, reserving her strength for the final struggle.
"One hour, my little gazelle, one hour——" he said hoarsely, and bent his face to hers.
With a cry Diana flung her head aside and strained away from him, fighting with the strength of madness. She fought like a boy with a swift thought of gratitude for Aubrey's training, and twisting and writhing she managed to slip through his grasp until her feet rested on the ground. But his grip on her never relaxed; he dragged her back to him, resisting fiercely, ripping the thin shirt from her shoulders, baring her white, heaving bosom. Gasping, she struggled, until, little by little, his arms closed round her again. She braced her hands against his chest, fending him from her till she felt the muscles in her arms must crack, but the crushing force of his whole weight was bearing her steadily backwards, and downwards on to the soft cushions beside them. His hot breath was on her face, the sickening reek of his clothes was in her nostrils. She felt her resistance growing weaker, her heart was labouring, beating with wild bounds that suffocated her, the strength was going from her arms, only a moment more and her force would be exhausted. Her brain was growing numbed, as it had been when the man who held her had murdered the woman before her eyes. If he would only kill her now. Death would be easy compared with this. The faint hope that still lingered was almost extinguished. Ahmed had not come, and in her agony the thought of him was a further torture. The sneering words of Ibraheim Omair had not shaken her faith. He would come, but he would come too late. He would never know now that she loved him. Oh, God! How she loved him! Ahmed! Ahmed! And with the soundless cry the last remnant of her strength went all at once, and she fell weakly against the chief. He forced her to her knees, and, with his hand twined brutally in her curls, thrust her head back. There was a mad light in his eyes and a foam on his lips as he dragged the knife from his waistbelt and laid the keen edge against her throat. She did not flinch, and after a moment he dropped it with a horrible laugh.
"No, afterwards," he said, and picked her up unresistingly. He flungher on the cushions and for one awful moment she felt his hands on her.Then from outside came a sudden uproar and the sharp crack of rifles.Then in a lull in the firing the Sheik's powerful voice: "Diane!Diane!"
His voice and the knowledge of his nearness gave her new strength. She leaped up in spite of Ibraheim Omair's gripping hands. "Ahmed!" she screamed once, then the chief's hand dashed against her mouth, but, frantic, she caught it in her teeth, biting it to the bone, and as he wrenched it away, shrieked again, "Ahmed! Ahmed!"
But it seemed impossible that her voice could be heard above the demoniacal noise outside the tent, and she could not call again, for, with a snarl of rage, the chief caught her by the throat as he had caught the Arab woman. And like the Arab woman her hands tore at his gripping fingers vainly. Choking, stifling with the agony in her throat, her lungs seemed bursting, the blood was beating in her ears like the deafening roar of waves, and the room was darkening with the film that was creeping over her eyes. Her hands fell powerless to her sides and her knees gave way limply. He was holding her upright only by the clutch on her throat. The drumming in her ears grew louder, the tent was fading away into blackness. Dimly, with no kind of emotion, she realised that he was squeezing the life out of her and she heard his voice coming, as it were, from a great distance: "You will not languish long in Hawiyat without your lover. I will send him quickly to you."
She was almost unconscious, but she heard the sneering voice break suddenly and the deadly pressure on her throat relaxed as the chief's hands rapidly transferred their grip to her aching shoulders, swinging her away from him and in front of him. To lift her head was agony, and the effort brought back the black mist that had lessened with the slackening of Ibraheim Omair's fingers round her neck, but it cleared again sufficiently for her to see, through a blurring haze, the outline of the tall figure that was facing her, standing by the ripped-back doorway.
There was a pause, a silence that contrasted oddly with the tumult outside, and Diana wondered numbly why the Sheik did nothing, why he did not use the revolver that was clenched in his hand Then slowly she understood that he dared not fire, that the chief was holding her, a living shield, before him, sheltering himself behind the only thing that would deter Ahmed Ben Hassan's unerring shots. Cautiously Ibraheim Omair moved backward, still holding her before him, hoping to gain the inner room. But in the shock of his enemy's sudden appearance he miscalculated the position of the divan and stumbled against it, losing his balance for only a moment, but long enough to give the man whose revolver covered him the chance he wanted. With the cold ring of steel pressing against his forehead the robber chief's hands dropped from Diana, and she slid weak and trembling on to the rug, clasping her pulsating throat, moaning with the effort that it was to breathe.
For a moment the two men looked into each other's eyes and the knowledge of death leaped into Ibraheim Omair's. With the fatalism of his creed he made no resistance, as, with a slow, terrible smile, the Sheik's left hand reached out and fastened on his throat. It would be quicker to shoot, but as Diana had suffered so should her torturer die. All the savagery in his nature rose uppermost. Beside the pitiful, gasping little figure on the rug at his feet there was the memory of six mutilated bodies, his faithful followers, men of his own age who had grown to manhood with him, picked men of his personal bodyguard who had been intimately connected with him all his life, and who had served him with devotion and unwavering obedience. They and others who had from time to time fallen victims to Ibraheim Omair's hatred of his more powerful enemy. The man who was responsible for their deaths was in his power at last, the man whose existence was a menace and whose life was an offence, of whose subtleties he had been trained from a boy to beware by the elder Ahmed Ben Hassan, who had bequeathed to him the tribal hatred of the race of whom Ibraheim Omair was head, and whose dying words had been the wish that his successor might himself exterminate the hereditary enemy. But far beyond the feelings inspired by tribal hatred or the remembrance of the vow made five years ago beside the old Sheik's deathbed, or even the death of his own followers, was the desire to kill, with his bare hands, the man who had tortured the woman he loved. The knowledge of her peril, that had driven him headlong through the night to her aid, the sight of her helpless, agonised, in the robber chief's hands, had filled him with a madness that only the fierce joy of killing would cure. Before he could listen to the clamouring of the new love in his heart, before he could gather up into his arms the beloved little body that he was yearning for, he had to destroy the man whose murders were countless and who had at last fallen into his hands.
The smile on his face deepened and his fingers tightened slowly on their hold. But with the strangling clasp of Ahmed Ben Hassan's hands upon him the love of life waked again in Ibraheim Omair and he struggled fiercely. Crouched on the floor Diana watched the two big figures swaying in mortal combat with wide, fearful eyes, her hands still holding her aching throat. Ibraheim Omair wrestled for his life, conscious of his own strength, but conscious also of the greater strength that was opposed to him. The Sheik let go the hold upon his throat and with both arms locked about him manoeuvred to get the position he required, back to the divan. Then, with a wrestler's trick, he swept Ibraheim's feet from under him and sent his huge body sprawling on to the cushions, his knee on his enemy's chest, his hands on his throat. With all his weight crushing into the chief's breast, with the terrible smile always on his lips, he choked him slowly to death, till the dying man's body arched and writhed in his last agony, till the blood burst from his nose and mouth, pouring over the hands that held him like a vice.
Diana's eyes never left the Sheik's face, she felt the old paralysing fear of him rushing over her, irresistibly drowning for the moment even the love she had for him. She had seen him in cruel, even savage moods, but nothing that had ever approached the look of horrible pleasure that was on his face now. It was a revelation of the real man with the thin layer of civilisation stripped from him, leaving only the primitive savage drunk with the lust of blood. And she was afraid, with a shuddering horror, of the merciless, crimson-stained hands that would touch her, of the smiling, cruel mouth that would be pressed on hers, and of the murderous light shining in his fierce eyes. But for the dying wretch expiating his crimes so hideously she felt no pity, he was beyond all sympathy. She had seen him murder wantonly, and she knew what her own fate would have been if Ahmed Ben Hassan had not come. And the retribution was swift. The Sheik was being more merciful to him than the robber chief had been to many, a few moments of agony instead of hours of lingering torture.
The noise outside the tent was growing louder as the fighting rolled back in its direction, and once or twice a bullet ripped through the hangings. One that came closer than the others made Diana turn her head and she saw what Ahmed Ben Hassan, absorbed in the fulfilment of his horrible task, had not even thought of—the three big negroes and a dozen Arabs who had stolen in silently from the inner room. For once, in the intoxication of the moment, the Sheik was careless and caught off his guard. Agony leaped into her eyes. The fear of him was wiped out in the fear for him. She tried to warn him, but no sound would come from her throbbing throat, and she crawled nearer to him and touched him. He dropped the dead chief back into the tumbled cushions and looked up swiftly, and at the same moment Ibraheim Omair's men made a rush. Without a word he thrust her behind the divan and turned to meet them. Before his revolver they gave way for a moment, but the burly Nubians behind swept the Arabs forward. Three times he fired and one of the negroes and two Arabs fell, but the rest hurled themselves on him, and Diana saw him surrounded. His strength was abnormal, and for some minutes the struggling mass of men strained and heaved about him. Diana was on her feet, swaying giddily, powerless to help him, cold with dread. Then above the clamour that was raging inside and out she heard Saint Hubert's voice shouting, and with a shriek that seemed to rip her tortured throat she called to him. The Sheik, too, heard, and with a desperate effort for a moment won clear, but one of the Nubians was behind him, and, as Saint Hubert and a crowd of the Sheik's own men poured in through the opening, he brought down a heavy club with crashing force on Ahmed Ben Hassan's head, and as he fell another drove a broad knife deep into his back. For a few minutes more the tramping feet surged backward and forward over the Sheik's prostrate body. Diana tried to get to him, faint and stumbling, flung here and there by the fighting, struggling men, until a strong hand caught her and drew her aside. She strained against the detaining arm, but it was one of Ahmed's men, and she gave in as a growing faintness came over her. Mistily she saw Saint Hubert clear a way to his friend's side, and then she fainted, but only for a few moments. Saint Hubert was still on his knees beside the Sheik when she opened her eyes, and the tent was quite quiet, filled with tribesmen waiting in stoical silence. The camp of Ibraheim Omair had been wiped out, but Ahmed Ben Hassan's men looked only at the unconscious figure of their leader.
Saint Hubert glanced up hastily as Diana came to his side. "You are all right?" he asked anxiously, but she did not answer. What did it matter about her?
"Is he going to die?" she said huskily, for speaking still hurt horribly.
"I don't know—but we must get away from here. I need more appliances than I have with me, and we are too few to stay and risk a possible attack if there are others of Ibraheim Omair's men in the neighbourhood."
Diana looked down on the wounded man fearfully. "But the ride—the jolting," she gasped.
"It has got to be risked," replied Saint Hubert abruptly.
Of the long, terrible journey back to Ahmed Ben Hassan's camp Diana never remembered very much. It was an agony of dread and apprehension, of momentary waiting for some word or exclamation from the powerful Arab who was holding him, or from Saint Hubert, who was riding beside him, that would mean his death, and of momentary respites from fear and faint glimmerings of hope as the minutes dragged past and the word she was dreading did not come. Once a sudden halt seemed to stop her heart beating, but it was only to give a moment's rest to the Arab whose strength was taxed to the uttermost with the Sheik's inert weight, but who refused to surrender his privilege to any other. Moments of semi-unconsciousness, when she swayed against the arm of the watchful tribesman riding beside her, and his muttered ejaculation of "Allah! Allah!" sent a whispered supplication to her own lips to the God they both worshipped so differently. He must not die. God would not be so cruel.
From time to time Saint Hubert spoke to her, and the quiet courage of his voice steadied her breaking nerves. As they passed the scene of the ambuscade he told her of Gaston. It was there that the first band of waiting men met them, warned already of their coming by a couple of Arabs whom the Vicomte had sent on in advance with the news.
The dawn was breaking when they reached the camp. Diana had a glimpse of rows of unusually silent men grouped beside the tent, but all her mind was concentrated on the long, limp figure that was being carefully lifted down from the sweating horse. They carried him into the tent and laid him on the divan, beside which Henri had already put out all the implements that his master would need.
While Saint Hubert, with difficulty, cleared the tent of the Sheik's men Diana stood beside the divan and looked at him. He was soaked in blood that had burst through the temporary bandages, and his whole body bore evidence of the terrible struggle that had gone before the blow that had felled him. One blood-covered hand hung down almost touching the rug. Diana lifted it in her own, and the touch of the nerveless fingers sent a sob into her throat. She caught her lip between her teeth to stop it trembling as she laid his hand down on the cushions. Saint Hubert came to her, rolling up his shirt-sleeves significantly.
"Diane, you have been through enough," he said gently. "Go and rest while I do what I can for Ahmed. I will come and tell you as soon as I am finished."
She looked up fiercely. "It's no good telling me to go away, because I won't. I must help you. I can help you. I shall go mad if you don't let me do something. See! My hands are quite steady." She held them out as she spoke, and Saint Hubert gave in without opposition.
The weakness that had sent her trembling into his arms the day before had been the fear of danger to the man she loved, but in the face of actual need the courage that was so much a part of her nature did not fail her. He made no more remonstrances, but set about his work quickly. And all through the horrible time that followed she did not falter. Her face was deadly pale, and dark lines showed below her eyes, but her hands did not shake, and her voice was low and even. She suffered horribly. The terrible wound that the Nubian's knife had made was like a wound in her own heart. She winced as if the hurt had been her own when Saint Hubert's gentle, dexterous fingers touched the Sheik's bruised head. And when it was over and Raoul had turned aside to wash his hands, she slipped on to her knees beside him. Would he live? The courage that had kept her up so far had not extended to asking Saint Hubert again, and a few muttered words from Henri, to which the Vicomte had responded with only a shrug, had killed the words that were hovering on her lips. She looked at him with anguished eyes.
Only a few hours before he had come to her in all the magnificence of his strength. She looked at the long limbs lying now so still, so terribly, suggestively still, and her lips trembled again, but her pain-filled eyes were dry. She could not cry, only her throat ached and throbbed perpetually. She leaned over him whispering his name, and a sudden hunger came to her to touch him, to convince herself that he was not dead. She glanced back over her shoulder at Saint Hubert, but he had gone to the open doorway to speak to Yusef, and was standing out under the awning. She bent lower over the unconscious man; his lips were parted slightly, and the usual sternness of his mouth was relaxed.
"Ahmed, oh, my dear!" she whispered unsteadily, and kissed him with lips that quivered against the stillness of his. Then for a moment she dropped her bright head beside the bandaged one on the pillow, but when the Vicomte came back she was kneeling where he had left her, her hands clasped over one of the Sheik's and her face hidden against the cushions.
Saint Hubert put his hand on her shoulder. "Diane, you are torturing yourself unnecessarily. We cannot know for some time how it will go with him. Try and get some sleep for a few hours. You can do no good by staying here. Henri and I will watch. I will call you if there is any change, my word of honour."
She shook her head without looking up. "I can't go. I couldn't sleep."
Saint Hubert did not press it. "Very well," he said quietly, "but if you are going to stay you must take off your riding-boots and put on something more comfortable than those clothes."
She realised the sense of what he was saying, and obeyed him without a word. She even had to admit to herself a certain sensation of relief after she had bathed her aching head and throat, and substituted a thin, silk wrap for the torn, stained riding-suit.
Henri was pouring out coffee when she came back, and Saint Hubert turned to her with a cup in his outstretched hand. "Please take it. It will do you good," he said, with a little smile that was not reflected in his anxious eyes.
She took it unheeding, and, swallowing it hastily, went to the side of the divan again. She slid down on to the rug where she had knelt before. The Sheik was lying as she had left him. For a few moments she looked at him, then drowsily her eyes closed and her head fell forward on the cushions, and with a half-sad smile of satisfaction Saint Hubert gathered her up into his arms.
He carried her into the bedroom, hesitating beside the couch before he put her down. Surely one moment out of a lifetime might be granted to him. He would never have the torturing happiness of holding her in his arms again, would never again clasp her against the heart that was crying out for her with the same mad passion that had swept over him yesterday. He looked down longingly on the pale face lying against his arm, and his features contracted at the sight of the cruel marks marring the whiteness of her delicate throat. The love that all his life he had longed for, that he had sought vainly through many countries, had come to him at last, and it had come too late. The helpless loveliness lying in his arms was not for him. It was Ahmed whom she loved, Ahmed who had waked to such a tardy recognition of the priceless gift that she had given him, Ahmed whom he must wrest from the grim spectre that was hovering near him lest the light that shone in her violet eyes should go out in the blackness of despair. And yet as he looked at her with eyes filled with hopeless misery a demon of suggestion whispered within him, tempting him. He knew his friend as no one else did. What chance of happiness had any woman with a man like Ahmed Ben Hassan, at the mercy of his savage nature and passionate changeable moods? What reason to suppose that the love that had flamed up so suddenly at the thought that he had lost her would survive the knowledge of repossession? To him, all his life, a thing desired had upon possession become valueless. With the fulfilment of acquisition had come always disinterest. The pleasure of pursuit faded with ownership. Would this hapless girl who had poured out such a wealth of love at the feet of the man who had treated her brutally fare any better at his hands? Her chance was slight, if any. Ahmed in the full power of his strength again would be the man he had always been, implacable, cruel, merciless. Saint Hubert's own longing, his passionate, Gallic temperament, were driving him as they had driven him the day before. The longing to save her from misery was acute, that, and his own love, prompted by the urging of the desire within him. Then he trembled, and a great fear of himself came over him. Ahmed was his friend. Who was he that he should judge him? He could at least be honest with himself, he could own the truth. He coveted what was not his, and masked his envy with a hypocrisy that now appeared contemptible. The clasp of his arms around her seemed suddenly a profanation, and he laid her down very gently on the low couch, drawing the thin coverlet over her, and went back slowly to the other room.
He sent Henri away and sat down beside the divan to watch with a feeling of weariness that was not bodily. The great tent was very still, a pregnant silence seemed to hang in the air, a brooding hush that strained Saint Hubert's already overstrained nerves. He had need of all his calm, and he gripped himself resolutely. For a time Ahmed Ben Hassan lay motionless, and then, as the day crept on and the early rays of the warm sun filled the tent, he moved uneasily, and began to mutter feverishly in confused Arabic and French. At first the words that came were almost unintelligible, pouring out with rapid indistinctness, then by degrees his voice slowed, and hesitating, interrupted sentences came clearly from his lips. And beside him, with his face buried in his hands, Raoul de Saint Hubert thanked God fervently that he had saved Diana the added torture of listening to the revelations of the past four months.
The first words were in Arabic, then the slow, soft voice lapsed intoFrench, pure as the Vicomte's own.
"Two hours south of the oasis with the three broken palm trees by the well…. Lie still, you little fool, it is useless to struggle. You cannot get away, I shall not let you go…. Why have I brought you here? You ask me why?Mon Dieu!Are you not woman enough to know? No! I will not spare you. Give me what I want willingly and I will be kind to you, but fight me, and by Allah! you shall pay the cost!… I know you hate me, you have told me so already. Shall I make you love me?… Still disobedient? When will you learn that I am master?… I have not tired of you yet, you lovely little wild thing,garcon manque….You say she is cowed; I say she is content—content to give me everything I ask of her…. For four months she has fought me. Why does it give me no pleasure to have broken her at last? Why do I want her still? She is English and I have made her pay for my hatred of her cursed race. I have tortured her to keep my vow, and still I want her…. Diane, Diane, how beautiful you are!… What devil makes me hate Raoul after twenty years? Last night she only spoke to him, and when he went I cursed her till I saw the terror in her eyes. She fears me. Why should I care if she loves him…. I knew she was not asleep when I went to her. I felt her quivering beside me…. I wanted to kill Raoul when he would not come with me, but for that I would have gone back to her…. Allah! how long the day has been…. Has it been long to her? Will she smile or tremble when I come?… Where is Diane?… Diane, Diane, how could I know how much you meant to me? How could I know that I should love you?… Diane, Diane, my sunshine. The tent is cold and dark without you…. Ibraheim Omair! That devil and Diane! Oh, Allah! Grant me time to get to her…. How the jackals are howling…. See, Raoul, there are the tents…. Diane, where are you?… Grand Dieu! He has been torturing her!… You knew that I would come,ma bien aimee, only a few moments while I kill him, then I can hold you in my arms.Dieu!If you knew how much I loved you…. Diane, Diane, it is all black. I cannot see you, Diane, Diane…."
And hour after hour with weary hopelessness the tired voice went on—"Diane, Diane…."
It was evening when Diana opened drowsy and heavy eyes, a bitter taste in her mouth from the effects of the drug that Saint Hubert had given her. Everything had been laid out in readiness for her waking with the little touches that were characteristic of Zilah's handiwork, but the Arab girl herself was not visible. The lamp was lighted, and Diana turned her head languidly, still half confused, to look at the clock beside her. The tiny chime sounded seven times, and with a rush of recollection she leaped up. More than twelve hours since she had knelt beside him after drinking the coffee that Raoul had given her. She guessed what he had done and tried to be grateful, but the thought of what might have happened during the twelve hours she had lain like a log was horrible. She dressed with feverish haste and went into the outer room. It was filled with Arabs, many of whom she did not recognise, and she knew that they must belong to the reinforcements that Ahmed Ben Hassan had sent for. Two, who seemed from their appearance to be petty chiefs, were talking in low tones to Saint Hubert, who looked worn and tired. The rest were grouped silently about the divan, looking at the still-unconscious Sheik. The restlessness and delirium of the morning had passed and been succeeded by a death-like stupor. Nearest to him stood Yusef, his usual swaggering self-assurance changed into an attitude of deepest dejection, and his eyes, that were fixed on Ahmed Ben Hassan's face, were like those of a whipped dog.
Gradually the tent emptied until only Yusef was left, and at last, reluctantly, he too went, stopping at the entrance to speak to Saint Hubert, who had just taken leave of the two headmen.
The Vicomte came back, bringing a chair for Diana, and put her into it with gentle masterfulness. "Sit down," he said almost gruffly. "You look like a ghost."
She looked up at him reproachfully. "You drugged that coffee, Raoul. If he had died to-day while I was asleep I don't think I could ever have forgiven you."
"My dear child," he said gravely, "you don't know how near you were to collapse. If I had not made you sleep I should have had three patients on my hands instead of two."
"I am very ungrateful," she murmured, with a tremulous little smile.
Saint Hubert brought a chair for himself and dropped into it wearily. He felt very tired, the strain of the past twenty-four hours had been tremendous. He had a very real fear that was fast growing into a conviction that his skill was going to prove unequal to save his friend's life, and beside that anxiety and his physical fatigue he had fought a bitter fight with himself all day, tearing out of his heart the envy and jealousy that filled it, and locking away his love as a secret treasure to be hidden for always. His devotion to Ahmed Ben Hassan had survived the greatest test that could be imposed upon it, and had emerged from the trial strengthened and refined, with every trace of self obliterated. It had been the hardest struggle of his life, but it was over now, and all the bitterness had passed, leaving only a passionate desire for Diana's happiness that outweighed every other thought. One spark of comfort remained. He would not be quite useless. His help and sympathy would be necessary to her, and even for that he was grateful.
He looked across the divan at her, and the change that the last few hours had made in her struck him painfully. The alert, vigorous boyishness that had been so characteristic was gone. Her slim figure drooping listlessly in the big chair, her white face with the new marks of suffering on it, and her wide eyes burning with dumb misery, were all purely womanly. And yet though he resented the change he wished it could have gone further. The restraint she was putting on herself was unnatural. She asked no questions and she shed no tears. He could have borne them both easier than the silent anguish of her face. He feared the results of the emotion she was repressing so rigidly.
There was a long silence.
Henri came in once and Diana roused herself to ask for Gaston, and then relapsed into silent watchfulness again. She sighed once, a long quivering sigh that nearly broke Saint Hubert's heart. He rose and bent over the Sheik with his fingers on his wrist, and as he laid the nerveless hand down again she leaned nearer and covered it with her own.
"His hand is so big for an Arab's," she said softly, like a thought spoken aloud unconsciously.
"He is not an Arab," replied Saint Hubert with sudden, impatient vehemence. "He is English."
Diana looked up at him swiftly with utter bewilderment in her startled eyes. "I don't understand," she faltered. "He hates the English."
"Quand-meme, he is the son of one of your English peers. His mother was a Spanish lady; many of the old noble Spanish families have Moorish blood in their veins, the characteristics crop up even after centuries. It is so with Ahmed, and his life in the desert has accentuated it. Has he never told you anything about himself?"
She shook her head. "Sometimes I have wondered——" she said reflectively. "He seemed different from the others, and there has been so much that I could never understand. But then again there were times when he seemed pure Arab," she added in a lower voice and with an involuntary shiver.
"You ought to know," said Saint Hubert. "Yes!" he went on firmly, as she tried to interrupt him. "It is due to you. It will explain so many things. I will take the responsibility. His father is the Earl of Glencaryll."
"But I know him," said Diana wonderingly. "He was a friend of my father. I saw him only a few months ago when Aubrey and I passed through Paris. He is such a magnificent-looking old man, so fierce and sad. Oh, now I know why that awful frown of Ahmed's has always seemed so familiar. Lord Glencaryll frowns like that. It is the famous Caryll scowl. But I still don't understand." She looked from Saint Hubert to the unconscious man on the divan and back to Saint Hubert with a new trouble growing in her eyes.
"I had better tell you the whole story," said Raoul, dropping back into his chair.
"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 Hassan. A chance acquaintance some years before over the purchase of some horses had ripened into a very intimate friendship 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 Hassan'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 quantities 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 superstitious 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 passionately attached to her. My father says that he has never seen a man so madly in love as Ahmed Ben Hassan 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 Hassan. 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 noble houses in Spain, as poor as they were noble, 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 andgauche, 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 Hassan 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 passionate 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 Hassan 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 hisbeaux yeuxled him into endless scrapes. 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 hisdiablerieshe 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 Hassan 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 fashion—'Le bel Arabe' he was called, and he enjoyed asucces fouwhich 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 Ahmeden 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 attitude 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 worshipped 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 title 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 fordejeuner, 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 passionately 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 title, 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 Hassan.' 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 embarrassing, 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 worshipped. 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 nobody 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 leadership 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, passionate 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 passionate temper that he had inherited, the position of despotic leadership 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! Hemustlive! 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 gods 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 God 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 passionate 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 space was swarming with men, some squatting on the ground in circles, others clustered 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 shifting 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 god 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 petitions 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 anyrapprochementbetween 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 God! 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 shiver. 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 Hassan.
She shivered again and turned back into the tent with Saint Hubert.They halted by the couch and stood for a long time in silence. ThenDiana slowly raised her head and looked up into Raoul's face, and heread the agonised question in her eyes.
"I don't know," he said gently. "All things are with Allah."