A Son of the Sahara Part 36

Her slim arms went round his neck in a clinging pa.s.sionate 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 pa.s.sion.

"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.

CHAPTER II

Over the old fort near the river the British flag drooped limply. Many years had pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s 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 spa.r.s.ely populated and but little known district; vast areas, scarcely explored, of scrub and poor gra.s.s, 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.

CHAPTER III

About five miles away from the old fort, deep in the forest, there was a large gra.s.sy 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.