A Son of the Sahara Part 40

When the doctor arrived, Le Breton stood silent whilst the patient was examined, in an agony of tortured love awaiting the verdict.

"There's no hope unless I can get the bullet out," the doctor had remarked at the end of the examination. "It escaped her heart by about half an inch; but it means constant haemorrhage if it's left in the lungs."

"And if it's removed?" the Sultan asked hoa.r.s.ely.

Edouard shrugged his shoulders in a non-committal manner.

"It'll be touch and go, even then. But she might pull through with care and attention. She's young and healthy. But if she survives, she'll feel the effects of that bullet for some time to come."

With that Edouard left to fetch his instruments, leaving the Sultan gazing down at the result of his own mad desire for vengeance--a red, oozing wound on a girl's white breast.

When the doctor returned, whilst he probed after the bullet Le Breton held Pansy with firm, careful strength, lest, in pain, she should move and send the instrument into the heart Cameron's shot had just missed.

But she was unconscious through it all. Although the probing brought a further gush of blood, Edouard managed to locate the bullet and extract it.

After the wound was dressed, and Pansy bound and bandaged up, the doctor left.

With his departure the Sultan sent for Pansy's belongings, which his soldiers had brought up as plunder from the raid.

There was no woman among his following, so he sent one of the guards to inquire if there was one among the captives.

Presently Pansy's mulatto maid was brought to him.

Alice was a pretty brown girl of about seventeen, clad in a blue cotton slip, and she wore a yellow silk handkerchief tied around her black curls. With awe she gazed about the sumptuous tent; with admiration at her handsome, kingly captor.

He, however, had nothing to say to her, beyond giving her instructions to serve her mistress and warning her to use the utmost care.

When Alice set about her task he went from the tent to interview Edouard.

Pansy's condition had upset his plans. Even if the girl recovered, she could not be moved for a week at least, no matter how carefully her litter was carried. And a force as large as his could not stay a week in the neighbourhood without the fact becoming known.

When Le Breton returned he dismissed Alice, and he seated himself by the couch and stayed there watching the unconscious girl.

Evening shadows crept into the tent, bringing a deft-handed, silent servant, who lighted the heavy silver lamp and withdrew as silently as he had come. Dinner appeared; a sumptuous meal that the Sultan waved aside impatiently.

Then Edouard came again, to see how the patient was faring; to give an injection and go, after a curious glance at the big, impa.s.sive figure of his patron sitting silent and brooding at his captive's side.

Gradually the noises of the camp died down, until outside there was only the sough of the forest, the whisper of the wind in the tree-tops, the occasional stamp of a horse's hoof, the hoot of an owl in the glade, and, every now and again in the distance, the mocking laugh of hyenas. Mocking at him, it seemed to Le Breton; at a man whose own doings had brought his beloved to death's door.

Within the tent there was no longer silence. Faint little moans whispered through it occasionally, mingling with the rustle of silken curtains and the sparking of the lamp. And every now and again there were weak bouts of coughing; coughs that brought an ominous red stain to Pansy's lips; stains the Sultan dabbed off carefully with a handkerchief, his strong hand shaking slightly, his arrogant face working strangely, for he knew he was responsible for the life-blood upon her lips.

Every hour Edouard came to give the injection which held the soul back from the grim, bony hands of death that groped after it. Once or twice Pansy's eyes opened, but they closed almost instantly, as if she had not strength enough to hold them open.

But before daybreak her coughs had ceased. An hour pa.s.sed, then two, without that ominous red stain coming to her lips. Edouard nodded to himself in a satisfied way as he left the tent. A little of the strained look left the Sultan's face.

The haemorrhage had stopped; youth and health were winning the battle.

Just as the first pink streak of dawn entered the tent Pansy's eyes opened again and stayed open, purple wells of pain that rested on the Sultan's with a puzzled expression.

Into the misty world of suffering and weakness in which she moved it seemed to her that Raoul Le Breton had come, looking at her as he had once looked, with love and tenderness in his glowing eyes.

She could not make out where she was or how he came to be there. She had no recollection of the horde who had broken into the guardroom where she and Cameron had been. She was too full of suffering to give any thought to the problem. Raoul Le Breton was with her, that was enough.

A wan smile of recognition trembled for a moment on her lips.

"Raoul," she said faintly.

It was more a sigh than a word. But his name whispered so feebly brought him kneeling beside her couch, bending over her eagerly.

"My darling, forgive me," he whispered pa.s.sionately.

He bent his head still lower, with infinite tenderness kissing the white lips that had breathed his name so faintly.

Pansy's eyes closed again. A look of contentment came to mingle with the suffering on her face.

Outside the hyenas still laughed mockingly: derisive echoes from a distance. But Le Breton did not hear them. Despite his treatment of her, Pansy had smiled upon him. For the first time in his wild life he felt humility and grat.i.tude, both new sensations.

When Edouard came again he p.r.o.nounced the girl sleeping, not unconscious.

"With care and attention she'll pull through," he said.

"Thank G.o.d!" his patron exclaimed, with unfeigned relief and joy.

Edouard glanced at his master speculatively.

He had heard nothing about Pansy's existence until he had been hurriedly summoned to attend her, and he wondered why his friend and patron had made no mention of the girl.

"You never told me Barclay had a daughter," he commented.

"I did not know myself until quite recently," the Sultan replied.

"Is she to share her father's fate?" the doctor asked drily.

Tenderly the Sultan gazed at the small white face on the cushions.

"She's not my enemy," he said in a caressing tone.

With a feeling of relief, Edouard left the tent.

It was most evident that the Sultan had fallen in love with his beautiful captive. If the girl played her cards well, she would be able to save her father, and prevent his patron doling out death to a British official, thus embroiling himself still further with the English Government.

After the doctor had left, Le Breton sat on Pansy's couch. Yet he had not learnt his lesson.

Although he loved the daughter, he hated the father as intensely as ever. Now he was making other plans; plans that would enable him to keep both love and vengeance. Plans, too, that might make the girl forget his colour and give him the love he now craved for so wildly.

CHAPTER VII