A Son of the Sahara Part 53

The echo of Dennis's voice shouted the word at her, as it had seemed to shout that night in the London hotel, when Le Breton's name had been mentioned.

Pansy looked at her host as he lolled beside her; a picture of strength and handsomeness.

She wished his dark blood were more in evidence. That he did not look exactly like some of the big French, Spanish, and Italian men she had seen occasionally in various places on the continent. So absolutely European was he that it was impossible to think he was half-Arab.

"I wish you weren't so nice and handsome, Raoul," she said impulsively.

He cast a quick, speculative glance at her.

Perhaps, after all, a little more patience was all that was needed--patience combined with his own presence.

When tea was over, Pansy got up in a restless way.

"I feel I must do something active, or else go mad," she remarked.

The feeling was one he could sympathise with.

"We'll have a game of tennis then, if you promise to go easy."

Pansy remembered the way he had played that afternoon in Grand Canary.

"You'll simply mop the floor with me," she said.

"I'll play you left-handed."

Only too anxious to get away from her own thoughts and the temptation they brought, Pansy turned towards the court.

When the game started he handled his opponent carefully, putting the b.a.l.l.s where she could get them without any effort.

At the end of the first set Pansy objected to his methods.

"You're not really trying, you're only playing with me," she said.

"It wouldn't be fair for me to pit all my strength against yours, would it now?" he asked.

"Well, do make a game of it. If you go on like this, I could sit down comfortably in the middle of the court and win. You needn't put the b.a.l.l.s on my racket. I can stretch an inch or so around without fatal results."

The next game was more strenuous. But, as it went on, Pansy, getting excited, forgot caution. A long stretch and an upward spring to intercept one of her opponent's b.a.l.l.s, brought cutting, knife-like pains tearing at her chest.

The racket dropped from her grip. She stood, white and swaying, her hand on her heart.

In a moment he had vaulted the net, and was at her side, his arm about her, concern on his face.

"It's nothing," she gasped.

"It's that accursed bullet," he said, conscience-stricken. "When Edouard extracted it, he warned me you'd feel the effects for some time."

He spoke without thinking, the sight of her suffering making him forget his double role.

At the moment Pansy was too full of pain to grasp what he had said.

Half leading, half carrying her, he took her to the nearest chair, settling her there with a cushion at her head.

With white lips she smiled at him; her only desire to allay his concern.

"There's nothing to worry about," she said faintly. "I'm a long way from being dead."

"It's all my fault," he said hoa.r.s.ely.

"Oh no, you always said I mustn't be too strenuous," she contradicted.

Le Breton let it stay at that, aware that he had said more than he intended to say, and hoping the girl had not grasped all that lay within his comment.

For some minutes Pansy sat quiet, and, as her pain receded, her companion's sentence came more to the fore.

"It's that accursed bullet. When Edouard extracted it he warned me you'd feel the effects for some time."

From Alice, Pansy had learnt that the bullet had been extracted on the day she was brought into her enemy's camp.

Then Raoul must have been there! With the Sultan's forces!

But why hadn't he told her? Why had he pretended that he only had _guessed_ she was the girl captured? Why had he never mentioned Dr.

Edouard before? Why had Dr. Edouard never mentioned him?

It looked as if he had not wanted her to know.

But why hadn't he wanted her to know?

As Pansy pondered on the problem, mingled with the sweetness of the roses came another scent she knew--one that had greeted her every morning during her stay in the palace.

Above the screening trellis of roses, a tree grew, covered with great bunches of pink flowers, like apple blossom but more vivid, filling the air with fragrance.

Pansy had seen the flower before; among the blossoms that used to come to her every morning in the dim, gilded chamber.

"Still only a few flowers, Pansy?"

Le Breton's remark in the orange groves at Telde suddenly flashed across her mind. She remembered also his array of Arab servants, how obsequious they had been to their master on that occasion; and his wealth and magnificence; a splendour that was almost regal.

Close to where she sat, the tea-table stood.

Among the a.s.sortment of cakes were one or two of a kind she had seen previous to her rescue. Tiny, diamond-shaped dainties, made from layers of sponge cake and marzipan with chocolate icing on the top.

Often, in those long, hopeless days in the gilded prison, a similar morsel was all she had been able to eat for her tea.

Sixteen years ago a boy of about fourteen had sworn to kill her father.

He would be thirty now. The same age as----! And the Sultan spoke French too!

They were little things, but they all pointed in one and the same direction. And, as Pansy brooded on them, an incredulous expression came to her eyes, and, with it, a look as if she were fighting to keep some horrible, impossible truth at bay.