A Son of the Sahara Part 55

There was a new slave in the Sultan's harem, a dazed girl who looked as if she moved in dreams. She was not reclining on a lounge or cushions, as the other girls around the fountain were. She half sat, half knelt upon her cushions, her slim bare legs beneath her, her hands lying listlessly on her knee, staring straight ahead as if in a trance.

Since that episode on the tennis court, Pansy felt as if she were living in the midst of some wild story, in which Raoul Le Breton and the Sultan Casim Ammeh had got mixed.

The Sultan wanted to marry her. And she had refused.

Then----!

Then, infuriated with the sense of her own helplessness and his complete power, she had struck him.

She could see him now, with the blood oozing on his lips, his face white with rage, his eyes flaming, looking as if he could kill her.

And she had wished he would. Then there would have been an end of it all. She would have done with him, herself, her own folly, and the hatred that raged like a fire within her.

But he had not touched her.

White with pa.s.sion he had just stood and looked at her. And she had looked back, waiting for the end that had not come.

Instead, three women had come. And she had been taken out of his presence. Through the big _salon_ and along dim pa.s.sages, past silk-clad, jewelled guards, and into a little room, with an ottoman and cushions and a tiny window, all fretted like lace, impossible to get out of.

Then the women had undressed her. They were three to one. It was useless to struggle: dignity seemed all that was left to her.

There was not much of that even when the women had done with her. They put her into a white silk slip that reached only to her knees, and with nothing more than a strap of pearls on either shoulder. They would have heaped more pearls upon her, string upon string about her neck.

But she would not have that. She tore them off, so angrily that the slender threads snapped and they fell like frozen tears upon the marble floor, as her amber beads had fallen that night in his villa!

What a minor thing Lucille Lemesurier was now! Forgivable when she had learnt his race and religion. Not like this gigantic deception. A deception that had forced her into saying she loved the Sultan Casim Ammeh--the man who had tortured her father.

Leaving the women grovelling after the scattered pearls Pansy had rushed from the room, her only desire to seek some way of escape.

She had gone in her short slip and short curls, looking like some lovely, rebellious child.

Her steps had taken her into a big room like a hall, where a crowd of women were gathered; half a dozen of them, girls dressed in a similar style to herself.

Then Pansy's strength went from her suddenly.

She realized where she was. In the Sultan's harem! And she knew there would be no escape.

Sara had come to her, and had led her towards a pile of cushions set by a fountain where the other girls were. And the woman had said sharp words to the a.s.sembly, who had risen as if to crowd around her--words that had kept them at bay.

When she was seated they had stayed looking at her, most of them with curiosity and friendliness. But there was one face that Pansy, for all her numbness, saw was hostile; the face of a beautiful, golden-skinned girl.

There was one girl, too, who was more than specially friendly, who said to her in a soft, cooing voice:

"Where do you come from, sister, for your skin is whiter than mine?"

Pansy did not answer Leonora's question. She was wondering herself where she came from. From another world, it seemed.

It was incredible that she, Pansy Langham, could be a slave in a Sultan's harem, garbed as these other slave girls were. Incredible that only that afternoon she had been playing tennis with Raoul Le Breton, as she might have played with any man in her own place in England.

What ages ago it was! Yet perhaps it was only an hour. Like a beautiful dream that had vanished.

There was no Raoul Le Breton. No big, masterful man whom she had had to love, in spite of everything. There was only this barbaric Sultan who hated her father. Who, because she refused to marry him, had sent her to this strange room. His harem!

And she was his slave! She Pansy Langham, who had never obeyed any will except her own.

Her hands clenched.

How she hated him! He was so supremely master.

Any moment he might come to pick whichever of his slaves he fancied.

And--he might pick her.

The ignominy of it! Just to be a man's chattel. And, hitherto, all men had been _her_ abject and willing slaves.

Heedless alike of Leonora's cooing advances, and Rayma's dark scowls, Pansy sat down.

The shadows gathered. The lamps were lit. Then dinner time came. A conglomeration of sweets and fruit and dainties set out on silver trays, with only a spoon to eat with.

Again Leonora's voice broke into Pansy's broodings.

"Come, won't you eat, my sister?" she coaxed, pushing one of the trays closer.

But Pansy felt as if she could never eat a bite again.

Rayma ate nothing either.

With angry eyes, she studied the newcomer.

Pansy was very beautiful in her way, but no more beautiful than Rayma was in hers. And what was more, she was not perfect. There was an ugly red scar on one of her milk-white arms. And the Lord Casim hated flaw or blemish on a woman.

Would this new slave's presence bring him to the harem?

If he came----!

Rayma clenched her little white teeth.

Then there would be a battle royal between this white girl and herself for his favors. But she would not let his heart go lightly.

Stretched full length on her couch, her elbows on the soft cushions, her pointed chin in the cup of her hands, the Arab girl lay watching her rival and waiting.

The evening wore on. The lamps burnt low, and started to flare and crackle, without any sign of the Sultan coming.

Presently, shriek after shriek, echoing through the vaulted hall, roused Pansy from her broodings, making her look round in a quick, startled manner. The shrieks were familiar. m.u.f.fled they had reached her every evening in that dim, gilded chamber.

"It's only Rayma," Leonora said indifferently. "She has hysterics every night because the Sultan does not come. He has not been to the harem now for three months or longer. Not since he left the city on some foray. She fears some other girl has stolen his heart from her."

Leonora paused, her great eyes on the new-comer.

"Is it you, my sister?" she finished inquisitively. "For, if so, I shall love you."

But Pansy had nothing to say.