A Son of the Sahara Part 57

Certainly for him the trouble had started when it came to "woman"; when this slender, wayward, golden-haired girl came into his life. For she had robbed all other women of their sweetness.

With longing his gaze rested on Pansy.

What a fool he was not to take her.--To let her whim come between himself and his desires.

But there was something more than a girl's whim had he but realised it; a feeble new self that Pansy was responsible for: the man he might have been but for his profligate training.

Rayma saw where his gaze was. To get his eyes away from Pansy, she took one of his hands and pressed it on her bosom.

"When first I came here, my lord," she whispered, "there was nothing else you could think of."

His attention came back to her.

"You were very pretty, Rayma," he said a trifle absently.

"And am I not beautiful still?" she asked quickly.

"You're always a picture," he answered.

He talked as if to a spoilt child who bored him.

Rayma hitched herself closer, until her soft breast pressed against his knee. But he remained silent, without look or caress, his gaze still on the distant girl.

He was wondering whether he would take Pansy out of her present surroundings, or if a spell in the harem might not make her realise to the fullest her own helplessness and his complete supremacy.

Leonora watched her master, her dark eyes full of joy and malice.

"There are some people who never know when they're not wanted," she remarked _sotto voce_, and to no one in particular.

Rayma cast a venomous look at her. But Leonora only smiled at her dagger-like glances.

"Can she dance, this new slave of yours?" the Arab girl asked suddenly.

"She dances very nicely," he answered in an indifferent manner.

"As well as I do?" she asked jealously.

He thought of the snake-like writhing Rayma called "dancing."

"She dances quite differently from you."

"Let us both dance before you then, so that you may judge which is the better of us," she said quickly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Let us both dance for you, so that you may judge between us" .....]

However, he vetoed this neat arrangement.

"The girl has been wounded. And she's still not strong enough for much exertion."

Rayma brooded on this fact, and the more she thought about it, the less she liked it.

"Did you capture her on that foray?" she asked presently.

"She was part of my booty," he said, a lingering tenderness in his voice.

Again Rayma was silent.

Very quickly she put two and two together.

The Sultan had not been near the harem since his return from that quest for vengeance. And this new slave had been captured during that foray.

So this was the girl who had stolen the Sultan's heart! Who had kept him away from the harem all these dreary weeks. The girl sitting there by the distant doorway. The girl who would not come near him; whom he watched, yet did not go to.

Rayma scowled at Pansy's back.

Then she turned to one of the women attendants sitting near.

"Fetch that girl to me," she said, pointing to Pansy.

The woman rose, ready and anxious to do a favourite's bidding.

But the Sultan motioned her down again.

"She comes at no one's bidding, except mine," he said firmly.

Pouting, Rayma wriggled closer to him.

"May _I_ not even call her?" she asked softly.

"The rule applies to all here," he replied.

Somewhat impatiently he pushed Rayma aside. Then he got to his feet, and went towards Pansy.

His step behind her made the girl's heart start beating violently.

He was coming to issue some further ultimatum. Perhaps not an ultimatum even, but an order.

Pansy had wanted to see her captor, to plead for her father. Now that he was there, the words refused to pa.s.s her lips. To have asked any favour of him would have choked her.

"Well, Pansy, are you going to marry me?" he asked.

He might not have been there, for all the notice she took of him.

"Come," he went on, in an authoritative manner, "you must realise that I'm supreme, and that you must obey me."

Pansy realised this to the fullest, and the sense of her own helplessness only infuriated her. Since she had no weapon she could turn on him except her tongue, she hit at him with that. And she hit her very hardest on the spot she knew would hurt the most.

"English women don't marry n.i.g.g.e.rs," she said contemptuously.