The Sheik Part 17

"No. Not coffee. Water," she said firmly.

Before she realised what was happening the woman thrust a strong arm round her and forced the cup to her lips. That confirmed Diana's suspicions and rage lent her additional strength. The woman was strong, but Diana was stronger, younger and more active. She dashed the cup to the floor, spilling its contents, and, with an effort, tore the clinging hands from her and sent the woman crashing on to the ground, rolling against the brazier, oversetting it, and scattering bra.s.s pots and cups over the rug. The woman scrambled to her knees and beat out the glowing embers, uttering scream after scream in a shrill, piercing voice. And, in answer to her cries, a curtain at the side of the tent, that Diana had not noticed, slid aside and a gigantic Nubian came in.

With outstretched hand shaking with rage, pointing at Diana, she burst into voluble abuse, punctuating every few words with the shrieks that had brought the negro.

Diana could understand nothing of what she said, but her expressive gestures told the story of the struggle plainly enough. The Nubian listened with white teeth flashing in a broad grin, and shook his head in response to some request urged with denunciatory fist. He picked up the last remaining embers that had scattered on the rug, rubbing the smouldering patches till they were extinguished, and then turned to leave the room. But Diana called him back. She went a step forward, her head high, and looked him straight in the face.

"Fetch me water!" she said imperiously. He pointed to the coffee that the woman had recommenced to make, her back turned to them, but Diana stamped her foot. "Water! Bring me water!" she said again, more imperiously than before. With a wider grin the negro made a gesture of acquiescence and went out, returning in a few moments with a water-skin.

The thought of its condition made her hesitate for a moment, but only for a moment. Her thirst was too great to allow niceties to interfere with it. She picked up one of the clean coffee-cups that had rolled to her feet, rinsed it several times, and then drank. The water was warm and slightly brackish, but she needed it too much to mind. In spite of being tepid it relieved the dry, suffocating feeling in her throat and refreshed her. The Nubian went away again, leaving the woman still crouching over the brazier.

Diana walked back to the cushions and dropped down on to them gladly.

The events of the last few moments had tried her more than she realised, her legs were shaking under her, and she was thankful to sit down. But her courage had risen with a bound; the fact that she was physically stronger than the woman who had been put to guard her, and also that she had gained her point with the burly negro, had a great moral effect on her, further restoring her confidence in herself.

Her position was an appalling one, but hope was strong within her. The fact that since she had regained consciousness she had seen only the woman and the Nubian seemed to argue that Ibraheim Omair must be absent from his camp; the thought that he might purposely be delaying the moment of inspecting his captive with a view to prolonging her mental torture she put from her as improbable. She did not credit him with so much ac.u.men. And from his absence her courage gained strength. If it could only be prolonged until Ahmed reached her. That the Sheik would come she knew, her faith in him was unbounded. If he only came in time!

Hours had pa.s.sed since the ambuscade had surprised them. It had been early afternoon then. Now the lighted lamp told her it was night. How late she did not know. Her watch had been broken some months before, and she had no means of even guessing the hour, but it must be well on in the evening. By now the absence of herself and Gaston and their escort would be discovered. He would know her peril and he would come to her. Of that she had no doubt. Although he had changed so strangely in the last few days, though the wonderful gentleness of the last two months had merged again into indifference and cruelty, still she never doubted. Even if desire had pa.s.sed and indifference had become so great that she was no longer necessary to him, still the Oriental jealousy with which he was so deeply imbued would never allow him to let her pa.s.s so lightly from his keeping. He might discard her at his own pleasure, but no one would take her from him with impunity. Her woman's intuition had sensed the jealousy that had actuated him during the unhappy days since Saint Hubert had come. An inconsistent jealousy that had been unprovoked and unjustified, but for which she had suffered.

She had known last night, when she winced under his sarcastic tongue, and later, when Saint Hubert had left them and his temper had suddenly boiled over, that she was paying for the unaccustomed strain that he was putting on his own feelings. His curses had eaten into her heart, and she had fled from him to stifle the coward instinct that urged her to confess her love and beg his mercy. She had lain awake with shivering apprehension waiting for him, but when, after nearly two hours, he had sauntered in, the usual cigarette between his lips, indifference had taken the place of rage, and he had ignored her, as she had grown used to being ignored. And long after she knew from his even breathing that he was asleep she had lain wide-eyed beside him, grasping at what happiness she could, living for the moment as she had schooled herself to live, trying to be content with just the fact of his nearness. And the indifference of the night had been maintained when he had left her at dawn, his persistent silence pointing the continuance of his displeasure. But he would come, if for no other reason than the same jealousy which held him in its inexorable grip. He would come! He would come! She whispered it over to herself as if merely the sound of the words gave her courage. He would not let anything happen to her. Every moment that Ibraheim Omair stayed away was so much gained, every moment he would be coming nearer. The reversal of the role he played in her life brought a quivering smile to her lips. For the advent of the man who a few weeks before she had loathed for his brutal abduction of herself she now prayed with the desperation of despair. He represented safety, salvation, everything that made life worth living.

A sudden noise and men's voices in the adjoining room sent her to her feet with heaving breast and clenched hands. But the sharp, guttural voice predominating over the other voices killed the wild hope that had sprung up in her by its utter dissimilarity to the soft low tones for which she longed. Ibraheim Omair! He had come first! She set her teeth with a long, shuddering breath, bracing herself to meet what was coming.

The Arab woman turned to look at her again with a sneering smile that was full of significance, but beyond a fleeting glance of disdain Diana paid no attention to her. She stood rigid, one foot beating nervously into the soft rug. She noticed irrelevantly at the moment that both her spurs and the empty holster had been removed whilst she was unconscious, and with the odd detachment that transfers a train of thought from the centre of importance even at a supreme moment, she wondered, with an annoyance that seemed curiously futile, why it had been done.

The voices in the next room continued, until Diana almost prayed for the moment she was waiting for would come; suspense was worse than the ordeal for which she was nerving herself, It came at last. The curtain slid aside again, and the same huge negro she had seen before entered.

He came towards her, and her breath hissed in suddenly between her set teeth, but before he reached her the Arab woman intercepted him, blocking his way, and with wild eyes and pa.s.sionate gestures poured out a stream of low, frenzied words. The Nubian turned on her impatiently and thrust her roughly out of his way, and, coming to Diana, put out his hand as if to grasp her arm, but she stepped back with flashing eyes and a gesture that he obeyed.

Her heart was pounding, but she had herself under control. Only her hands twitched, her long fingers curling and uncurling spasmodically, and she buried them deep in her breeches' pockets to hide them. She walked slowly to the curtain and nodded to the Nubian to draw it aside, and slower still she pa.s.sed into the other room. Only a little larger than the one she had left, almost as bare, but her mind took in these things uncomprehendingly, for all her attention was focussed on the central figure in the room.

Ibraheim Omair, the robber Sheik, lolling his great bulk on a pile of cushions, a little inlaid stool with coffee beside him, and behind him, standing motionless as if formed of bronze, two other negroes, so like the one that had summoned her that they seemed like statues that had been cast from one mould.

Diana paused for a moment framed in the entrance, then, with head thrown back and swaggering, boyish stride, she moved across the thick rugs leisurely and halted in front of the chief, looking straight at him with haughty, curling lips and insolent, half-closed eyes. The hold she was exercising over herself was tremendous, her body was rigid with the effort, and her hands deep down in her pockets clenched till the nails bit into the palms. Every instinct was rebelling against the calm she forced upon herself. She longed to scream and make a dash for the opening that she guessed was behind her, and to take her chance in the darkness outside. But she knew that such a chance was impossible; if she ever reached the open air she would never be allowed to get more than a few steps from the tent. Her only course lay in the bravado that alone kept her from collapse. She must convey the impression of fearlessness, though cold terror was knocking at her heart. Masked with indifference her veiled eyes were watching the robber chief closely.

This was, indeed, the Arab of her imaginings, this gross, unwieldy figure lying among the tawdry cushions, his swollen, ferocious face seamed and lined with every mark of vice, his full, sensual lips parted and showing broken, blackened teeth, his deep-set, bloodshot eyes with a look in them that it took all her resolution to sustain, a look of such b.e.s.t.i.a.l evilness that the horror of it bathed her in perspiration.

His appearance was slovenly, his robes, originally rich, were stained and tumbled, the fat hands lying spread out on his knees were engrained with dirt, showing even against his dark skin. His heavy face lit up with a gleam of malicious satisfaction as Diana came towards him, his loose mouth broadened in a wicked smile. He leaned forward a little, weighing heavily on the hands that were on his knees, his eyes roving slowly over her till they rested on her face again.

"So! the white woman of my brother Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san," he said slowly, in villainous French, with a sudden, snarling intonation as he uttered his enemy's name. "Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san! May Allah burn his soul in h.e.l.l!"

he added with relish, and spat contemptuously.

He leaned back on the cushions with a grunt, and drank some coffee noisily.

Diana kept her eyes fixed on him, and under their unwavering stare he seemed to be uneasy, his own inflamed eyes wandering ceaselessly over her, one hand fumbling at the curved hilt of a knife stuck in his belt, and at last he grew exasperated, hitching himself forward once more and beckoning her to come nearer to him. She hesitated, and as she paused uncertainly, there was a flutter of draperies behind her, and the Arab woman from the inner room, evading the negro who stepped forward to stop her, flung herself at the feet of Ibraheim Omair, clinging to his knees with a low wailing cry. In a flash Diana realised the meaning of the hatred that had gleamed in the woman's eyes earlier in the evening.

To her she was a rival, whose coming to share the favours of her lord had aroused all the jealousy of the reigning favourite. A wave of disgust mingled with the fear that was torturing her. She jerked her head angrily, fighting against the terror that was growing on her, and for a moment her lashes drooped and hid her eyes. When she looked up again the woman was still crouched at the old Arab's feet, imploring and distraught.

Ibraheim Omair looked down on her curiously, his lips drawn back from his blackened teeth in an evil grin, and then shook her off violently with a swift blow in the mouth, but the woman clung closer, with upturned, desperate face, a thin trickle of blood oozing from her lips, and with a hoa.r.s.e growl that was like the dull roar of a savage beast the robber chief caught her by the throat and held her for a moment, her frantic, clutching hands powerless against his strong grasp, then slowly drew the long knife from the ample folds of his waist-cloth, and as slowly drove it home into the strangling woman's breast. With savage callousness, before he released his hold of her, he wiped the stained knife carefully on her clothing and replaced it, and then flung the dead body from him. It rolled over on the rug midway between him and Diana.

There was a momentary silence in the room, and Diana became conscious of a m.u.f.fled, rhythmical beat near her, like the ticking of a great clock, and realised with dull wonder that it was her own heart beating.

She seemed turned to stone, petrified with the horror of the last few moments. Her eyes were glued to the still figure on the rug before her with the gaping wound in the breast, from which the blood was welling, staining the dark draperies of the woman's clothes, and creeping slowly down to the rug on which the body lay. She was dazed, and odd thoughts flitted through her mind. It was a pity, she thought stupidly, that the blood should spoil the rug. It was a lovely rug. She wondered what it would have cost in Biskra--less, probably, than it would in London.

Then she forgot the rug as her eyes travelled upward to the woman's face. The mouth was open and the streak of blood was drying, but it was the eyes, protruding, agonised, that brought Diana abruptly to herself.

She seemed to wake suddenly to the full realisation of what had happened and to her own peril. She felt physically sick for a moment, but she fought it down. Very slowly she raised her head, and, meeting Ibraheim Omair's eyes fixed on her, she looked full at him across the dead woman's body and laughed! It was that or shriek. The curls were clinging drenched on her forehead, and she wondered if her clenched hands would ever unclose. She must make no sign, she must not scream or faint, she must keep her nerve until Ahmed came. Oh, dear G.o.d, send him quickly! The laugh wavered hysterically, and she caught her lip between her teeth. She must do something to distract her attention from that awful still shape at her feet. Almost unconsciously she grasped the cigarette case in her pocket and took it out, dragging her eyes from the horrible sight on which they were fixed, and chose and lit a cigarette with slow care, flicking the still-burning match on to the carpet between the feet of the negro who stood near her. He had not moved since he had failed to stop the woman's entrance, and the two stationed behind the pile of cushions had stood motionless, their eyes hardly following the tragedy enacted before them. At a nod from the chief they came now and carried away the body of the woman. One returned in a moment, bringing fresh coffee, and then vanished noiselessly.

Then Ibraheim Omair leaned forward with a horrible leer and beckoned to Diana, patting the cushions beside him. Mastering the loathing that filled her she sat down with all the unconcern she could a.s.sume. The proximity of the man nauseated her. He reeked of sweat and grease and ill-kept horses, the pungent stench of the native. Her thoughts went back to the other Arab, of whose habits she had been forced into such an intimate knowledge. Remembering all that she had heard of the desert people she had been surprised at the fastidious care he took of himself, the frequent bathing, the spotless cleanliness of his robes, the fresh wholesomeness that clung about him, the faint, clean smell of shaving-soap mingling with the perfume of the Turkish tobacco that was always a.s.sociated with him.

The contrast was hideous.

She refused the coffee he offered her with a shake of her head, paying no attention to his growl of protest, not even understanding it, for he spoke in Arabic. As she laid down the end of her cigarette with almost the feeling of letting go a sheet anchor--for it had at least kept her lips from trembling--his fat hand closed about her wrist and he jerked her towards him.

"How many rifles did the Frenchman bring to that son of darkness?" he said harshly.

She turned her head, surprised at the question, and met his bloodshot eyes fixed on hers, half-menacing, half-admiring, and looked away again hastily. "I do not know."

His fingers tightened on her wrist. "How many men had Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san in the camp in which he kept you?"

"I do not know."

"I do not know! I do not know!" he echoed with a sudden savage laugh.

"You will know when I have done with you." He crushed her wrist until she winced with pain, and turned her head away further that she might not see his face. Question after question relating to the Sheik and his tribe followed in rapid succession, but to all of them Diana remained silent, with averted head and compressed lips. He should not learn anything from her that might injure the man she loved, though he tortured her, though her life paid the price of her silence, as it probably would. She shivered involuntarily. "Shall I tell you what they would do to him?" She could hear the Sheik's voice plainly as on the night when she had asked him what Gaston's fate would be at the hands of Ibraheim Omair. She could hear the horrible meaning he had put into the words, she could see the terrible smile that had accompanied them.

Her breath came faster, but her courage still held. She clung desperately to the hope that was sustaining her. Ahmed must come in time. She forced down the torturing doubts that whispered that he might never find her, that he might come too late, that when he came she might be beyond a man's desire.

Ibraheim Omair ceased his questioning. "Later you will speak," he said significantly, and drank more coffee. And his words revived the agonising thoughts she had crushed down. Her vivid imagination conjured up the same ghastly mental pictures that had appalled her when she had applied them to Gaston, but now it was herself who was the central figure in all the horrors she imagined, until the shuddering she tried to suppress shook her from head to foot, and she clenched her teeth to stop them chattering.

Ibraheim Omair kept his hold upon her, and presently, with a horrible loathing, she felt his hand pa.s.sing over her arm, her neck, and down the soft curves of her slim young body, then with a muttered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n he forced her to face him.

"What are you listening for? You think that Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san will come?

Little fool! He has forgotten you already. There are plenty more white women in Algiers and Oran that he can buy with his gold and his devil face. The loves of Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san are as the stars in number. They come and go like the swift wind in the desert, a hot breath--and it's finished. He will not come, and if he does, he will not find you, for in an hour we shall be gone."

Diana writhed in his grasp. The hateful words in the guttural voice, p.r.o.nounced in vile French, the leering, vicious face with the light of admiration growing in the bloodshot eyes, were all a ghastly nightmare.

With a sudden desperate wrench she freed herself and fled across the tent--panic-stricken at last. But in her blind rush she tripped, and with a swiftness that seemed incompatible with his unwieldiness Ibraheim Omair followed her and caught her in his arms. Struggling he carried her to the divan. For a moment he paused, and instinctively Diana lay still, reserving her strength for the final struggle.

"One hour, my little gazelle, one hour----" he said hoa.r.s.ely, and bent his face to hers.

With a cry Diana flung her head aside and strained away from him, fighting with the strength of madness. She fought like a boy with a swift thought of grat.i.tude for Aubrey's training, and twisting and writhing she managed to slip through his grasp until her feet rested on the ground. But his grip on her never relaxed; he dragged her back to him, resisting fiercely, ripping the thin shirt from her shoulders, baring her white, heaving bosom. Gasping, she struggled, until, little by little, his arms closed round her again. She braced her hands against his chest, fending him from her till she felt the muscles in her arms must crack, but the crushing force of his whole weight was bearing her steadily backwards, and downwards on to the soft cushions beside them. His hot breath was on her face, the sickening reek of his clothes was in her nostrils. She felt her resistance growing weaker, her heart was labouring, beating with wild bounds that suffocated her, the strength was going from her arms, only a moment more and her force would be exhausted. Her brain was growing numbed, as it had been when the man who held her had murdered the woman before her eyes. If he would only kill her now. Death would be easy compared with this. The faint hope that still lingered was almost extinguished. Ahmed had not come, and in her agony the thought of him was a further torture. The sneering words of Ibraheim Omair had not shaken her faith. He would come, but he would come too late. He would never know now that she loved him. Oh, G.o.d! How she loved him! Ahmed! Ahmed! And with the soundless cry the last remnant of her strength went all at once, and she fell weakly against the chief. He forced her to her knees, and, with his hand twined brutally in her curls, thrust her head back. There was a mad light in his eyes and a foam on his lips as he dragged the knife from his waistbelt and laid the keen edge against her throat. She did not flinch, and after a moment he dropped it with a horrible laugh.

"No, afterwards," he said, and picked her up unresistingly. He flung her on the cushions and for one awful moment she felt his hands on her.

Then from outside came a sudden uproar and the sharp crack of rifles.

Then in a lull in the firing the Sheik's powerful voice: "Diane!

Diane!"

His voice and the knowledge of his nearness gave her new strength. She leaped up in spite of Ibraheim Omair's gripping hands. "Ahmed!" she screamed once, then the chief's hand dashed against her mouth, but, frantic, she caught it in her teeth, biting it to the bone, and as he wrenched it away, shrieked again, "Ahmed! Ahmed!"

But it seemed impossible that her voice could be heard above the demoniacal noise outside the tent, and she could not call again, for, with a snarl of rage, the chief caught her by the throat as he had caught the Arab woman. And like the Arab woman her hands tore at his gripping fingers vainly. Choking, stifling with the agony in her throat, her lungs seemed bursting, the blood was beating in her ears like the deafening roar of waves, and the room was darkening with the film that was creeping over her eyes. Her hands fell powerless to her sides and her knees gave way limply. He was holding her upright only by the clutch on her throat. The drumming in her ears grew louder, the tent was fading away into blackness. Dimly, with no kind of emotion, she realised that he was squeezing the life out of her and she heard his voice coming, as it were, from a great distance: "You will not languish long in Hawiyat without your lover. I will send him quickly to you."

She was almost unconscious, but she heard the sneering voice break suddenly and the deadly pressure on her throat relaxed as the chief's hands rapidly transferred their grip to her aching shoulders, swinging her away from him and in front of him. To lift her head was agony, and the effort brought back the black mist that had lessened with the slackening of Ibraheim Omair's fingers round her neck, but it cleared again sufficiently for her to see, through a blurring haze, the outline of the tall figure that was facing her, standing by the ripped-back doorway.

There was a pause, a silence that contrasted oddly with the tumult outside, and Diana wondered numbly why the Sheik did nothing, why he did not use the revolver that was clenched in his hand Then slowly she understood that he dared not fire, that the chief was holding her, a living shield, before him, sheltering himself behind the only thing that would deter Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san's unerring shots. Cautiously Ibraheim Omair moved backward, still holding her before him, hoping to gain the inner room. But in the shock of his enemy's sudden appearance he miscalculated the position of the divan and stumbled against it, losing his balance for only a moment, but long enough to give the man whose revolver covered him the chance he wanted. With the cold ring of steel pressing against his forehead the robber chief's hands dropped from Diana, and she slid weak and trembling on to the rug, clasping her pulsating throat, moaning with the effort that it was to breathe.

For a moment the two men looked into each other's eyes and the knowledge of death leaped into Ibraheim Omair's. With the fatalism of his creed he made no resistance, as, with a slow, terrible smile, the Sheik's left hand reached out and fastened on his throat. It would be quicker to shoot, but as Diana had suffered so should her torturer die.

All the savagery in his nature rose uppermost. Beside the pitiful, gasping little figure on the rug at his feet there was the memory of six mutilated bodies, his faithful followers, men of his own age who had grown to manhood with him, picked men of his personal bodyguard who had been intimately connected with him all his life, and who had served him with devotion and unwavering obedience. They and others who had from time to time fallen victims to Ibraheim Omair's hatred of his more powerful enemy. The man who was responsible for their deaths was in his power at last, the man whose existence was a menace and whose life was an offence, of whose subtleties he had been trained from a boy to beware by the elder Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san, who had bequeathed to him the tribal hatred of the race of whom Ibraheim Omair was head, and whose dying words had been the wish that his successor might himself exterminate the hereditary enemy. But far beyond the feelings inspired by tribal hatred or the remembrance of the vow made five years ago beside the old Sheik's deathbed, or even the death of his own followers, was the desire to kill, with his bare hands, the man who had tortured the woman he loved. The knowledge of her peril, that had driven him headlong through the night to her aid, the sight of her helpless, agonised, in the robber chief's hands, had filled him with a madness that only the fierce joy of killing would cure. Before he could listen to the clamouring of the new love in his heart, before he could gather up into his arms the beloved little body that he was yearning for, he had to destroy the man whose murders were countless and who had at last fallen into his hands.

The smile on his face deepened and his fingers tightened slowly on their hold. But with the strangling clasp of Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san's hands upon him the love of life waked again in Ibraheim Omair and he struggled fiercely. Crouched on the floor Diana watched the two big figures swaying in mortal combat with wide, fearful eyes, her hands still holding her aching throat. Ibraheim Omair wrestled for his life, conscious of his own strength, but conscious also of the greater strength that was opposed to him. The Sheik let go the hold upon his throat and with both arms locked about him manoeuvred to get the position he required, back to the divan. Then, with a wrestler's trick, he swept Ibraheim's feet from under him and sent his huge body sprawling on to the cushions, his knee on his enemy's chest, his hands on his throat. With all his weight crushing into the chief's breast, with the terrible smile always on his lips, he choked him slowly to death, till the dying man's body arched and writhed in his last agony, till the blood burst from his nose and mouth, pouring over the hands that held him like a vice.

Diana's eyes never left the Sheik's face, she felt the old paralysing fear of him rushing over her, irresistibly drowning for the moment even the love she had for him. She had seen him in cruel, even savage moods, but nothing that had ever approached the look of horrible pleasure that was on his face now. It was a revelation of the real man with the thin layer of civilisation stripped from him, leaving only the primitive savage drunk with the l.u.s.t of blood. And she was afraid, with a shuddering horror, of the merciless, crimson-stained hands that would touch her, of the smiling, cruel mouth that would be pressed on hers, and of the murderous light shining in his fierce eyes. But for the dying wretch expiating his crimes so hideously she felt no pity, he was beyond all sympathy. She had seen him murder wantonly, and she knew what her own fate would have been if Ahmed Ben Ha.s.san had not come. And the retribution was swift. The Sheik was being more merciful to him than the robber chief had been to many, a few moments of agony instead of hours of lingering torture.