The Sheik

Only a few hours before he had come to her in all the magnificence of his strength. She looked at the long limbs lying now so still, so terribly, suggestively still, and her lips trembled again, but her pain-filled eyes were dry. She could not cry, only her throat ached and throbbed perpetually. She leaned over him whispering his name, and a sudden hunger came to her to touch him, to convince herself that he was not dead. She glanced back over her shoulder at Saint Hubert, but he had gone to the open doorway to speak to Yusef, and was standing out under the awning. She bent lower over the unconscious man; his lips were parted slightly, and the usual sternness of his mouth was relaxed.

"Ahmed, oh, my dear!" she whispered unsteadily, and kissed him with lips that quivered against the stillness of his. Then for a moment she dropped her bright head beside the bandaged one on the pillow, but when the Vicomte came back she was kneeling where he had left her, her hands clasped over one of the Sheik's and her face hidden against the cushions.

Saint Hubert put his hand on her shoulder. "Diane, you are torturing yourself unnecessarily. We cannot know for some time how it will go with him. Try and get some sleep for a few hours. You can do no good by staying here. Henri and I will watch. I will call you if there is any change, my word of honour."

She shook her head without looking up. "I can't go. I couldn't sleep."

Saint Hubert did not press it. "Very well," he said quietly, "but if you are going to stay you must take off your riding-boots and put on something more comfortable than those clothes."

She realised the sense of what he was saying, and obeyed him without a word. She even had to admit to herself a certain sensation of relief after she had bathed her aching head and throat, and substituted a thin, silk wrap for the torn, stained riding-suit.

Henri was pouring out coffee when she came back, and Saint Hubert turned to her with a cup in his outstretched hand. "Please take it. It will do you good," he said, with a little smile that was not reflected in his anxious eyes.

She took it unheeding, and, swallowing it hastily, went to the side of the divan again. She slid down on to the rug where she had knelt before. The Sheik was lying as she had left him. For a few moments she looked at him, then drowsily her eyes closed and her head fell forward on the cushions, and with a half-sad smile of satisfaction Saint Hubert gathered her up into his arms.

He carried her into the bedroom, hesitating beside the couch before he put her down. Surely one moment out of a lifetime might be granted to him. He would never have the torturing happiness of holding her in his arms again, would never again clasp her against the heart that was crying out for her with the same mad passion that had swept over him yesterday. He looked down longingly on the pale face lying against his arm, and his features contracted at the sight of the cruel marks marring the whiteness of her delicate throat. The love that all his life he had longed for, that he had sought vainly through many countries, had come to him at last, and it had come too late. The helpless loveliness lying in his arms was not for him. It was Ahmed whom she loved, Ahmed who had waked to such a tardy recognition of the priceless gift that she had given him, Ahmed whom he must wrest from the grim spectre that was hovering near him lest the light that shone in her violet eyes should go out in the blackness of despair. And yet as he looked at her with eyes filled with hopeless misery a demon of suggestion whispered within him, tempting him. He knew his friend as no one else did. What chance of happiness had any woman with a man like Ahmed Ben Hassan, at the mercy of his savage nature and passionate changeable moods? What reason to suppose that the love that had flamed up so suddenly at the thought that he had lost her would survive the knowledge of repossession? To him, all his life, a thing desired had upon possession become valueless. With the fulfilment of acquisition had come always disinterest. The pleasure of pursuit faded with ownership. Would this hapless girl who had poured out such a wealth of love at the feet of the man who had treated her brutally fare any better at his hands? Her chance was slight, if any. Ahmed in the full power of his strength again would be the man he had always been, implacable, cruel, merciless. Saint Hubert's own longing, his passionate, Gallic temperament, were driving him as they had driven him the day before. The longing to save her from misery was acute, that, and his own love, prompted by the urging of the desire within him. Then he trembled, and a great fear of himself came over him. Ahmed was his friend. Who was he that he should judge him? He could at least be honest with himself, he could own the truth. He coveted what was not his, and masked his envy with a hypocrisy that now appeared contemptible. The clasp of his arms around her seemed suddenly a profanation, and he laid her down very gently on the low couch, drawing the thin coverlet over her, and went back slowly to the other room.

He sent Henri away and sat down beside the divan to watch with a feeling of weariness that was not bodily. The great tent was very still, a pregnant silence seemed to hang in the air, a brooding hush that strained Saint Hubert's already overstrained nerves. He had need of all his calm, and he gripped himself resolutely. For a time Ahmed Ben Hassan lay motionless, and then, as the day crept on and the early rays of the warm sun filled the tent, he moved uneasily, and began to mutter feverishly in confused Arabic and French. At first the words that came were almost unintelligible, pouring out with rapid indistinctness, then by degrees his voice slowed, and hesitating, interrupted sentences came clearly from his lips. And beside him, with his face buried in his hands, Raoul de Saint Hubert thanked God fervently that he had saved Diana the added torture of listening to the revelations of the past four months.

The first words were in Arabic, then the slow, soft voice lapsed into French, pure as the Vicomte's own.

"Two hours south of the oasis with the three broken palm trees by the well…. Lie still, you little fool, it is useless to struggle. You cannot get away, I shall not let you go…. Why have I brought you here? You ask me why? Mon Dieu! Are you not woman enough to know? No! I will not spare you. Give me what I want willingly and I will be kind to you, but fight me, and by Allah! you shall pay the cost!… I know you hate me, you have told me so already. Shall I make you love me?… Still disobedient? When will you learn that I am master?… I have not tired of you yet, you lovely little wild thing, garcon manque…. You say she is cowed; I say she is content—content to give me everything I ask of her…. For four months she has fought me. Why does it give me no pleasure to have broken her at last? Why do I want her still? She is English and I have made her pay for my hatred of her cursed race. I have tortured her to keep my vow, and still I want her…. Diane, Diane, how beautiful you are!… What devil makes me hate Raoul after twenty years? Last night she only spoke to him, and when he went I cursed her till I saw the terror in her eyes. She fears me. Why should I care if she loves him…. I knew she was not asleep when I went to her. I felt her quivering beside me…. I wanted to kill Raoul when he would not come with me, but for that I would have gone back to her…. Allah! how long the day has been…. Has it been long to her? Will she smile or tremble when I come?… Where is Diane?… Diane, Diane, how could I know how much you meant to me? How could I know that I should love you?… Diane, Diane, my sunshine. The tent is cold and dark without you…. Ibraheim Omair! That devil and Diane! Oh, Allah! Grant me time to get to her…. How the jackals are howling…. See, Raoul, there are the tents…. Diane, where are you?… Grand Dieu! He has been torturing her!… You knew that I would come, ma bien aimee, only a few moments while I kill him, then I can hold you in my arms. Dieu! If you knew how much I loved you…. Diane, Diane, it is all black. I cannot see you, Diane, Diane…."

And hour after hour with weary hopelessness the tired voice went on—"Diane, Diane…."

CHAPTER IX

It was evening when Diana opened drowsy and heavy eyes, a bitter taste in her mouth from the effects of the drug that Saint Hubert had given her. Everything had been laid out in readiness for her waking with the little touches that were characteristic of Zilah's handiwork, but the Arab girl herself was not visible. The lamp was lighted, and Diana turned her head languidly, still half confused, to look at the clock beside her. The tiny chime sounded seven times, and with a rush of recollection she leaped up. More than twelve hours since she had knelt beside him after drinking the coffee that Raoul had given her. She guessed what he had done and tried to be grateful, but the thought of what might have happened during the twelve hours she had lain like a log was horrible. She dressed with feverish haste and went into the outer room. It was filled with Arabs, many of whom she did not recognise, and she knew that they must belong to the reinforcements that Ahmed Ben Hassan had sent for. Two, who seemed from their appearance to be petty chiefs, were talking in low tones to Saint Hubert, who looked worn and tired. The rest were grouped silently about the divan, looking at the still-unconscious Sheik. The restlessness and delirium of the morning had passed and been succeeded by a death-like stupor. Nearest to him stood Yusef, his usual swaggering self-assurance changed into an attitude of deepest dejection, and his eyes, that were fixed on Ahmed Ben Hassan's face, were like those of a whipped dog.

Gradually the tent emptied until only Yusef was left, and at last, reluctantly, he too went, stopping at the entrance to speak to Saint Hubert, who had just taken leave of the two headmen.

The Vicomte came back, bringing a chair for Diana, and put her into it with gentle masterfulness. "Sit down," he said almost gruffly. "You look like a ghost."

She looked up at him reproachfully. "You drugged that coffee, Raoul. If he had died to-day while I was asleep I don't think I could ever have forgiven you."

"My dear child," he said gravely, "you don't know how near you were to collapse. If I had not made you sleep I should have had three patients on my hands instead of two."

"I am very ungrateful," she murmured, with a tremulous little smile.

Saint Hubert brought a chair for himself and dropped into it wearily. He felt very tired, the strain of the past twenty-four hours had been tremendous. He had a very real fear that was fast growing into a conviction that his skill was going to prove unequal to save his friend's life, and beside that anxiety and his physical fatigue he had fought a bitter fight with himself all day, tearing out of his heart the envy and jealousy that filled it, and locking away his love as a secret treasure to be hidden for always. His devotion to Ahmed Ben Hassan had survived the greatest test that could be imposed upon it, and had emerged from the trial strengthened and refined, with every trace of self obliterated. It had been the hardest struggle of his life, but it was over now, and all the bitterness had passed, leaving only a passionate desire for Diana's happiness that outweighed every other thought. One spark of comfort remained. He would not be quite useless. His help and sympathy would be necessary to her, and even for that he was grateful.

He looked across the divan at her, and the change that the last few hours had made in her struck him painfully. The alert, vigorous boyishness that had been so characteristic was gone. Her slim figure drooping listlessly in the big chair, her white face with the new marks of suffering on it, and her wide eyes burning with dumb misery, were all purely womanly. And yet though he resented the change he wished it could have gone further. The restraint she was putting on herself was unnatural. She asked no questions and she shed no tears. He could have borne them both easier than the silent anguish of her face. He feared the results of the emotion she was repressing so rigidly.

There was a long silence.

Henri came in once and Diana roused herself to ask for Gaston, and then relapsed into silent watchfulness again. She sighed once, a long quivering sigh that nearly broke Saint Hubert's heart. He rose and bent over the Sheik with his fingers on his wrist, and as he laid the nerveless hand down again she leaned nearer and covered it with her own.

"His hand is so big for an Arab's," she said softly, like a thought spoken aloud unconsciously.

"He is not an Arab," replied Saint Hubert with sudden, impatient vehemence. "He is English."

Diana looked up at him swiftly with utter bewilderment in her startled eyes. "I don't understand," she faltered. "He hates the English."

"Quand-meme, he is the son of one of your English peers. His mother was a Spanish lady; many of the old noble Spanish families have Moorish blood in their veins, the characteristics crop up even after centuries. It is so with Ahmed, and his life in the desert has accentuated it. Has he never told you anything about himself?"

She shook her head. "Sometimes I have wondered–" she said reflectively. "He seemed different from the others, and there has been so much that I could never understand. But then again there were times when he seemed pure Arab," she added in a lower voice and with an involuntary shiver.

"You ought to know," said Saint Hubert. "Yes!" he went on firmly, as she tried to interrupt him. "It is due to you. It will explain so many things. I will take the responsibility. His father is the Earl of Glencaryll."

"But I know him," said Diana wonderingly. "He was a friend of my father. I saw him only a few months ago when Aubrey and I passed through Paris. He is such a magnificent-looking old man, so fierce and sad. Oh, now I know why that awful frown of Ahmed's has always seemed so familiar. Lord Glencaryll frowns like that. It is the famous Caryll scowl. But I still don't understand." She looked from Saint Hubert to the unconscious man on the divan and back to Saint Hubert with a new trouble growing in her eyes.

"I had better tell you the whole story," said Raoul, dropping back into his chair.

"Thirty-six years ago my father, who was as great a wanderer as I am, was staying here in the desert with his friend the Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan. A chance acquaintance some years before over the purchase of some horses had ripened into a very intimate friendship that was unusual between a Frenchman and an Arab. The Sheik was a wonderful man, very enlightened, with strong European tendencies. As a matter of pure fact he was not too much in sympathy with the French form of administration as carried on in Algeria, but he was not affected sufficiently by it to make any real difficulty. The territory that he regarded as his own lay too much to the south, and he kept his large and scattered tribe in too good order for any interference to be possible. He was unmarried, and the women of his own race seemed to have no attraction for him. He was wrapped up in his tribe and his horses. My father had come for a stay of some months. My mother had recently died and he wanted to get away from everything that reminded him of her. One evening, shortly after his arrival at the camp, a party of the Sheik's men who had been absent for some days in the north on the chief's affairs arrived, bringing with them a woman whom they had found wandering in the desert. How she had got there, or from what direction she had come, they did not know. They were nearer civilisation than Ahmed Ben Hassan's camp at the time, but with true native tendency to avoid responsibility they thought that the disposal of her was a matter more for their Sheik than themselves. She could give no account of herself, as, owing to the effects of the sun or other causes, she was temporarily out of her mind. Arabs are very gentle with any one who is mad—'Allah has touched them!' She was taken to the tent of one of the headmen, whose wife looked after her. For some days it was doubtful whether she would recover, and her condition was aggravated by the fact that she was shortly to become a mother. She did regain her senses after a time, however, but nothing could make her say anything about herself, and questions reduced her to terrible fits of hysterical crying which were prejudicial in her state of health. She seemed calmest when she was left quite alone, but even then she started at the slightest sound, and the headman's wife reported that she would lie for hours on her bed crying quietly to herself. She was quite young—seemingly not more than nineteen or twenty. From her accents my father decided that she was Spanish, but she would admit nothing, not even her nationality. In due course of time the child was born, a boy."

Saint Hubert paused a moment and nodded towards the Sheik. "Even after the child's birth she refused to give any account of herself. In that she was as firm as a rock; in everything else she was the frailest, gentlest little creature imaginable. She was very small and slender, with quantities of soft dark hair and beautiful great dark eyes that looked like a frightened fawn's. I have heard my father describe her many times, and I have seen the water-colour sketch he made of her—he was quite an amateur. Ahmed has it locked away somewhere. She nearly died when the baby was born, and she never recovered her strength. She made no complaint and never spoke of herself, and seemed quite content as long as the child was with her. She was a child herself in a great number of ways. It never seemed to occur to her that there was anything odd in her continued residence in the Sheik's camp. She had a tent and servants of her own, and the headman's wife was devoted to her. So were the rest of the camp for that matter. There was an element of the mysterious in her advent that had taken hold of the superstitious Arabs, and the baby was looked upon as something more than human and was adored by all the tribe. The Sheik himself, who had never looked twice at a woman before in his life, became passionately attached to her. My father says that he has never seen a man so madly in love as Ahmed Ben Hassan was with the strange white girl who had come so oddly into his life. He repeatedly implored her to marry him, and even my father, who has a horror of mixed marriages, was impelled to admit that any woman might have been happy with Ahmed Ben Hassan. She would not consent, though she would give no reason for her refusal, and the mystery that surrounded her remained as insolvable during the two years that she lived after the baby's birth as it had been on the day of her arrival. And her refusal made no difference with the Sheik. His devotion was wonderful. When she died my father was again visiting the camp. She knew that she was dying, and a few days before the end she told them her pitiful little history. She was the only daughter of one of the oldest noble houses in Spain, as poor as they were noble, and she had been married when she was seventeen to Lord Glencaryll, who had seen her with her parents in Nice. She had been married without any regard to her own wishes, and though she grew to love her husband she was always afraid of him. He had a terrible temper that was very easily roused, and, in those days, he also periodically drank a great deal more than was good for him, and when under the influence of drink behaved more like a devil than a man. She was very young and gauche, failing often to do what was required of her from mere nervousness. He was exigent and made no allowance for her youth and inexperience, and her life was one long torture. And yet in spite of it all she loved him. Even in speaking of it she insisted that the fault was hers, that the trouble was due to her stupidity, glossing over his brutality; in fact, it was not from her, but from inquiries that he made after her death, that my father learned most of what her life had been. It seems that Lord Glencaryll had taken her to Algiers and had wished to make a trip into the desert. He had been drinking heavily, and she did not dare to upset his plans by refusing to go with him or even by telling him how soon her child was going to be born. So she went with him, and one night something happened—what she would not say, but my father says he has never seen such a look of terror on any woman's face as she hurried over that part of her story. Whatever it was she waited until the camp was asleep and then slipped out into the desert, mad with fear, with no thought beyond a blind instinct of flight that drove her panic-stricken to face any danger rather than remain and undergo the misery she was flying from. She remembered hurrying onward, terrified by every sound and every shadow, frightened even by the blazing stars that seemed to be watching her and pointing out the way she had taken, until her mind was numb from utter weariness and she remembered nothing more until she awoke in the headman's tent. She had been afraid to say who she was lest she should be sent back to her husband. And with the birth of the child she became more than ever determined to preserve her secret. The boy should be spared the suffering she had herself endured, he should not be allowed to fall into the hands of his father to be at his mercy when the periodical drinking fits made him a very fiend of cruelty. She made my father and the Sheik swear that not until the boy grew to manhood should Lord Glencaryll be told of his existence. She wrote a letter for her husband which she gave into my father's keeping, together with her wedding ring, which had an inscription inside of it, and a miniature of Glencaryll which she had worn always hidden away from sight. She was very contrite with the Sheik, begging his forgiveness for the sorrow she had caused him and for keeping from his knowledge the fact that she was not free. She loved her husband loyally to the end, but the last few days that she lived the Sheik's devotion seemed to wake an answering tenderness in her heart. She was happiest when he was with her, and she died in his arms with his kisses on her lips. She left her boy in his keeping, and Ahmed Ben Hassan adopted him formally and made him his heir, giving him his own name—the hereditary name that the Sheik of the tribe has borne for generations. His word was law amongst his people, and there was no thought of any opposition to his wishes; further, the child was considered lucky, and his choice of successor was received with unanimous delight. All the passionate love that the Sheik had for the mother was transferred to the son. He idolised him, and the boy grew up believing that Ahmed Ben Hassan was his own father. With the traits he had inherited from his mother's people and with his desert upbringing he looked, as he does now, pure Arab. When he was fifteen my father induced the Sheik to send him to Paris to be educated. With his own European tendencies the Sheik had wished it also, but he could not bring himself to part with the boy before, and it was a tremendous wrench to let him go when he did. It was then that I first saw him. I was eighteen at the time, and had just begun my military training, but as my regiment was stationed in Paris I was able to be at home a good deal. He was such a handsome, high-spirited lad. Men mature very young in the desert and in many ways he was a great deal older than I was, in spite of my three years' seniority. But, of course, in other ways he was a perfect child. He had a fiendish temper and resented any check on his natural lawless inclinations. He loathed the restrictions that had to be put upon him and he hated the restraint of town life. He had been accustomed to having his own way in nearly everything, and to the constant adulation of the tribesmen, and he was not prepared to give to anybody else the obedience that he gave willingly to the Sheik. There were some very stormy times, and I never admired my father in anything so much as his handling of that young savage. His escapades were nerve-racking and his beaux yeux led him into endless scrapes. The only threat that reduced him to order was that of sending him home to the Sheik in disgrace. He would promise amendment and take himself off to the Bois to work off his superfluous energy on my father's horses—until he broke out again. But in spite of his temper and his diableries he was very lovable and everybody liked him.

"After a year with us in Paris my father, always mindful of his real nationality, sent him for two years to a tutor in England, where I had myself been. The tutor was an exceptional man, used to dealing with exceptional boys, and Ahmed did very well with him. I don't mean that he did much work—that he evaded skilfully and spent most of his time hunting and shooting. The only thing that he studied at all seriously was veterinary surgery, which he knew would be useful to him with his own horses, and in which his tutor was level-headed enough to encourage him. Then at the end of two years he came back to us for another year. He had gone to the desert every summer for his holidays, and on each occasion the Sheik let him return with greater reluctance. He was always afraid that the call of civilisation would be too much for his adopted son, especially as he grew older, but although Ahmed had changed very much from the wild desert lad who had first come to us, and had developed into a polished man of the world, speaking French and English as fluently as Arabic, with plenty of means to amuse himself in any way that he wished—for the Sheik was very rich and kept him lavishly supplied with money—and though in that last year he was with us he was courted and feted in a way that would have turned most people's heads, he was always secretly longing for the time when he would go back to the desert. It was the desert, not civilisation that called loudest to him. He loved the life and he adored the man whom he thought was his father. To be the son and heir of Ahmed Ben Hassan seemed to him to be the highest pinnacle that any man's ambition could reach. He was perfectly indifferent to the flattery and attention that his money and his good looks brought him. My father entertained very largely and Ahmed became the fashion—'Le bel Arabe' he was called, and he enjoyed a succes fou which bored him to extinction—and at the end of the year, having written to the Sheik for permission to go home, he shook the dust of Paris off his feet and went back to the desert. I went with him. It was my first visit and the first time that I had experienced Ahmed en prince. I had never seen him in anything but European clothes, and I got quite a shock when I came up on deck the morning that we arrived at Oran and found an Arab of the Arabs waiting for me. The robes and a complete change of carriage and expression that seemed to go with them altered him curiously and I hardly recognised him. Some of his men were waiting for him on the quay and their excitement was extraordinary. I realised from the deference and attention that the French officials paid to Ahmed the position that the old Sheik had made for himself and the high esteem in which he was held. We spent the rest of the day in arranging for the considerable baggage that he had brought with him to be forwarded by the camel caravan that had been sent for the purpose, and also in business for the Sheik in Oran. We spent the night in a villa on the outskirts of the town belonging to an old Arab who entertained us lavishly, and who spent the evening congratulating Ahmed heartily on having escaped from the clutches of the odious French, by no means abashed when Ahmed pointed out that there was an odious Frenchman present, for he dismissed me with a gesture that conveyed that my nationality was my misfortune and not my fault, and in impressing on him the necessity of immediately acquiring a wife or two and settling down for the good of the tribe—all this in the intervals of drinking coffee, listening to the most monotonous native music and watching barbaric dances. There was one particularly well-made dancing girl that the old man tried to induce Ahmed to buy, and he made a show of bargaining for her—not from any real interest he took in her, but merely to see the effect that it would have on me. But I refused to be drawn, and as my head was reeling with the atmosphere I escaped to bed and left him still bargaining. We started early next morning, and were joined a few miles out of the town by a big detachment of followers. The excitement of the day before was repeated on a very much larger scale. It was a novel experience for me, and I can hardly describe my feelings in the midst of that yelling horde of men, galloping wildly round us and firing their rifles until it seemed hardly possible that some accident would not happen. It was Ahmed's attitude that impressed me most. He took it all quietly as his due, and when he had had enough of it stopped it with a peremptory authority that was instantly obeyed, and apologised for the exuberant behaviour of his children. It was a new Ahmed to me; the boy I had known for four years seemed suddenly transformed into a man who made me feel very young. In France I had naturally always rather played elder brother, but here Ahmed was on his own ground and the roles seemed likely to be reversed. The arrival at the Sheik's camp was everything that the most lavish scenic producer could have wished. Though I had heard of it both from my father and Ahmed I was not quite prepared for the splendour with which the Sheik surrounded himself. With Eastern luxury was mingled many European adjuncts that added much to the comfort of camp life. The meeting between the Sheik and Ahmed was most touching. I had a very happy time and left with regret. The charm of the desert took hold of me then and has never left me since. But I had to return to my medical studies. I left Ahmed absorbed in his life and happier than I had ever seen him in Paris. He was nineteen then, and when he was twenty-one my father had the unpleasant task of carrying out Lady Glencaryll's dying wishes. He wrote to Lord Glencaryll asking him to come to Paris on business connected with his late wife, and, during the course of a very painful interview, put the whole facts before him. With the letter that the poor girl had written to her husband, with the wedding-ring and the locket, together with the sketch that my father had made of her, the proofs of the genuineness of the whole affair were conclusive. Glencaryll broke down completely. He admitted that his wife had every justification for leaving him, he spared himself nothing. He referred quite frankly to the curse of which he had been the slave and which had made him irresponsible for his actions when he was under its influence. He had never known himself what had happened that terrible night, but the tragedy of his wife's disappearance had cured him. He had made every effort to find her and it was many years before he gave up all hope. He mourned her bitterly, and worshipped her memory. It was impossible not to pity him, for he had expiated his fault with agony that few men can have experienced. The thought that he had a son and that son her child almost overwhelmed him. He had ardently desired an heir, and, thinking himself childless, the fact that his title and his old name, of which he was very proud, would die with him had been a great grief. His happiness in the knowledge of Ahmed's existence was pathetic, he was consumed with impatience for his son's arrival. Nothing had been said to Ahmed in case Lord Glencaryll should prove difficult to convince and thereby complicate matters, but his ready acceptance of the affair and his eagerness to see his son made further delay unnecessary, and my father sent for Ahmed. The old Sheik let him go in ignorance of what was coming. He had always dreaded the time when his adopted son would have to be told of his real parentage, fearful of losing him, jealous of sharing his affection and resenting anybody's claim to him over his own. And so, with the only instance he ever gave of want of moral courage, he sent Ahmed to Paris with no explanation, and left to my father the task of breaking to him the news. I shall never forget that day. It had been arranged that Ahmed should be told first and that afterwards father and son should meet. Ahmed arrived in the morning in time for dejeuner, and afterwards we went to my father's study, and there he told him the whole story as gently and as carefully as he could. Ahmed was standing by the window. He never said a word the whole time my father was speaking, and when he finished he stood quite still for a few moments, his face almost grey under the deep tan, his eyes fixed passionately on my father's—and then his fiendish temper broke out suddenly. It was a terrible scene. He cursed his father in a steady stream of mingled Arabic and French blasphemy that made one's blood run cold. He cursed all English people impartially. He cursed my father because he had dared to send him to England. He cursed me because I had been a party to the affair. The only person whom he spared was the Sheik; who after all was as much implicated as we were, but he never once mentioned him. He refused to see his father, refused to recognise that he was his father, and he left the house that afternoon and Paris that night, going straight back to the desert, taking with him Gaston, who had arranged some time before to enter his service as soon as his time in the cavalry was up. A letter that Lord Glencaryll wrote to him, addressed to Viscount Caryll, which is, of course, his courtesy title, begging for at least an interview, and which he gave to us to forward, was returned unopened, and scrawled across the envelope: 'Inconnu. Ahmed Ben Hassan.' And since that day his hatred of the English had been a monomania, and he has never spoken a word of English. Later on, when we used to travel together, his obvious avoidance of English people was at times both awkward and embarrassing, and I have often had to go through the farce of translating into French or Arabic remarks made to him by English fellow-travellers, that is, when he condescended to notice the remarks, which was not often. From the day he learned the truth about himself for two years we saw nothing of him. Then the old Sheik asked us to visit him. We went with some misgivings as to what Ahmed's reception of us would be, but he met us as if nothing had happened. He ignored the whole episode and has never referred to it. It is a closed incident. The Sheik warned us that Ahmed had told him that any reference to it would mean the breaking off of all relations with us. But Ahmed himself had changed indescribably. All the lovable qualities that had made him so popular in Paris were gone, and he had become the cruel, merciless man he has been ever since. The only love left in him was given to his adopted father, whom he worshipped. Later I was allowed back on the old footing, and he has always been good to Gaston, but with those three exceptions he has spared nobody and nothing. He is my friend, I love him, and I am not telling you more than you know already."