The Sheik

Saint Hubert broke off and looked anxiously at Diana, but she did not move or meet his gaze. She was sitting with her hand still clasped over the Sheik's and the other one shading her face, and the Vicomte went on speaking: "It is so easy to judge, so difficult to understand another person's temptations. Ahmed's position has always been a curious one. He has had unique temptations with always the means of gratifying them."

There was a longer pause, but still Diana did not move or speak.

"The curse of Ishmael had taken hold of me by then and I wandered continually. Sometimes Ahmed came with me; we have shot big game together in most parts of the globe. A few times he stayed with us in Paris, but never for long; he always wearied to get back to the desert. Five years ago the old Sheik died; he was an exceptionally strong man, and should have lived for years but for an accident which crippled him hopelessly and from which he died a few months afterwards. Ahmed's devotion during his illness was wonderful. He never left him, and since he succeeded to the leadership of the tribe he has lived continuously amongst his people, absorbed in them and his horses, carrying on the traditions handed down to him by his predecessor and devoting his life to the tribe. They are like children, excitable, passionate and headstrong, and he has never dared to risk leaving them alone too long, particularly with the menace of Ibraheim Omair always in the background. He has never been able to seek relaxation further afield than Algiers or Oran–" Saint Hubert stopped abruptly, cursing himself for a tactless fool. She could not fail to realise the significance of those visits to the gay, vicious little towns. The inference was obvious. His thoughtless words would only add to her misery. Her sensitive mind would shrink from the contamination they implied. If Ahmed was going to die, she would be desolate enough without forcing on her knowledge the unworthiness of the man she loved. He pushed his chair back impatiently and went to the open doorway. He felt that she wanted to be alone. She watched him go, then slipped to her knees beside the couch.

She had realised the meaning of Raoul's carelessly uttered words and they had hurt her poignantly, but it was no new sorrow. He had told her himself months ago, callously, brutally, sparing her nothing, extenuating nothing. She pressed her cheek against the hand she was holding. She did not blame him, she could only love him, no matter what his life had been. It was Ahmed as he was she loved, his faults, his vices were as much a part of him as his superb physique and the alternating moods that had been so hard to meet. She had never known him otherwise. He seemed to stand alone, outside the prescribed conventions that applied to ordinary men. The standards of common usage did not appear compatible with the wild desert man who was his own law and followed only his own precedent, defiant of social essentials and scornful of criticism. The proud, fierce nature and passionate temper that he had inherited, the position of despotic leadership in which he had been reared, the adulation of his followers and the savage life in the desert, free from all restraint, had combined to produce the haughty unconventionalism that would not submit to the ordinary rules of life. She could not think of him as an Englishman. The mere accident of his parentage was a factor that weighed nothing. He was and always would be an Arab of the wilderness. If he lived! He must live! He could not go out like that, his magnificent strength and fearless courage extinguished by a treacherous blow that had not dared to meet him face to face—in spite of the overwhelming numbers—but had struck him down from behind, a coward stroke. He must live, even if his life meant death to her hopes of happiness; that was nothing compared with his life. She loved him well enough to sacrifice anything for him. If he only lived she could bear even to be put out of his life. It was only he that mattered, his life was everything. He was so young, so strong, so made to live. He had so much to live for. He was essential to his people. They needed him. If she could only die for him. In the days when the world was young the gods were kind, they listened to the prayers of hapless lovers and accepted the life that was offered in place of the beloved whose life was claimed. If God would but listen to her now. If He would but accept her life in exchange for his. If–! if–!

Her fingers crept up lightly across his breast, fearful lest even their tender touch should injure his battered body, and she looked long and earnestly at him. His crisp brown hair was hidden by the bandages that, dead white against his tanned face, swathed his bruised head. His closed eyes with the thick dark lashes curling on his cheek, hiding the usual fierce expression that gleamed in them, and the relaxation of the hard lines of his face made him look singularly young. That youthful look had been noticeable often when he was asleep, and she had watched it wondering what Ahmed the boy had been like before he grew into the merciless man at whose hands she had suffered so much.

And now the knowledge of his boyhood seemed to make him even dearer than he had been before. What sort of man would he have been if the little dark-eyed mother had lived to sway him with her gentleness? Poor little mother, helpless and fragile!—yet strong enough to save her boy from the danger that she feared for him, but paying the price of that strength with her life, content that her child was safe.

Diana thought of her own mother dying in the arms of a husband who adored her, and then of the little Spanish girl slipping away from life, a stranger in a strange land, her heart crying out for the husband whom she still loved, turning in ignorance of his love for consolation in the agony of death to the lover she had denied, and seeking comfort in his arms. A sudden jealousy of the two dead women shook her. They had been loved. Why could not she be loved? Wherein did she fail that he would not love her? Other men had loved her, and his love was all she longed for in the world. To feel his arms around her only once with love in their touch, to see his passionate eyes kindle only once with the light she prayed for. She drew a long sobbing breath. "Ahmed, mon bel Arabe," she murmured yearningly.

She rose to her feet. She was afraid of breaking down, of giving way to the fear and anxiety that racked her. She turned instinctively to the help and sympathy that offered and went to Saint Hubert, joining him under the awning. Usually at night the vicinity of the Sheik's tent was avoided by the tribesmen, even the sentry on guard was posted at some little distance. Kopec curled up outside the doorway kept ample watch. But to-night the open space was swarming with men, some squatting on the ground in circles, others clustered together in earnest conversation, and far off through the palm trees she caught an occasional glimpse of mounted men. Yusef and the headmen acting under him were taking no risks, there was to be no chance of a surprise attack.

"You must be very tired, Raoul," she said, slipping her hand through his arm, for her need was almost as much for physical as mental support. The frank touch of her hand sent a quiver through him, but he suppressed it, and laid his own hand over her cold fingers.

"I must not think of that yet. Later on, perhaps, I can rest a little. Henri can watch; he is almost as good a doctor as I am, the incomparable Henri! Ahmed and I have always quarrelled over the respective merits of our servants."

He felt her hand tighten on his arm at the mention of the Sheik's name and heard the smothered sigh that she choked back. They stood in silence for a while watching the shifting groups of tribesmen. A little knot of low-voiced men near them opened up, and one of their number came to Saint Hubert with an inquiry.

"The men are restless." Raoul said when the Arab had gone back to his fellows with all the consolation the Vicomte could give him. "Their devotion is very strong. Ahmed is a god to them. Their anxiety takes them in a variety of ways. Yusef, who has been occupied with his duties most of the day, has turned to religion for the first time in his life, he has gone to say his prayers with the pious Abdul, as he thinks that Allah is more likely to listen if his petitions go heavenward in company with the holy man's."

Diana's thoughts strayed back to the story that Saint Hubert had told her. "Does Lord Glencaryll know that you see Ahmed?" she asked.

"Oh yes. He and my father became great friends. He often stays with us in Paris. We are a link between him and Ahmed. He is always hungry for any news of him, and still clings to the hope that one day he will relent. He has never made any further effort to open up relations with him because he knows it would be useless. If there is to be any rapprochement between them it must come from Ahmed. They have almost met accidentally once or twice, and Glencaryll has once seen him. It was at the opera. He was staying in Paris for some months and had a box. I had gone across from our own box on the other side of the house to speak to him. There were several people with him. I was standing beside him, talking. Ahmed had just come into our box opposite and was standing right in the front looking over the theatre. Something had annoyed him and he was scowling. The likeness was unmistakable. Glencaryll gave a kind of groan and staggered back against me. 'Good God! Who is that?' he said, and I don't think he knew he was speaking out loud.

"A man next him looked in the direction he was looking and laughed. 'That's the Saint Huberts' wild man of the desert. Looks fierce, doesn't he? The women call him "le bel Arabe." He certainly wears European clothes with better grace than most natives. He is said to have a peculiar hatred of the English, so you'd better give him a wide berth, Glencaryll, if you don't want to be bow-stringed or have your throat cut, or whatever fancy form of death the fellow cultivates in his native habitat. Raoul can tell you all about him.'

"There was not any need for me to tell him. Fortunately the opera began and the lights went down, and I persuaded him to go away before the thing was over."

Diana gave a little shiver. She felt a great sympathy coming over her for the lonely old man, hoping against hope for the impossible, that she had not felt earlier in the evening. He, too, was wearing his heart out against the inflexible will of Ahmed Ben Hassan.

She shivered again and turned back into the tent with Saint Hubert. They halted by the couch and stood for a long time in silence. Then Diana slowly raised her head and looked up into Raoul's face, and he read the agonised question in her eyes.

"I don't know," he said gently. "All things are with Allah."

CHAPTER X

The night grew hotter and the atmosphere more oppressive. Wrapped in a thin silk kimono Diana lay very still on the outside of the wide couch in the inner room, propped high with pillows that the shaded light of the little reading-lamp beside her might fall on the book she held, but she was not reading.

It was Raoul's latest book, that he had brought with him, but she could not concentrate her mind on it, and it lay idle on her knee—while her thoughts were far away. It was three months since the night that Saint Hubert had almost given up hope of being able to save the Sheik's life—a night that had been followed by days of suspense that had reduced Diana to a weary-eyed shadow of her former vigorous self, and had left marks on Raoul that would never be effaced. But thanks to his great strength and splendid constitution the Sheik had rallied and after the first few weeks convalescence had been rapid. When the terrible fear that he might die was past it had been a wonderful happiness to wait on him. With the determination to live for the moment, to which she had forced herself, she had banished everything from her mind but the joy of being near him and of being necessary to him. It had been a very silent service, for he would lie for hours with closed eyes without speaking, and something that she could not master kept her tongue-tied in his presence when they were alone. Only once he had referred to the raid. As she bent over him to do some small office his fingers closed feebly round her wrist and his eyes, with a searching apprehension in them, looked into hers for the first time since the night when she had fled from his curses.

"Was it—in time?" he whispered slowly, and as she nodded with crimson cheeks and lowered eyes he turned his head away without another word, but a shudder that he was too weak to control shook him.

But the happiness of ministering to him passed very swiftly. As he grew stronger he managed so that she was rarely alone with him, and he insisted on her riding twice every day, sometimes with Saint Hubert, sometimes with Henri, coolly avowing a preference for his own society or that of Gaston, who was beginning to get about again. Later, too, he was much occupied with headmen who came in from the different camps, and as the days passed she found herself more and more excluded from the intimacy that had been so precious. She was thrown much into the society of Raoul de Saint Hubert. All that they had gone through together had drawn them very closely to each other, and Diana often wondered what her girlhood would have been like if it had been spent under his guardianship instead of that of Sir Aubrey Mayo. The sisterly affection she had never given her own brother she gave to him, and, with the firm hold over himself that he had never again slackened, the Vicomte accepted the role of elder brother which she unconsciously imposed on him.

It was hard work sometimes, and there were days when he dreaded the daily rides, when the strain seemed almost more than he could bear, and he began to make tentative suggestions about resuming his wanderings, but always the Sheik pressed him to stay.

Ahmed Ben Hassan's final recovery was quick, and the camp soon settled down into normal conditions. The reinforcements were gone back to the different camps from which they had been drawn. There was no further need of them. Ibraheim Omair's tribe, with their leader dead, had broken up and scattered far to the south; there was no chief to keep them together and no headman strong enough to draw them round a new chieftain, for Ibraheim had allowed no member of his tribe to attain any degree of wealth or power that might prove him a rival; so they had split up into numerous small bands lacking cohesion. In fulfilling the vow made to his predecessor Ahmed Ben Hassan had cleared the desert of a menace that had hung over it for many years.

The relations between the Sheik and Saint Hubert had gone back to what they had been the night of Raoul's arrival, before his candid criticism had roused the Sheik's temper and fired his jealousy. The recollection of the miserable week that had preceded the raid had been wiped out in all that had followed it. No shadow could ever come between them again since Raoul had voluntarily stood on one side and sacrificed his own chance of happiness for his friend's.

And with the Sheik's complete recovery his attitude towards Diana had reverted to the cold reserve that had chilled her before—a reserve that was as courteous as it was indifferent. He had avoided her as much as had been possible, and the continual presence of Saint Hubert had been a barrier between them. Unostensibly but effectually he had contrived that Raoul should never leave them alone. Though he included her in the general conversation he rarely spoke to her directly, and often she found him looking at her with his fierce eyes filled with an expression that baffled her, and as each time the quick blood rushed into her face his forehead drew together in the heavy frown that was so characteristic. During meals it was Raoul that kept the conversation from lapsing with ready tact and an eloquent flow of words, ranging over many subjects. In the evening the men became immersed in the projection of Saint Hubert's new book, for details of which he was drawing on the Sheik's knowledge, and long after Diana left them she could hear the two voices, both deep and musical, but Raoul's quicker and more emphatic, continuously rising and falling, till at last Raoul would go to his own tent and Gaston would come—noiseless and soft-toned as his master. Ordinarily the Sheik dispensed with him at night, but since his wound, the valet, as soon as he had himself recovered, had always been in attendance. Some nights he lingered talking, and others the Sheik dismissed him in a few minutes with only a curt word or two, and then there would be silence, and Diana would bury her face in her pillow and writhe in her desperate loneliness, sick with longing for the strong arms she had once dreaded and the kisses she had once loathed. He had slept in the outer room since his illness, and tossing feverishly on the soft cushions of the big empty bed in which she lay alone Diana had suffered the greatest humiliation she had yet experienced. He had never loved her, but now he did not even want her. She was useless to him. She was less than nothing to him. He had no need of her. She would lie awake listening wearily to the tiny chimes of the little clock with the bitter sense of her needlessness crushing her. She was humbled to the very dust by his indifference. The hours of loneliness in the room that was redolent with associations of him were filled with memories that tortured her. In her fitful sleep her dreams were agonies from which she awakened with shaking limbs and shuddering breath, and waking, her hand would stretch out groping to him till remembrance came with cruel vividness.

In the daytime, too, she had been much alone, for as soon as the Sheik was strong enough to sit in the saddle the two men had ridden far afield every day, visiting the outlying camps and drawing into Ahmed Ben Hassan's own hands again the affairs that had had to be relegated to the headmen.

At last Raoul had announced that his visit could be protracted no longer and that he must resume his journey to Morocco. He was going up to Oran and from there to Tangier by coasting steamer, collecting at Tangier a caravan for his expedition through Morocco. His decision once made he had speeded every means of getting away with a despatch that had almost suggested flight.

To Diana his going meant the hastening of a crisis that could not be put off much longer. The situation was becoming impossible. She had said good-bye to him the night before. She had never guessed the love she had inspired in him, and she wondered at the sadness in his eyes and his unaccustomed lack of words. He had wanted to say so much and he had said so little. She must never guess and Ahmed must never guess, so he played the game to the end. Only that night after she had left them the voices sounded in the adjoining room for a very short time. And this morning he and Ahmed Ben Hassan had ridden away at daybreak. She had not been asleep; she had heard them go, and almost she wished Raoul back, for with his presence the vague fear that assailed her seemed further away. The camp had seemed very lonely and the day very long.

She had ridden with Gaston, and hurried over her solitary dinner, and since then she had been waiting for the Sheik to come back. In what mood would he come? Since Raoul's announcement of his departure he had been more than usually taciturn and reserved. The book she held slipped at length on to the floor, and she let it he unheeded. The usual stillness of the desert seemed to-night unusually still-sinister even—and the silence was so intense that the sudden squeal of a stallion a little distance away made her start with madly racing heart Earlier in the evening a tom-tom had been going persistently in the men's lines, and later a native pipe had shrilled thinly in monotonous cadence; but she had grown accustomed to these sounds; they were of nightly occurrence and they soothed rather than irritated her, and when they stopped the quiet had become intensified to such a degree that she would have welcomed any sound. To-night her nerves were on edge. She was restless and excited, and her thoughts were chaos.

She was alone again at his mercy. What would his attitude be? Her hands clenched on her knees. At times she lay almost without breathing, straining to hear the faintest sound that would mean his return, and then again lest she should hear what she listened for. She longed for him passionately, and at the same time she was afraid, He had changed so much that there were moments when she had the curious feeling that it was a stranger who was coming back to her, and she both dreaded his coming and yearned for it with a singular combination of emotions. She looked round the room where she had at once suffered so much and been so happy with troubled eyes. She had never been nervous before, but to-night her imagination ran riot. There was electricity in the air which acted on her overstrung nerves. The little shaded lamp threw a circle of light round the bed, but left the rest of the room dim, and the dusky corners seemed full of odd new shadows that came and went illusively. Hangings and objects that were commonly familiar to her took on fantastic shapes that she watched nervously, till at last she brushed her hand across her eyes with a laugh of angry impatience. Was the love that had changed her so completely also making her a coward? Had even her common-sense been lost in the one great emotion that held her? She understood perfectly the change that had taken place in her. She had never had any illusions about herself, and had never attempted to curb the obstinate self-will and haughty pride that had characterized her. She thought of it curiously, her mind going back over the last few months that had changed her whole life. The last mad freak for which she had paid so dearly had been the outcome of an arrogant determination to have her own way in the face of all protests and advice. And with a greater arrogance and a determination stronger than her own Ahmed Ben Hassan had tamed her as he tamed the magnificent horses that he rode. He had been brutal and merciless, using no half measures, forcing her to obedience by sheer strength of will and compelling a complete submission. She thought of how she had feared and hated him with passionate intensity, until the hatred had been swamped by love as passionate and as intense. She did not know why she loved him, she had never been able to analyse the passion that held her so strongly, but she knew deep down in her heart that it went now far past his mere physical beauty and superb animal strength. She loved him blindly with a love that had killed her pride and brought her to his feet humbly obedient. All the love that had lain dormant in her heart for years was given to him. Body and soul she belonged to him. And the change within her was patent in her face, the haughty expression in her eyes had turned to a tender wistfulness, with a curious gleam of expectancy that flickered in them perpetually; the little mutinous mouth had lost the scornful curve. And with the complete change in her expression she was far more beautiful now than she had ever been. But with her love was the fear of him that she had learned during the first hours of her captivity, the physical fear that she had never lost, even during the happy weeks that had preceded the coming of Saint Hubert, and the greater fear that was with her always, and that at times drove her, with wide-stricken eyes, wildly to pace the tent as if to escape the shadow that hung over her—the fear of the time when he should tire of her. The thought racked her, and now, as always, she tried to put it from her, but it continued, persistently haunting her like a grim spectre. Always the same thought tortured her—he had not taken her for love. No higher motive than a passing fancy had stirred him. He had seen her, had wished for her and had taken her, and once in his power it had amused him to break her to his hand. She realised all that. And he had been honest, he had never pretended to love her. Often when the humour took him he could be gentle, as in those last few weeks, but gentleness was not love, and she had never seen the light that she longed for kindle in his eyes. His caresses had been passionate or careless with his mood. She did not know that he loved her. She had not been with him during the long hours of his delirium and she had not heard what Raoul de Saint Hubert had heard. And since his recovery his attitude of aloofness had augmented her fear. There seemed only one construction to put on his silence, and his studied and obvious avoidance of her. The passing fancy had passed. It was as if the fleeting passion he had had for her had been drained from him with the blood that flowed from the terrible wound he had received. He was tired of her and seeking for a means to disembarrass himself of her. Vaguely she felt that she had known this for weeks, but to-night was the first time that she had had courage to be frank with herself. It must be so. Everything pointed to it; the curious expression she had seen in his eyes and his constant heavy frown all confirmed it. She flung her arm across her eyes with a little moan. He was tired of her and the bottom had fallen out of her world. The instinct to fight for his love that had been so strong in her the day that Ibraheim Omair had captured her had died with the death of all her hopes. Her spirit was broken. She knew that her will was helpless against his, and with a fatalism that she had learned in the desert she accepted the inevitable with a crushed feeling of hopelessness.

She wondered numbly what would become of her. It did not seem to matter much. Nothing mattered now that he did not want her any more. The old life was far away, in another world. She could never go back to it. She did not care. It was nothing to her. It was only here in the desert, in Ahmed Ben Hassan's arms, that she had become alive, that she had learned what life really meant, that she had waked both to happiness and sorrow.

The future stretched out blank and menacing before her, but she turned from it with a great sob of despair. It was on him that her thoughts were fixed. How would life be endurable without him? Dully she wondered why she did not hate him for having done to her what he had done, for having made her what she was. But nothing that he could do could kill the love now that he had inspired. And she would never regret. She would always have the memory of the fleeting happiness that had been hers—in after years that memory would be all that she would have to live for. Even in her heart she did not reproach him, there was no bitterness in her misery. She had always known that it would come, though she had fenced with it, shutting it out of her mind resolutely. He had never led her to expect anything else. There was no link to bring them closer together, no bond between them. If she could have had the promise of a child. Alone though she was the sensitive colour flamed into her cheeks, and she hid her face in the pillows with a quivering sob. A child that would be his and hers, a child—a boy with the same passionate dark eyes, the same crisp brown hair, the same graceful body, who would grow up as tall and strong, as brave and fearless as his father. Surely he must love her then. Surely the memory of his own mother's tragic history would make him merciful to the mother of his son. But she had no hope of that mercy. She lay shaking with passionate yearning and the storm of bitter tears that swept over her, hungry for the clasp of his arms, faint with longing. The pent-up misery of weeks that she had crushed down surged over. There was nobody to hear the agonising sobs that shook her from head to foot. She could relax the control that she had put upon herself and which had seemed to be slowly turning her to stone. She could give way to the emotion that, suppressed, had welled up choking in her throat and gripped her forehead like red-hot bands eating into her brain. Tears were not easy to her. She had not wept since that first night when, with the fear of worse than death, she had grovelled at his feet, moaning for mercy. She had not wept during the terrible hours she was in the power of Ibraheim Omair, nor during the days that Raoul de Saint Hubert had fought for his friend's life. But to-night the tears that all her life she had despised would not be denied. Tortured with conflicting emotions, unsatisfied love, fear and uncertainty, utterly unnerved, she gave herself up at last to the feelings she could no longer restrain. Prone on the wide bed, her face buried in the pillows, her hands clutching convulsively at the silken coverings, she wept until she had no more tears, until the anguished, sobs died away into silence and she lay quiet, exhausted.

She wrestled with herself. The weakness that she had given way to must be conquered. She knew that, without any possibility of doubt, his coming would seal her fate—whatever it was to be. She must wait until then. A long, shuddering sigh ran through her. "Ahmed! Ahmed Ben Hassan," she murmured slowly, lingering with wistful tenderness on the words. She pressed her face closer into the cushions, clasping her hands over her head, and for a long time lay very still. The heat was intense and every moment the tent seemed to grow more airless. The room was stifling, and, with a little groan, Diana sat up, pushing the heavy hair oft her damp forehead, and covered her flushed face with her hands. A cicada began its shrill note close by, chirping with maddening persistency. Quite suddenly her mind was filled with thoughts of her own people, the old home in England, the family for whose honour her ancestors had been so proudly jealous. Even Aubrey, lazy and self-indulgent as he was, prized the family honour as he prized nothing else on earth; and now she, proud Diana Mayo, who had the history of her race at her fingers' ends, who had gloried in the long line of upright men and chaste women, had no thankfulness in her heart that in her degradation she had been spared a crowning shame. Beside her love everything dwindled into nothingness. He was her life, he filled her horizon. Honour itself was lost in the absorbing passion of her love. He had stripped it from her and she was content that it should lie at his feet. He had made her nothing, she was his toy, his plaything, waiting to be thrown aside. She shuddered again and looked around the tent that she had shared with him with a bitter smile and sad, hunted eyes…. After her—who? The cruel thought persisted. She was torn with a mad, primitive jealousy, a longing to kill the unknown woman who would inevitably succeed her, a desire that grew until a horror of her own feelings seized her, and she shrank down, clasping her hands over her ears to shut out the insidious voice that seemed actually whispering beside her. The Persian hound in the next room had whined uneasily from time to time, and now he pushed his way past the curtain and stalked across the thick rugs. He nuzzled his shaggy head against her knee, whimpering unhappily, looking up into her face. And when she noticed him he reared up and flung his long body across her lap, thrusting his wet nose into her face. She caught his head in her hands and rubbed her cheek against his rough hair, crooning over him softly. Even the dog was comfort in her loneliness, and they both waited for their master.