A few days after he had taken her she had seen him chastise a servant. She did not know what the man's fault had been, but the punishment seemed out of all proportion to anything that could be imagined, and she had watched fascinated with horror, until he had tossed away the murderous whip, and without a second glance at the limp, blood-stained heap that huddled on the ground with suggestive stillness had strolled back unconcerned to the tent. The sight had sickened her and haunted her perpetually. His callousness horrified her even more than his cruelty. She hated him with all the strength of her proud, passionate nature. His personal beauty even was an additional cause of offence. She hated him the more for his handsome face and graceful, muscular body. His only redeeming virtue in her eyes was his total lack of vanity, which she grudgingly admitted. He was as unconscious of himself as was the wild animal with which she compared him.
"He is like a tiger," she murmured deep into the cushions, with a shiver, "a graceful, cruel, merciless beast." She remembered a tiger she had shot the previous winter in India. After hours of weary, cramped waiting in the machan the beautiful creature had slipped noiselessly through the undergrowth and emerged into the clearing. He had advanced midway towards the tree where she was perched and had stopped to listen, and the long, free stride, the haughty poise of the thrown-back head, the cruel curl of the lips and the glint in the ferocious eyes flashing in the moonlight, were identical with the expression and carriage of the man who was her master. Then it had been admiration without fear, and she had hesitated at wantonly destroying so perfect a thing, until the quick pressure of her shikari's fingers on her arm brought her back to facts and reminded her that the "perfect thing" was reported to have eaten a woman the previous week. And now it was fear with a reluctant admiration that she despised herself for according.
A hand on her shoulder made her start up with a cry. Usually her nerves were in better control, but the thick rugs deadened every sound, and she had not expected him so soon. He had been out since dawn and had come in much past his usual time, and had been having a belated siesta in the adjoining room.
Angry with herself she bit her lip and pushed the tumbled hair off her forehead. He dropped on to the divan beside her and lit the inevitable cigarette; he smoked continuously every moment he was not in the saddle. She glanced at him covertly. He was lying with his head thrown back against the cushions, idly blowing smoke-rings and watching them drift towards the open door-way. And as she looked he yawned and turned to her.
"Zilah is careless. Insist that she puts away your boots, and does not leave your clothes lying on the floor. There was a scorpion in the bathroom to-day," he said lazily, stretching out his long legs.
She flushed hotly, as she always did when he made any casual reference to the intimacy of their life. It was his casualness that frightened her, the carelessly implied continuance of a state that scorched her with shame. His attitude invariably suggested a duration of their relations that left her numb with a kind of helpless despair. He was so sure of himself, so sure of his possession of her.
She felt the warm blood pouring over her face now, up to the roots of her bright hair and dyeing her slender neck, and she put her hands up to her head, her fingers thrust through her loose curls, to shield her face from his eyes.
She gave a sigh of relief when Gaston came in bringing a little tray with two filigree-cased cups of coffee.
"I have brought coffee; Madame's tea is finished," he murmured in tones of deepest distress, and with a gesture that conveyed a national calamity.
There had been just enough tea taken on the tour to last a month. It was another pin-prick, another reminder. She set her teeth, moving her head angrily, and found herself looking into a pair of mocking eyes, and, as always, her own dropped.
Gaston said a few words in Arabic to his master, and the Sheik swallowed the boiling coffee and went out hastily. The valet moved about the tent with his usual deft noiselessness, gathering up cigarette ends and spent matches, and tidying the room with an assiduous orderliness that was peculiarly his own. Diana watched him almost peevishly. Was it the influence of the desert that made all these men cat-like in their movements, or was the servant consciously or unconsciously copying his master? With a sudden fit of childish irritability she longed to smash something, and, with an impetuous hand, sent the little inlaid table with the tray and coffee-cups flying. She was ashamed of the impulse even before the crash came, and looked at Gaston clearing up the debris with anxious eyes. What was the matter with her? The even temper on which she prided herself and the nerves that had been her boast had vanished, gone by the board in the last month. If her nerve failed her utterly what would become of her? What would she do?
Gaston had gone, and she looked around the tent with a hunted expression. There seemed no escape possible from the misery that was almost more than she could bear.
There was a way out that had been in her mind often, and she had searched frequently in the hope that she might find the means. But the Sheik had also thought and had taken precautions. One day it seemed as if her desperate wish might be fulfilled, and she had had only a moment's hesitation as she stretched out her hand to take the revolver that had been left lying on a table, but as her fingers closed on the butt a muscular hand closed over hers. He had come in with his usual silent step and was close to her without her knowing. He had taken the weapon from her quietly, holding her eyes with his own, and had jerked it open, showing the empty magazine. "Do you think that I am quite a fool?" he had asked without a trace of expression in his voice.
And since then she had been under a ceaseless, unobtrusive surveillance that had left her no chance of carrying out her terrible resolve. She buried her face in her hands. "Oh, my God! Is it never going to end? Am I never going to get away from him?"
She sprang to her feet and walked restlessly round the tent, her hands clasped behind her back, her head thrown up, and her lips pressed close together. She panted as if she had been running, and her eyes had a far-away, unseeing look. Gradually she got command of herself again and the nervous excitement died down, leaving her weary and very desolate. The solitude seemed suddenly horrible. Anything would be better than the silent emptiness of the great tent. A noise outside attracted her, and she wandered to the doorway and out under the awning. Near her the Sheik with Gaston and Yusef stood watching a mad, ramping colt that was being held with difficulty by two or three men, who clung to him tenaciously in spite of his efforts to break away, and beyond was a semi-circle of Arabs, some mounted and some on foot, leaving a wide, open space between them and the tent. They were intensely excited, talking and gesticulating, the mounted men riding round the outer ring that they formed. Diana leaned against one of the lances that supported the awning and watched the scene with growing interest. This camp was many miles to the south of the one to which she had first been brought, and which had been broken up a few days after her capture. The setting was wonderful, the far-off hills dusky in the afternoon light, the clustering palms behind the tents, the crowd of barbaric figures in picturesque, white robes, the horsemen moving continuously up and down, and in the midst of everything the beautiful, wild creature, frenzied by the noise, kicking and biting at the men holding him. After a moment the Sheik held up his hand, and a man detached himself from the chattering crowd and came to him salaaming. The Sheik said a few words, and with another salaam and a gleam of white teeth, the man turned and approached the struggling group in the centre of the ring.
Diana straightened up with interest. The frantic colt was going to be broken. It was already saddled. Several additional men ran forward, and between them the horse was forcibly held for a moment—only for a moment, but it was long enough for the man who leaped like a flash on to his back. The others fell away, racing from the reach of the terrible lashing heels. Amazed for the moment at the sudden unaccustomed weight, the colt paused, and then reared straight up, till it seemed to Diana that he must fall backward and crush the man who was clinging to him. But he came down at last, and for a few moments it was almost impossible to follow his spasmodic movements as he strove to rid himself of his rider. The end came quickly. With a twisting heave of his whole body he shot the Arab over his head, who landed with a dull thud and lay still, while the men who had been holding the colt dashed in and secured him before he was aware of his liberty. Diana looked towards the fallen man; a little crowd were gathered around him, and her heart beat faster as she thought that he was dead. Dead so quickly, and only a moment before he had been so full of life and strength. Death meant nothing to these savages, she thought bitterly, as she watched the limp body being carried away by three or four men, who argued violently over their burden. She glanced at the Sheik. He seemed perfectly unconcerned and did not even look in the direction of the man who had fallen. On the contrary, he laughed, and, turning to Yusef, put his hand en his shoulder and nodded towards the colt. Diana gave a gasp. He spared no one. He was going to make the young man take his chance as the rough-rider had taken his. She knew that the lieutenant rode well, as did all Ahmed Ben Hassan's followers, and that his languid manner was only a pose, but he looked so young and boyish, and the risk seemed enormous. She had seen colts broken before many times, but never a colt so madly savage as this one. But to Yusef the chance was evidently welcome. With an answering laugh, he swaggered out into the arena, where the men greeted him with shouts. There was the same procedure as before, and Yusef bounded up lightly into the saddle. This time, instead of rearing, the frightened beast dashed forward in a wild effort to escape, but the mounted men, closing up, headed him into the middle of the ring again, and he went back to his first tactics with a rapidity that was too much for the handsome lad on his back, and in a few moments he was thrown heavily. With a shrill scream the colt turned on him open-mouthed, and Yusef flung up one arm to save his face. But the men reached him in time, dragging the colt from him by main force. He rose to his feet unsteadily and limped to the tents behind. Diana could not see him easily for the throng around him.