The Sheik

He laughed contemptuously. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than

coming into actual collision with the man whom he had been trained from

boyhood to hate. As long as Ibraheim Omair remained within his own

territory Ahmed Ben Hassan held his hand and kept in check his fierce

followers, whose eyes were turned longingly towards the debatable land,

but once let the robber Sheik step an inch over the border, and it was

war, and war until one or both of the chiefs were dead. And if he died

who had no son to succeed him; the huge tribe would split up in

numerous little families for want of a leader to keep them together,

and it would be left to the French Government to take over, if they

could, the vast district that he had governed despotically. And at the

thought he laughed again. No, it was not Ibraheim Omair who was

troubling him. He pushed the hound aside and went into the tent. The

divan where Diana had been sitting was strewn with magazines and

papers, the imprint of her slender body still showed in the soft,

heaped-up cushions, and a tiny, lace-edged handkerchief peeped out

under one of them. He picked it up and looked at it curiously, and his

forehead contracted slowly in the heavy black scowl. He turned his

burning eyes toward the curtains that divided the rooms. Saint Hubert's

words rang in his ears. "English!" he muttered with a terrible oath.

"And I have made her suffer as I swore any of that damned race should

if they fell into my hands. Merciful Allah! Why does it give me so

little pleasure?"