The Sheik

Slowly and painfully, through waves of deadly nausea and with the

surging of deep waters in her ears, Diana struggled back to

consciousness. The agony in her head was excruciating, and her limbs

felt cramped and bruised. Recollection was dulled in bodily pain, and,

at first, thought was merged in physical suffering. But gradually the

fog cleared from her brain and memory supervened hesitatingly. She

remembered fragmentary incidents of what had gone before the oblivion

from which she had just emerged. Gaston, and the horror and resolution

in his eyes, the convulsive working of his mouth as he faced her at the

last moment. Her own dread--not of the death that was imminent, but

lest the mercy it offered should be snatched from her. Then before the

valet could effect his supreme devotion had come the hail of bullets,

and he had fallen against her, the blood that poured from his wounds

saturating her linen coat, and rolled over across her feet. She

remembered vaguely the wild figures hemming her in, but nothing more.

Her eyes were still shut; a leaden weight seemed fixed on them, and the

effort to open them was beyond her strength. "Gaston," she whispered

feebly, and stretched out her hand. But instead of his body or the dry

hot sand her fingers had expected to encounter they closed over soft

cushions, and with the shock she sat up with a jerk, her eyes staring

wide, but, sick and faint, she fell back again, her arm flung across

her face, shielding the light that pierced like daggers through her

throbbing eye-balls. For a while she lay still, fighting against the

weakness that overpowered her, and by degrees the horrible nausea

passed and the agony in her head abated, leaving only a dull ache. The

desire to know where she was and what had happened made her forget her

bruised body. She moved her arm slightly from before her eyes so that

she could see, and looked cautiously from under thick lashes, screened

by the sleeve of her coat. She was lying on a pile of cushions in one

corner of a small-tented apartment which was otherwise bare, except for

the rug that covered the floor. In the opposite corner of the tent an

Arab woman crouched over a little brazier, and the smell of native

coffee was heavy in the air. She closed her eyes again with a shudder.

The attempted devotion of Gaston had been useless. This must be the

camp of the robber Sheik, Ibraheim Omair.

She lay still, pressing closely down amongst the cushions, and

clenching the sleeve of her jacket between her teeth to stifle the

groan that rose to her lips. A lump came into her throat as she thought

of Gaston. In those last moments all inequality of rank had been swept

away in their common peril--they had been only a white man and a white

woman together in their extremity. She remembered how, when she had

pressed close to him, his hand had sought and gripped hers, conveying

courage and sympathy. All that he could do he had done, he had shielded

her body with his own, it must have been over his lifeless body that

they had taken her. He had proved his faithfulness, sacrificing his

life for his master's play-thing. Gaston was in all probability dead,

but she was alive, and she must husband her strength for her own needs.

She forced the threatening emotion down, and, with an effort,

controlled the violent shivering in her limbs, and sat up slowly,

looking at the Arab woman, who, hearing her move, turned to gaze at

her. Instantly Diana realised that there was no help or compassion to

be expected from her. She was a handsome woman, who must have been

pretty as a girl, but there was no sign of softness in her sullen face

and vindictive eyes. Instinctively Diana felt that the glowing menace

of the woman's expression was inspired by personal hatred, and that her

presence in the lent was objectionable to her. And the feeling gave a

necessary spur to the courage that was fast coming back to her. She

stared with all the haughtiness she could summon to her aid; she had

learned her own power among the natives of India the previous year, and

here in the desert there was only one Arab whose eyes did not fall

beneath hers, and presently with a muttered word the woman turned back

to her coffee-making.