"No, afterwards," he said, and picked her up unresistingly. He flung
her on the cushions and for one awful moment she felt his hands on her.
Then from outside came a sudden uproar and the sharp crack of rifles.
Then in a lull in the firing the Sheik's powerful voice: "Diane!
Diane!"
His voice and the knowledge of his nearness gave her new strength. She
leaped up in spite of Ibraheim Omair's gripping hands. "Ahmed!" she
screamed once, then the chief's hand dashed against her mouth, but,
frantic, she caught it in her teeth, biting it to the bone, and as he
wrenched it away, shrieked again, "Ahmed! Ahmed!"
But it seemed impossible that her voice could be heard above the
demoniacal noise outside the tent, and she could not call again, for,
with a snarl of rage, the chief caught her by the throat as he had
caught the Arab woman. And like the Arab woman her hands tore at his
gripping fingers vainly. Choking, stifling with the agony in her
throat, her lungs seemed bursting, the blood was beating in her ears
like the deafening roar of waves, and the room was darkening with the
film that was creeping over her eyes. Her hands fell powerless to her
sides and her knees gave way limply. He was holding her upright only by
the clutch on her throat. The drumming in her ears grew louder, the
tent was fading away into blackness. Dimly, with no kind of emotion,
she realised that he was squeezing the life out of her and she heard
his voice coming, as it were, from a great distance: "You will not
languish long in Hawiyat without your lover. I will send him quickly to
you."
She was almost unconscious, but she heard the sneering voice break
suddenly and the deadly pressure on her throat relaxed as the chief's
hands rapidly transferred their grip to her aching shoulders, swinging
her away from him and in front of him. To lift her head was agony, and
the effort brought back the black mist that had lessened with the
slackening of Ibraheim Omair's fingers round her neck, but it cleared
again sufficiently for her to see, through a blurring haze, the outline
of the tall figure that was facing her, standing by the ripped-back
doorway.
There was a pause, a silence that contrasted oddly with the tumult
outside, and Diana wondered numbly why the Sheik did nothing, why he
did not use the revolver that was clenched in his hand Then slowly she
understood that he dared not fire, that the chief was holding her, a
living shield, before him, sheltering himself behind the only thing
that would deter Ahmed Ben Hassan's unerring shots. Cautiously Ibraheim
Omair moved backward, still holding her before him, hoping to gain the
inner room. But in the shock of his enemy's sudden appearance he
miscalculated the position of the divan and stumbled against it, losing
his balance for only a moment, but long enough to give the man whose
revolver covered him the chance he wanted. With the cold ring of steel
pressing against his forehead the robber chief's hands dropped from
Diana, and she slid weak and trembling on to the rug, clasping her
pulsating throat, moaning with the effort that it was to breathe.