The Sheik

"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.