The Sheik

She could not think of him as an Englishman. The mere accident

of his parentage was a factor that weighed nothing. He was and always

would be an Arab of the wilderness. If he lived! He must live!

He could not go out like that, his magnificent strength and fearless

courage extinguished by a treacherous blow that had not dared to meet

him face to face--in spite of the overwhelming numbers--but had struck

him down from behind, a coward stroke. He must live, even if his life

meant death to her hopes of happiness; that was nothing compared with

his life. She loved him well enough to sacrifice anything for him. If

he only lived she could bear even to be put out of his life. It was

only he that mattered, his life was everything. He was so young, so

strong, so made to live. He had so much to live for. He was essential

to his people. They needed him. If she could only die for him. In the

days when the world was young the gods were kind, they listened to the

prayers of hapless lovers and accepted the life that was offered in

place of the beloved whose life was claimed. If God would but listen to

her now. If He would but accept her life in exchange for his. If----!

if----!

Her fingers crept up lightly across his breast, fearful lest even their

tender touch should injure his battered body, and she looked long and

earnestly at him. His crisp brown hair was hidden by the bandages that,

dead white against his tanned face, swathed his bruised head. His

closed eyes with the thick dark lashes curling on his cheek, hiding the

usual fierce expression that gleamed in them, and the relaxation of the

hard lines of his face made him look singularly young. That youthful

look had been noticeable often when he was asleep, and she had watched

it wondering what Ahmed the boy had been like before he grew into the

merciless man at whose hands she had suffered so much.

And now the knowledge of his boyhood seemed to make him even dearer

than he had been before. What sort of man would he have been if the

little dark-eyed mother had lived to sway him with her gentleness? Poor

little mother, helpless and fragile!--yet strong enough to save her boy

from the danger that she feared for him, but paying the price of that

strength with her life, content that her child was safe.

Diana thought of her own mother dying in the arms of a husband who

adored her, and then of the little Spanish girl slipping away from

life, a stranger in a strange land, her heart crying out for the

husband whom she still loved, turning in ignorance of his love for

consolation in the agony of death to the lover she had denied, and

seeking comfort in his arms. A sudden jealousy of the two dead women

shook her. They had been loved. Why could not she be loved? Wherein did

she fail that he would not love her? Other men had loved her, and his

love was all she longed for in the world. To feel his arms around her

only once with love in their touch, to see his passionate eyes kindle

only once with the light she prayed for. She drew a long sobbing

breath. "Ahmed, mon bel Arabe," she murmured yearningly.