The Sheik

She had ridden with Gaston, and hurried over her solitary dinner, and

since then she had been waiting for the Sheik to come back. In what

mood would he come? Since Raoul's announcement of his departure he had

been more than usually taciturn and reserved. The book she held slipped

at length on to the floor, and she let it he unheeded. The usual

stillness of the desert seemed to-night unusually still-sinister

even--and the silence was so intense that the sudden squeal of a

stallion a little distance away made her start with madly racing heart

Earlier in the evening a tom-tom had been going persistently in the

men's lines, and later a native pipe had shrilled thinly in monotonous

cadence; but she had grown accustomed to these sounds; they were of

nightly occurrence and they soothed rather than irritated her, and when

they stopped the quiet had become intensified to such a degree that she

would have welcomed any sound. To-night her nerves were on edge. She was

restless and excited, and her thoughts were chaos.

She was alone again at his mercy. What would his attitude be? Her hands

clenched on her knees. At times she lay almost without breathing,

straining to hear the faintest sound that would mean his return, and

then again lest she should hear what she listened for. She longed for

him passionately, and at the same time she was afraid, He had changed

so much that there were moments when she had the curious feeling that

it was a stranger who was coming back to her, and she both dreaded his

coming and yearned for it with a singular combination of emotions. She

looked round the room where she had at once suffered so much and been

so happy with troubled eyes. She had never been nervous before, but

to-night her imagination ran riot. There was electricity in the air

which acted on her overstrung nerves. The little shaded lamp threw a

circle of light round the bed, but left the rest of the room dim, and

the dusky corners seemed full of odd new shadows that came and went

illusively.

Hangings and objects that were commonly familiar to her

took on fantastic shapes that she watched nervously, till at last she

brushed her hand across her eyes with a laugh of angry impatience. Was

the love that had changed her so completely also making her a coward?

Had even her common-sense been lost in the one great emotion that held

her? She understood perfectly the change that had taken place in her.

She had never had any illusions about herself, and had never attempted

to curb the obstinate self-will and haughty pride that had

characterized her. She thought of it curiously, her mind going back

over the last few months that had changed her whole life. The last mad

freak for which she had paid so dearly had been the outcome of an

arrogant determination to have her own way in the face of all protests

and advice. And with a greater arrogance and a determination stronger

than her own Ahmed Ben Hassan had tamed her as he tamed the magnificent

horses that he rode. He had been brutal and merciless, using no half

measures, forcing her to obedience by sheer strength of will and

compelling a complete submission. She thought of how she had feared and

hated him with passionate intensity, until the hatred had been swamped

by love as passionate and as intense. She did not know why she loved

him, she had never been able to analyse the passion that held her so

strongly, but she knew deep down in her heart that it went now far past

his mere physical beauty and superb animal strength. She loved him

blindly with a love that had killed her pride and brought her to his

feet humbly obedient. All the love that had lain dormant in her heart

for years was given to him. Body and soul she belonged to him. And the

change within her was patent in her face, the haughty expression in her

eyes had turned to a tender wistfulness, with a curious gleam of

expectancy that flickered in them perpetually; the little mutinous

mouth had lost the scornful curve. And with the complete change in her

expression she was far more beautiful now than she had ever been.