The Sheik

She had not been prepared for the ceaseless activity of the man whose

prisoner she was. His life was hard, strenuous and occupied. His days

were full, partly with the magnificent horses that he bred, and partly

with tribal affairs that took him from the camp for hours at a time.

Upon one or two occasions he had been away for the whole night and had

come back at daybreak with all the evidences of hard riding. Some days

she rode with him, but when he had not the time or the inclination, the

French valet went with her. A beautiful grey thoroughbred called Silver

Star was kept for her use, and sometimes on his back she was able to

forget for a little time. So the moments of relaxation were less

frequent than they might have been, and it was only in the evenings

when Gaston had come and gone for the last time and she was alone with

the Sheik that an icy hand seemed to close down over her heart. And,

according to his mood, he noticed or ignored her. He demanded implicit

obedience to his lightest whim with the unconscious tyranny of one who

had always been accustomed to command. He ruled his unruly followers

despotically, and it was obvious that while they loved him they feared

him equally. She had even seen Yusef, his lieutenant, cringe from the

heavy scowl that she had, herself, learned to dread.

"You treat them like dogs," she said to him once. "Are you not afraid

that one day they will rise against you and murder you?"

And he had only shrugged his shoulders and laughed, the same low laugh

of amusement that never failed to make her shiver.

The only person whose devotion seemed untinged by any conflicting

sentiment was the French valet, Gaston.

It was the Sheik's complete indifference to everything beyond his own

will, his Oriental egoism, that stung her most. He treated her

supplications and invectives with a like unconcern. The paroxysms of

wild rage that filled her periodically made no impression on him. He

accorded them a shrug of ennui or watched her with cold curiosity, his

lips parted in a little cruel smile, as if the dissection of her

lacerated feelings amused him, until his patience was exhausted, and

then, with one of the lithe, quick movements that she could never

evade, his hands would grip and hold her and he would look at her. Only

that, but in the grasp of his lean, brown fingers and under the stare

of his dark, fierce eyes her own would drop, and the frantic words die

from her lips. She was physically afraid of him, and she hated him and

loathed herself for the fear he inspired. And her fear was legitimate.

His strength was abnormal, and behind it was the lawlessness and

absolutism that allowed free rein to his savage impulses. He held life

and death in his hand.