"You mean that you will treat me as you treated the colt this
afternoon?" she whispered, her eyes drawn back irresistibly to his in
spite of all her efforts.
"I mean that you must realise that my will is law."
"And if I do not?" He guessed rather than heard the words.
"Then I will teach you, and I think that you will learn--soon."
She quivered in his hands. It was a threat, but how much of it he meant
to be taken literally she did not know. Again every ghastly detail of
the afternoon passed with lightning speed through her mind. When he
punished he punished mercilessly. To what lengths would he go? The Arab
standards were not those of the men amongst whom she had lived. The
position of a woman in the desert was a very precarious one. There were
times when she forgot altogether that he was an Arab until some chance,
as now, drove the hard fact home indisputably. He was an Arab, and as a
woman she need expect no mercy at his hands. His hands! She looked down
for a second sideways at the fingers gripping her shoulder and she saw
them again stained with blood, saw them clenched round the dripping
thong. She knew already by bitter experience the iron grip of his lean
fingers and the compelling strength of his arms. Her quick imagination
leaped ahead. What she had already suffered would be nothing compared
with what would be. The remembrance of the stained, huddled figure of
the servant he had chastised rose before her. And as she battled with
herself, still torn in her passionate desire to make her strong will
and courageous spirit triumph over her coward woman's body that shrank
instinctively from physical torture, his arm tightened around her and
she felt the hard muscles pressing against her shoulders and soft, bare
neck, a suggestion of the force lying dormant beside her. She looked up
at him slowly.
His expression was unchanged, his forehead was still drawn together in
the heavy frown and there was no softening in his eyes. The cruel lines
about his mouth were accentuated and the tiger-look in his face was
more marked than ever. He was not threatening idly; he meant what he
said.
"You had better kill me," she said drearily.
"That would be to admit my own defeat," he replied coolly. "I do not
kill a horse until I have proved beyond all possible doubt that I
cannot tame it. With you I have no such proof. I can tame you and I
will. But it is for you to choose and to choose to-night if you will
obey me willingly or if I must make you. I have been very patient--for
me," he added, with an odd smile flitting across his face, "but my
patience is exhausted. Choose quickly." Insensibly he drew her closer
to him till his arm felt like an inflexible steel band about her, and
she thought with a shudder of the coils of a great serpent closing
round its victim. She made a final effort to conquer herself, but
between her and the broad chest so close to her she seemed to see a
horse's head held low in agony, blood and foam dripping from his
lacerated mouth, and a horse's flanks heaving piteously, torn with the
cruel punishment he had undergone. A sudden nausea came over her,
everything seemed to swim before her eyes, and she swayed against the
man who was holding her. Her bodily fear overruled her mind. She could
not bear any more.