The Sheik
Page 75She shook off the feeling of apprehension that had taken hold of her
and her nervous fears died away. A reckless feeling, like the
excitement of the morning, came over her, and she urged the grey on
with coaxing words, and responding to her voice, and hardly feeling her
light weight, he raced on untiringly. All around was silence and a
solitude that was stupendous. The vast emptiness was awe-inspiring. The
afternoon was wearing away; already it was growing cooler. Diana had
seen no sign of human life since she had left Gaston hours before and a
little feeling of anxiety stirred faintly deep down in her heart.
Traces of caravans she passed several times, and from the whitening
bones of dead camels she turned her head in aversion--they were too
intimately suggestive. She had seen a few jackals, and once a hyena
lumbered away clumsily among some rocks as she passed. She had got away
from the level desert, and was threading her way in and out of some low
hills, which she felt were taking her out of her right course. She was
steering by the setting sun, which had turned the sky into a glory of
bewildering.
The low, narrow defile seemed hemming her in, menacing her
on all sides, and she was beginning to despair of finding her way out
of the labyrinth, when, on rounding a particularly sharp turn, the
rocks fell away suddenly and she rode out into open country. She
breathed a sigh of relief and called out cheerily to the grey, but, as
she looked ahead, her voice died away, and she reined him in sharply
with a quickening heart-beat. Across the desert about a mile away she
saw a party of Arabs coming towards her. There were about fifty of
them, the leader riding a big, black horse some little distance in
front of his followers. In the clear atmosphere they seemed nearer than
they were. It was not what she wished. She had hoped for an encampment,
where there would be women or a caravan of traders whose constant
communication with the towns would make them realise the importance of
guiding her to civilisation unharmed. This band of fighting men, for
formation was anything but peaceful, filled her with the greatest
misgivings.
Only the worst might be expected from the wild, lawless
tribesmen towards a woman alone amongst them. She had fled from one
hideousness to another which would be ten times more horrible. Her face
blanched and she set her teeth in desperation. The human beings she had
prayed for were now a deadly menace, and she prayed as fervently that
they might pass on and not notice her. Perhaps it was not too late,
perhaps they had not yet seen her and she might still slip away and
hide in the twisting turnings of the defile. She backed Silver Star
further into the shadow of the rock, but as she did so she saw that she
had been seen. The leader turned in his saddle and raised his hand high
above his head, and with a wild shout and a great cloud of dust and
sand his men checked their horses, dragging them back on to their
haunches, while he galloped towards her alone. And at the same moment
There was no mistaking him or the big black horse he rode. For a moment
she reeled with a sudden faintness, and then with a tremendous effort
she pulled herself together, dragging her horse's head round and urged
him back along the track which she had just left, and behind her raced
Ahmed Ben Hassan, spurring the great, black stallion as he had never
done before. With ashy face and wild, hunted eyes Diana crouched
forward on the grey's neck, saving him all she could and riding as she
had never ridden in her life. Utterly reckless, she urged the horse to
his utmost pace, regardless of the rough, dangerous track. Perhaps she
could still shake off her pursuer among the tortuous paths of the
hills. Nothing mattered but that. Better even an ugly toss and a broken
neck than that he should take her again. Panic-stricken she wanted to
shriek and clenched her teeth on her lips to keep back the scream that
rose in her throat.