CHAPTER VII
At six o'clock in the morning the road that joins the port and the city of Las Palmas shows very little sign of the peaceful English invasion. It is given over to the Islanders. To peasant women with baskets of produce on their heads; to men driving donkeys laden with fruit and vegetables, and creaking bullock carts.
The early morning was Pansy's favourite time; the world was a place of dew and brightness with the sun glinting gold on sandy hills and air that sparkled like champagne.
She trotted along on her big horse towards the white city, its flat roofs, low houses and palms giving it an oriental aspect. Biding through the town, she crossed a wide bridge and went upwards through a grove of palms, past banana gardens, into a deserted world, with a blue sky overhead and an endless stretch of sea behind.
As she mounted higher, the hill grew vine-clad, and great ragged eucalyptus trees stood in tatters by the roadside. Here and there was a stunted pine, the deep green of a walnut tree, a clump of bamboo, a palm and occasionally, a great patch of prickly cacti, whose flaming flowers stood out red against a dazzling day.
She rode without spurs or whip, when necessary urging her horse with hand and voice only.
A village was reached, where black-browed men in slouch hats and blanket cloaks lounged in groups, smoking and gossiping, and swarthy women with bright handkerchiefs around their heads stared at the girl astride the big horse.
In the dust of the road a little group of half-clad, bare-footed children dragged a trio of unfortunate lizards along by strings around their necks, and screamed with delight at the writhings of the tortured reptiles.
The sight brought a look of distress to Pansy's face.
Reining in her horse, she slipped of and went towards the group.
In indifferent Spanish she gave a brief lecture on cruelty. There was a sprinkling of small coins, and the lizards changed owners.
Pansy stooped. Loosening the strings from their soft throats, she picked them out of the dust. They were pretty, harmless little things, each about eighteen inches long and bright green in colour, that hung limp in her gentle hands, and looked at her with tortured eyes. Holding them carefully, she went back to her horse, and with the reins over her arm, made her way through the village.
Once well out of sight of the place, she seated herself on a bank at the side of the road, and laid the three limp little forms on a warm, flat, sunny rock. Then she tried to coax them back to life and their normal state of bright friskiness.
As she sat rubbing, with a gentle forefinger, their soft, panting throats, crooning over them with pitying words, too intent on her task to notice what was going on around her, a deep voice said with an unexpectedness that made her jump:
"They'll do exactly the same with the next lizards they catch."
She looked round quickly.
In the middle of the road, mounted on a huge black horse, was the man whose life she had saved.
Pansy's gaze rested on him for a moment before she replied. He made such a picture on the black horse, with his strong, sunburnt face and well-cut khaki riding suit; the most perfect combination of horse and man she had ever seen.
"I know they will," she said. "But still, I've done my best for these three."
"Do you always try to do your best for everything that comes your way, Pansy?" he asked tenderly.
"Only a few privileged people are allowed to call me 'Pansy,'" she said tartly.
"What else can I call you, since you refuse to tell me your name?"
"You mean to say you haven't found out yet?" she exclaimed.
"I never gossip," he replied in a haughty tone.
"I don't know yours," she answered, "so we're what is called in English 'quits.'"
"What exactly does 'quits' mean? I don't know much English."
As Pansy petted the lizards she explained the meaning of the word. During the explanation one of her protégés recovered, and darted off in a most thankless manner into a crevice in the rocks.
"My name is Le Breton," he said when he had grasped her meaning. "Raoul Le Breton."
Pansy stared at him.
She had surprised him on the occasion of their first meeting, but he had turned the tables on her.
During her stay in Teneriffe she had heard of Raoul Le Breton. He was a French millionaire, an African merchant prince, so rumour said.
She had had a feeling that he had followed her that morning, and she was inclined to be angry about it. Now she saw that if he sought her out, it was not from mercenary motives, since he was quite as wealthy as she was. What was more he had no idea who she was.
"I'm always interested in millionaires," she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"All women are," he responded grimly.
"But you're not the only millionaire in the islands," she remarked.
"So I've gathered. There is, or was, one here quite recently. An Englishwoman of the name of Langham. I detest women with money. They are invariably ugly and conceited."
Pansy laughed—a ripple of sheer enjoyment.
"Perhaps their independence annoys you," she suggested. "I believe you're what is known as the 'masterful' type."
With that, her attention went back to the lizards.
Dismounting, Le Breton came to her side.
"You speak French remarkably well," he commented, as the moments passed and no notice was taken of him.
"I was educated in Paris."
She glanced at him, her eyes brimming with mischief, and, as she glanced, another of her protégés frisked thanklessly away.
"Wouldn't you like to know my name?" she asked.
"At present it's sufficient that you are 'Pansy.' 'Heart's Ease,' don't you say in English?"
"I wish I could ease this one poor little beast," she said, touching the remaining lizard. "But I fear it's hurt beyond redemption."
Stooping he picked up the little reptile and examined it. It hung limp in his grasp; a hopeless case.
"The best thing to do with it is to kill it," he commented.
"Oh, I couldn't," she said quickly.
But it appeared he could. He went some distance away from the girl and placed the lizard on a flat rock. In a moment he had ground all tortured life out of it with his heel.
"Thank you," she said gratefully. "I knew it was suffering, but I couldn't have done that to save my life. As a reward, will you come and have breakfast with me?"
"There's nothing I should like better," he answered.
Pansy got to her feet.
He helped her to mount. Then he rode at her side up the hill.
"I love the clear heights," she remarked presently.
"I don't know much about them. The miry depths are more in my line," he replied.
Critically she surveyed him.
"You don't look so specially muddy."
"No? What do I look like—to you?" he asked, a caressing note in his voice.
"Very proud, very passionate, very strong, and as if you could be cruel."
"Then I can't look very attractive," he said, smiling slightly.
"Being proud is all right, so long as it makes you too proud to do mean things."
"And what about the passionate?" he asked, "since you're making excuses for me.
"I don't know anything about it."
"Well, what about my being strong then?"
"I don't like men unless they are."
"And the cruelty?"
"I hate it."
"Life sometimes combines to make people cruel who otherwise might not be," he remarked, as if unaccustomed to finding excuses for himself. "You can't judge a person fairly until you know all that has gone to form their character."
Pansy patted her gaunt steed.
"I know that," she said, "that's why I stuck to 'The Sultan' when my friends tried to persuade me to have him shot. There's a lot in his life that I don't know. These marks tell me that."
She pointed to the various old scars on the animal.
"Now you shall see what 'The Sultan' can do," she went on. "I'll race you to the farm over there, where breakfast is waiting," she finished, pointing to a green patch away in the distance.
A touch of her spurless heel sent the gaunt beast flying along the dusty, deserted road, in a long, loping gallop that grew more and more rapid, egged on by the sound of another horse persistently at his heels.
Pansy had not expected that her escort would be able to keep up with her. No horse she had met could keep pace with her protégé. At the end of half a mile she had been prepared to rein up and wait for Le Breton.
But at the end of a mile he was a length behind her. And at the end of two he was there just the same.
Pansy tired before either the man or the horses.
"Oh!" she panted, as Le Breton drew up beside her. "I wasn't trained as a jockey."
"You didn't get away from me quite so easily as you expected," he remarked with curious emphasis.
"I didn't know there was a horse in the Islands to touch 'The Sultan,' in spite of his years."
"This horse I'm on has won several races in Paris. And you challenged me, Pansy, without pausing to consider what you might be let in for," he said, watching her in a fierce, fond manner.
"I always leap before I look. It's my besetting sin," she replied.
Then she pointed to a side track, leading to a low building, half white-washed mud, half timber.
"That's the way to my farm," she said. "But I don't know that my breakfast will appeal to millionaires."
"Don't thrust that down my throat just now," he answered. "I want to see life from your point of view."
The farm they were approaching was a tiny place, with a spreading garden where orange and fig trees grew. In one corner a little summer-house stood, wreathed with red roses, that gave a wide view of the island and a glimpse of the sea.
Evidently Pansy was expected. A coarse white cloth was spread on the table in the summer-house, and it was set with thick crockery and leaden-looking forks and spoons.
Leaving Le Breton to attend to the horses, she made her way to the tiny homestead, to announce her presence and the fact of a guest.
Then she passed on towards the summer-house.
Tossing her hat on a seat, she sat with the light glinting on her golden curls, her elbows on the table, watching the scene dreamily, in a frame of red roses.
This vision of her greeted Le Breton as he turned the corner, bringing a hungry glint to his eyes.
Breakfast proved a simple repast.
There was a thick jug full of coffee, another of milk, a large omelet, a dish of fruit, rolls, butter and honey.
"Now," she said when it was set before them, "how do you like your coffee?"
"As it should be according to the orientals—black as sin, hot as hell, sweet as—love," he finished, lingering over the word.
She poured his out, and handed it to him, black as he desired.
"I can get on very well without either the sin or the love," she remarked as she helped herself to a cup that was mostly milk, and with no sugar in it.
"I thought all girls liked sweet things and lived for love," he said as he set about serving the omelet.
"There's a lot more in life for women nowadays than love."
"Being in love is a woman's normal condition," he said in a forcible, dogmatic manner.
Pansy smiled.
"I always thought you had come out of the Ark, and now I'm sure of it. You've got such antiquated, early Victorian ideas about women. They mustn't wear knickers. They must always be yearning after some mere male. Very flattering to him, I'm sure," she finished, wrinkling a disdainful nose.
Le Breton's gaze rested on the vivid, beautiful little face, with the full, perfect, generous mouth, telling of an unselfish, disinterested nature that would love swiftly and deeply.
"Some day you'll find yourself in love before you know it," he commented.
"So other people have said. And it makes me horribly nervous at times. Like a blind man walking on the edge of a precipice."
"So long as you fell in love with a man who could appreciate you, it would be all right,—a man sufficiently versed in women to know you have qualities beyond your beauty to recommend you."
With some surprise Pansy glanced at him.
A soft heart lay beneath her light manner. Quite half her income was spent for the benefit of others. She wondered how he knew about these "qualities," considering their brief acquaintance. And she wondered, too, why she was sitting there discussing love with him; a subject she never would let any man approach, if it could be avoided. She put it down to the fact that her identity was unknown to him, and she could talk to him freely, knowing her millions were no temptation.
"One thing," she said mischievously, "money will never attract me. I've no expensive tastes. I like views and flowers and sunsets. Moons and stars and seas and sago pudding. Horses and chocolates and—my own way. All things that don't require a tremendous income."
There was a brief silence.
In a calculating manner Le Breton watched her. She was a new type to him; a girl who could not be approached in the way most women could be—by the easy route of costly presents.
The air was heavy with the scent of roses. In the distance a guitar was playing; a throb of melody, faint and seductive, that fed the craving in the man's heart.
Pansy glanced at him.
"How quiet you are all at once. What are you thinking about?"
"Ways and means," he replied, smiling slightly.
"I thought only hard-up people were troubled in that way."
"The trouble with me now is that I want something which I fear can't be bought with money."
"What an unpleasant position for a millionaire to be in. Still, it makes you 'realise your limitations,' as an old governess of mine used to say."
She paused for a moment, watching him with an air of subtle mockery.
"And, Mr. Le Breton, it won't do you any harm to have to go without a few of the things you want. There's a look about you as if you always had things too much your own way."
"I'm not so sure yet that I'm going to do without it. Fortunately I have two other courses left open to me—persuasion and power," he replied.
"Power! I thought that was the prerogative of kings."
Le Breton said nothing. He knew if this English girl had any idea who he was, she would not be sitting there talking to him so freely. Although he was the Sultan of El-Ammeh, in the eyes of her nation he was a "nigger."
There was a further silence which Pansy broke.
"What made you swim out all those miles the other night?" she asked.
"I get moods when I want to lose the earth and find a heaven to my own liking."
"What sort of heaven would that be?"
"Where there would be only one houri, and she all-sufficing."
"A houri? Why that's a sort of Mohammedan angel-woman."
Evidently Le Breton was in a confessional mood, for he said:
"Nowadays I often wonder what use my life is. There's no pleasure in it except, perhaps—women."
"So long as it's 'women,' it's all right. The trouble starts when it comes to—'woman.'"
These words from the innocent girl's lips made him laugh.
"Who told you that?" he asked.
"Captain Cameron. He likes to pose as an authority on such subjects."
"And who is Captain Cameron?"
There was a suspicion of jealousy in Le Breton's voice.
"At present he's possessed with a demon of tennis. But when the devil has been cast out, he's my father's secretary."
"And how can the devil be cast out?"
"There's no really permanent cure, but it can be assuaged pro tem, if he meets someone who can beat him. In Teneriffe, he carried all before him. And he's coming over here to-morrow to beat all the local champions. He's one of the few people I really like. I've known him all my life."
These remarks of hers had the effect of reducing Le Breton to silence again.