"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.
"I will obey you," she whispered heavily.
He took her chin in his fingers and jerked her head up sharply, staring at her intently until she felt he was looking into her very soul. The heavy scowl smoothed away but the fierceness lingered in his eyes. "Good!" he said at length briefly. "You are wise," he added significantly. He tilted her head further back, bending his own down until his lips were nearly touching hers. She shivered involuntarily, an anguished appeal leaping into her eyes. He smiled ironically. "Do you hate them so much, my kisses?"
She swallowed convulsively.
"You are at least candid if you are not complimentary;" and with that he released her and turned away.