The Sheik: A Novel

by E. M. Hull

She reached the curtain that divided the two rooms, her heart beating wildly, giddy with the strain that she had gone through. She paused a moment and looked back at him, amazed at her own temerity. He had unbuttoned the flap of the tent and was standing in the entrance looking out into the night. The scent of the peculiar tobacco he used drifted to her with the draught from the open door. Her eyes grew puzzled. Would she ever understand him? To-night he had given her a choice instead of simply enforcing his will, he had made her choose to save herself, he had proved his determination and his mastery over her. And with his last words the unexpected gentleness had come into his voice again and the cruel lines about his mouth had relaxed in a smile of amusement. It was the swift transition from ferocity to gentleness that she could never fathom. His complex nature was beyond her understanding. She would not try to understand him; she could never know the depths of his baffling personality. She only knew that for some reason of his own he had spared her, and she feared him more than ever.

CHAPTER V

Under the awning of the tent Diana was waiting for Gaston and the horses, pulling on her thick riding-gloves nervously. She was wrought up to the utmost pitch of excitement. Ahmed Ben Hassan had been away since the previous day and it was uncertain if he would return that night or the next. He had been vague as to how long he would be absent. There had been a constant coming and going amongst his followers—messengers arriving on exhausted horses at all hours of the day and night, and the Sheik himself had seemed unusually preoccupied. He had not condescended to give any reason for the special activity of his people and she had not asked him.

In the four weeks that had elapsed since she had promised him her obedience she had been very silent. The fear and hatred of him grew daily. She had learned to stifle the wild fits of rage and the angry words that leaped to her lips. She had learned to obey—a reluctant obedience given with compressed lips and defiant eyes, but given, and with a silence that surprised even herself. Day after day she had followed the usual routine, dumb unless he spoke to her; and with his own attention occupied with matters beyond the four walls of his tent he had not noticed or did not trouble to heed her silence. Lately he had left her very much alone; she had ridden with him almost daily until the last week, when he had announced curtly that in the meantime the length of her rides must be curtailed and that Gaston would accompany her. He had not offered any explanation, and she had not sought one. She had chosen to see in it merely another act of tyranny imposed on her by the man whose arbitrary exercise of power over her and whose tacit possession of her galled her continually. And under the sullen submission a wild fury of revolt was raging. She searched feverishly for means of flight, and now the Sheik's absence seemed to have given her the chance she had been waiting for. In the solitude of the previous night she had tossed impatiently from side to side of the big couch, vainly trying to find some means of taking advantage of her comparative freedom to effect her escape. Surely she could find some way of avoiding Gaston's vigilance. Excitement had kept her awake half the night, and in the morning she had had hard work to keep her agitation hidden and to appear as usual. She had even been afraid to order the horses any earlier in her nervous terror lest the valet should suspect there was any reason behind the simple request. After her petit dejeuner she had paced the tent, unable to sit still, dreading lest any moment might bring the return of the Sheik and frustrate her hopes. She looked back into the room with a shudder as her eyes travelled over the luxurious appointments and different objects that had become so curiously familiar in the last two months. The unexpected equipments and the man's own baffling personality would remain in her recollection always as an enigma that she would never be able to solve. So much had been so inexplicable in himself and in his mode of life. She drew a long breath and went out hastily into the sunshine.

The horses were waiting, and Gaston was standing ready to hold her stirrup. She fondled the beautiful grey horse's soft nose and patted his satiny neck with a hand that trembled a little. She loved the horse and to-day he should be the means of saving her. He responded to her caresses, gentling her with slobbering mouth and whinnying softly. With one last look at the big double tent and the rest of the camp behind it she mounted and rode away without another backward glance. She had to exercise a rigid control over herself. She longed to put Silver Star into a hand gallop at once and shake off Gaston, but she was still too near the camp. She must be patient and put a certain number of miles between herself and the possibility of pursuit before she attempted anything. Too early an endeavour would only bring the whole horde in wild chase at her heels. The thought of the promise she had given to the man from whom she was flying came back to her. She had promised obedience, but she had not promised that she would not try to escape, and, if she had, no promise wrung from her by fear was valid in her opinion.

She rode steadily forward at a slow, swinging canter, instinctively saving her horse, plan after plan passing through her brain to be rejected as impracticable. Silver Star fretted continually at the moderate pace, tossing his head and catching at his bit. She took no heed of the time beyond the fact that it was passing quickly, and that if anything was to be done it must be done as soon as possible. But Gaston, riding a few paces behind her, was very much alive to the hour and had looked several times at his watch. He ranged alongside of her now with a murmured apology. "Pardon, Madame. It grows late," and submitted his wrist watch for her inspection.

Diana glanced mechanically at her own wrist and then remembered that she had broken her watch the day before. She pulled up, and tilting her helmet back mopped her hot forehead, and, as she did so, a sharp breeze sprang up, the curious wind that comes and goes so rapidly in the desert. An idea flashed into her mind. It was a poor chance, but it might succeed. She shot a glance at Gaston. He was looking in the opposite direction, and, raising her hand, she fluttered her handkerchief a moment in the breeze and then let it go. The wind carried it some distance away. She gave a little cry and caught at the bridle of the valet's horse.

"Oh, Gaston, my handkerchief!" and pointed to where the morsel of cambric lay white against a rock. With a comical exclamation of dismay he slipped to the ground and started to run across the sand.

She waited until he had got well on his way, sitting tense with shining eyes and thumping heart, then, snatching off her helmet, she brought it down with a resounding smack on the hindquarters of the servant's horse, stampeding it in the direction of the camp, and, wheeling Silver Star, headed for the north, deaf to Gaston's cries.

Wild with excitement and free to go his own pace at last her mount galloped swiftly and the wind whistled past Diana's ears. To the possible fate of the little Frenchman left on foot so far from the encampment she gave no heed. For the moment she did not even think of him, she had no thought for anybody but herself. Her ruse by its very simplicity had succeeded. She was free and she did not care about anything else. She had no plans or ideas what she should do or where she should go beyond the fact that she would keep riding northward. She had vague hopes that she might fall in with friendly Arabs who, for a promised reward, would guide her to civilisation. Most of them could speak a little French, and for the rest her small stock of Arabic must do. She knew that she was mad to attempt to ride across the desert alone, but she did not mind. She was free. She was too excited to think coherently. She laughed and shouted like a mad thing and her madness communicated itself to the grey, who was going at racing speed. Diana knew that he was out of control, that she could not stop him if she tried, but she did not want to try, the faster the better. In time he would tire himself, but until then let him go as he pleased. She was fast putting miles between herself and the camp that had been a prison, between herself and the brute who had dared to do what he had done. At the thought of the Sheik a sick feeling of fear ran through her. If anything should happen? If he should catch her again? She shuddered, and a cry burst from her lips, but she gripped herself at once. She was idiotic, contemptible; it was impossible. It would be hours, perhaps even the next day, before the alarm was given; he would not know in what direction she had gone. She would have miles of start on one of the fleetest of his horses. She tried to put him out of her mind. She had escaped from him and his cruelty, it was a nightmare that was over. The effects would remain with her always, nothing would ever be the same again, but the daily dread, the daily contamination would be gone, the helpless tortured feeling, the shame of submission that had filled her with an acute self-loathing that was as intense as her passionate hatred of the man who had forced her to endure his will. The memory of it would live with her for ever. He had made her a vile thing. Her cheeks scorched with the thought and she shivered at the remembrance of all that she had gone through. She had been down into the depths and she would carry the scars all her life. The girl who had started out so triumphantly from Biskra had become a woman through bitter knowledge and humiliating experience.