Helen’s despair grew deeper as she listened to the Rajah’s words, and reading her thoughts aright, he went on calmly enough:
“I do not mind. You know I love you, and at heart I believe you love me. But what matter if you do not? You will when you are my wife. You will be quite contented here, and very soon forget your own people and their ways. It will be a change for an English beauty to become a Malay princess, and you shall even have a new name. Still angry? There, pray calm down. It is because I had you fetched so suddenly away; for I know you, Helen. You are not weeping for any other lover. Out of so many you could care for none more than for me.”
Still Helen did not reply, but stood at bay, her eyes dilated, and backing from him whenever he made as if to approach her, till, with a scornful laugh, he gave up the pursuit and threw himself carelessly upon one of the divans.
“Why should I weary myself by running after you?” he said, with a mocking laugh. “That is all past, and you must plead to me. Foolish girl, how could you return even if you wished! They think you dead, and who would know Helen Perowne in you?”
She started a little here, and he noted it and smiled.
“I have waited and can wait still, for I know that as soon as this fit is over you will creep to my feet like any other slave I have. I know what you are thinking—that you will escape.”
“And mark my words, I shall!” cried Helen, impetuously.
“Don’t try it,” he said, smiling. “Don’t try it, for your own sake as well as mine. It sounds cruel, but it is a custom of this country to spear a slave who is seen to run away; and if my people fail to take you, and I do not think they would, the tigers would prove less merciful. You must have heard them when the night has come; they roam about this place, and the more I kill them the more they seem to come.
“What!” he said, laughing, “you would rather trust to the tender mercies of the beasts than trust to me! I read it in your scornful eyes, but that is not true, or a time back you would not have looked tenderly in mine and sighed and pressed my hand at parting.”
He laughed aloud as he saw her shrink and cower away in her abasement for very shame. She was reaping now the fruits of her career of folly; and if ever woman bitterly repented her weakness and the trifling of which she had been guilty in her love of admiration, that woman was Helen Perowne, as she stood there shamefaced and crushed as it were by the thoughts of the past.