She did not shrink, but sat motionless, her hand becoming deathly cold, and the dank perspiration gathering upon her brow.
“No,” he said at last, with a smile; “it is not fair. You must drink to me. See!” he continued, raising the cup to his lips, and holding it there for some moments. “I drink to your happiness—a toast you English people call it.”
She watched him narrowly, and saw that he did not drink, merely held the cup to his lips, and then slowly let it down to the level of his breast, carefully wiping his lips before holding out the cup to her.
“Stay,” he cried, “I must fill it up again;” and taking the native bottle, his hand shook a good deal as he refilled the cup. “Your presence agitates me,” he said. “See how my hand trembles. It is all for love—the love you taught me to feel.”
Helen trembled with horror; and never had her heart reproached her in all her past more bitterly than at this moment. It was retribution, and she felt it cruelly.
“There,” he cried, touching the edge of the cup again with his lips, “drink from that, Helen, my love, my wife, as an earnest of the kisses you press upon these lips, for I will not force them from you; they shall come full and freely as your gifts. Forced kisses are from slaves, and I can command them when I will! I want your warm, true, freely-given English love, and in return I will worship you, and make you a queen as great as your own, far over the seas. There, take the cup and drink. Yes, you must—you shall drink. No, no,” he cried, laughing in a harsh, strange way, “I do not command, I beg and pray.”
He had risen now, and was bending down over her with the wine, and in her horror and fear of his presence she was ready to shriek aloud. His hand grasped her arm as he pressed the cup towards her. It was with no lustful caress, but with a spasmodic, furious grasp to save himself from falling as the cup dropped from his hand, making a great patch upon the soft brown matting that was spread with sweets and fruit.
He recovered himself though directly, and stood upright, but kept on muttering angrily and gazing about him in a wild, excited way. His eyes looked fixed and dilated, while his hands were extended as if feeling about for something to grasp.
Helen gazed at him in horror, and she shrank more and more away as Murad kept on muttering in the Malay tongue before sinking down heavily and then letting his head drop as if it were much too heavy to bear.
She stared, believing it to be some ruse, but a heavy, stertorous breathing set in, and the Rajah sank lower and lower, evidently in a heavy stupor, while now all became confused and misty before Helen’s eyes; and as, like a flash, the thought passed through her brain that after all the water that she had tasted had been drugged, a deathly sickness overcame her, and she sank back insensible upon the mats.