"But I have you now, beautiful maiden, and if you will not bend to my will, I will break you to it, even if I spoil your satin skin and the soles of your small feet by the lash of the whip!"
"So!" said Jill after an interval in which the atmosphere, charged with the electricity of anger, lust, scorn, and all the kindred sisters of evilness, resembled what might be the result of a cross between a spitting cat and a wireless installation. "So! Am I to understand that you have vulgarly kidnapped me—and are holding me not for ransom, but for your evil pleasures and those of your friends?"
"Quite so, Mademoiselle! Your words are as clear as the stream running through a certain oasis which long I coveted, but which fell to my greatest enemy because he had a few more piastres than I—and maybe a little more diplomacy—a man who would kill me if he could but find the excuse, the moral breeder of camels, the fanatic son of Solomon, Hahmed the great, Hahmed the most noble—pah!"
For one brief second Jill's eyes scanned the sensual face in front, but seeing nothing more subtle than an intense hatred therein for the absent man, shrugged her shoulders and then flung up her hand sharply as the man's hand suddenly fastened on her wrist.
"Let go my hand at once," she said as indifferently as though she were asking for a glass of water, but she wrenched herself free and fled behind a divan almost hidden in a bower of growing tropical plants as the man let go at her command to suddenly grip her about the waist.
"I shall scream the place down, and bite, and kick, and scratch, if you touch me again."
For one moment they looked at each other across the pile of silken cushions, the dark shining leaves of the plants throwing up the girl's wonderful colouring, the white petals of a flower falling like snow about her as she stood waiting for the next move in the exceedingly dangerous game in which she was taking part.
The silence was absolutely deathly until the oriental broke it, smiling the while as he might on a rebellious child.
"If you make a noise you will bring women and servants, and perhaps my friends, packing to the door from the most distant corners of the house. They do not know that you are here as I brought you in by a secret door and private way, also no one is allowed to place foot in my own quarter of the house without my permission, with the exception of the guardian of the big door itself, but their curiosity would outweigh their prudence if they heard cries, for their delight is unbounded when trouble reigns between their friend or master and a woman. If you bite and kick and scratch I shall have you overpowered and bound to your great sorrow, and their greater delight. It has been written that you shall be one of those whom I honour with my favour, why then try to fight against that which is ordained?"
Jill answered never a word, contenting herself with keeping a watch on the man's movements, though to the very innermost part of her she longed to fling herself upon him to mutilate or to kill.