Zarah leapt at the chance of firmly establishing her lie. “But zer-r-e was no one else to save. Ze old one, your-r gr-ran’fazer-r, was dead.”
“No, no, no!” Helen sat forward in her intense excitement, her eyes shining, her hands clenched. “There was another Englishman with us, someone you know, Zarah. Think of it, someone you have met!”
“Me! I have met! A fr-r-rien’ of yours and mine! I do not under-r-stan’!”
Quickly, breathlessly, Helen reminded her of the day she had fallen from her horse into Ralph Trenchard’s arms.
“You remember! Oh, you must remember! He told me all about you; said how magnificently you rode. Oh, and when he heard about the mysterious woman of the desert, he said he thought it might be you, because you had told him that you came from somewhere about here and had asked him to pay your father a visit. Didn’t you see him? Don’t you know where he is? And are you the wonderful woman everyone talks about?”
Zarah clapped her hands in childlike enjoyment.
“I just r-remember-r him,” she cried gleefully, whilst longing to choke the life out of the girl in front of her. “And he was wiz you? Then wher-r-e is he? We sear-r-ched after-r-wards for our-r men upon ze battlefield, but saw nozing of ze old man, nor-r his bones, nor-r his clothes, and nozing of—of ze ozer. I mean zer was no tr-r-ace of any ozer. I know!” She clapped her hands and laughed. “We saw marks leading back to Hareek. He is escaped, taking wiz him ze body of your-r gr-r-an’fazer-r, and is waiting for you, to know wher-r-e you ar-r-e, to come and fetch you.”
“Perhaps! Perhaps you are right!” quietly replied Helen, her eyes fixed on the clasped fingers, which showed white at the joints under the pressure of the Arabian’s emotion. “Yes, perhaps you are right.” She smiled gently and nodded her head, whilst she asked herself if Zarah’s intense solicitude could possibly arise out of friendship for herself. She decided that it did not when, on turning her head, she found the eyes of the handsome native fixed upon her. She frowned and drew the silken coverlet more closely about her in an instinctive desire to protect herself from the feeling of uneasiness and evil which had suddenly fallen upon her, and sighed with unconfessed relief when the sunrays tipped over the edge of the mountains and shone through the open door. “Tell me,” she said quickly, “why did you go out to fight those Bedouins? What harm had they done that they should be shot down, speared, massacred by a force far superior to their own? What right had you to take their lives?”
It is most injudicious to ask such pertinent questions in the uncivilized places of the world, and it was well for Helen that she could not see the rage in the other’s heart at her daring.
“Aï-aï-aï!”