"Yes. I suppose that's it really."
"'If I were a king in Babylon and you were a Christian slave,'" he quoted, "or, to get down to more modern times, if I were a barbaric Sultan somewhere in Africa and you a girl I'd fancied and caught and carried off, I'd just take you into my harem and nothing more would be said."
"I should fight like a wildcat. You'd get horribly scratched and bitten."
"Possibly, but—I should win in the end."
Pansy's face went suddenly crimson under the glowing eyes that watched her with such love and desire in their dark depths.
"I think we're talking a lot of nonsense," she remarked.
"What is it you English say? 'There's many a true word spoken in jest,'" he replied with curious emphasis.
It was not jest to him.
Even as he stood talking to Pansy he was cogitating on how he could best get her into his power, should persuasion fail to bring her back to his arms within a week or two.
His yacht was in the harbour. She was in the habit of wandering about alone. He had half a dozen Arab servants with him, men who would do without question anything their Sultan told them. To abduct her would be an easy matter. Once she was in his power, he would take her to El-Ammeh and keep her there. As his wife, if she would marry him; as his slave, if she would not.