The whips fell on white shoulders, not golden ones, bringing the blood oozing to satin-smooth skin.
The weight and pain brought Pansy to her knees before her captor.
"Raoul," she gasped, "I can't let you do this dreadful thing."
The whips fell from the negroes' hands. Aghast, they stared at the girl before them. It was not their fault the lashes had fallen on the new favourite and not on the culprit. But they would be held responsible, and doubtless beaten nevertheless. The women and girls started to scream and wail. Their master might turn on them for letting the new slave get within reach of the whips. But who was to know she would dare come between the Sultan and a girl he thought well to punish.
He paid no heed to the frightened stares of the guards, the wails of the scared women, to Rayma still sobbing, with fright, not pain. He had thoughts and eyes for nothing but the girl on her knees before him, with the red weals on her shoulders, horror and entreaty in her eyes—Pansy calling him once again by name.
With a fierce, possessive movement, he stooped and gathered her into his arms, crushing her against him, until she was almost lost in his voluminous robes.
"My little English flower, you can't quite hate me," he whispered passionately. "Or you wouldn't try to keep me what you once thought me. You wouldn't try to come between me and the man I am."
With the girl in his arms, he rose.
Scared eyes watched him as he crossed the big hall, and disappeared behind the silken curtains.
Then the girls started to whisper among themselves. For the Sultan had taken this new slave to the gilded chamber of their desires.