Under that firm, strong, soothing hand, Pansy's shame subsided a little. For the girl there was always magic in his touch, except when anger raged within her. There was no anger now, only a sense of her own helplessness, and the knowledge of the lives he held in his power.
Under the silence and his soothing hand, a question trembled to her lips, born of her own helplessness and the dire straits of her father and friends.
"If ... if I marry you, will you send my father and friends safely back to Gambia?" she asked, in a low voice.
He laughed tenderly.
"If I were as big a villain as you think me, I'd say 'yes,' and then break faith with you, Pansy—as you broke faith with me. If I sent them back, my little flower, do you know what would happen? Your English friends would complain to the French Government. An expedition would be sent up here, and they would dole out to me the fate your father doled out to mine."
His words made Pansy realise for the first time that his summary abduction of his father's party had brought him foul of two Governments.
Horrified, she gazed at him; her father and friends all forgotten at the thought of the fate awaiting her captor.
They would shoot him, this big, fierce man. All fire would die out of those flashing eyes. That handsome face would be stiff and stark in death. Never again would that hard mouth curve into lines of tenderness when he smiled at her. There would be no strength left in his arms. No deep, passionate, caressing voice. No untamed, masterful man, using all his power to bend her to his will.
It was one thing for Pansy to want to kill him herself, but quite another for other people to set about it.
At that moment she realised that, in spite of everything, she did not hate the Sultan Casim Ammeh.