CHAPTER XXIX
The sound of that desperate conflict rang through the stillness of the night, reaching the ears of a man who was riding at break-neck speed along the sandy track leading in the direction of the oasis. Those diabolical shrieks of laughter filled him with a torture of mind almost past bearing. In them he heard the voices of hyenas mangling the girl he loved.
Le Breton had always known Pansy would run away if an opportunity occurred. But he had imagined that he had made escape impossible.
After dinner, he went to the gilded room, to pay an evening visit to his prisoner, since business affairs had kept him from dining with her.
However, she was not there.
Experience had taught him that it would be no use looking for her in the moonlit, rose-scented garden. She never went there after sunset, for fear he should come across her, and the beauty and romance of it all, combined with his presence, should force the surrender he was waiting for.
Not finding Pansy in her own private quarters, he went into the big hall of the harem, only to be told she had not been there since well before dinner.
On learning this he set the women searching in every corner of the harem. But Pansy was nowhere to be found.
Beyond a doubt, she had managed to escape. For a moment the news dazed him. He did not waste time in trying to discover how she had escaped, or who was responsible for her getting away. She had gone. That one fact glared at him. No one knew better than the Sultan himself the dangers awaiting the girl once she strayed beyond his care.
Within a few minutes all his servants and soldiers were out looking for the fugitive, scouring the city, with threats of the dire fate awaiting anyone who dared either hide or injure the Sultan's wife.