Somehow or other the French Government must have heard that he was responsible for the capture of the English Governor; and an expedition had been sent up to punish him for his marauding ways.
That same death-dealing sound startled Pansy as she stood by the sunken pond in the rose garden, feeding the carp. Wondering what had happened, she looked up at the smoke that lay like a little cloud between the city and the sky.
She did not wonder for very long.
Present another shell came shrieking out of the distance.
Then she guessed what had occurred, and her face blanched.
Swiftly she went to her room; her only idea to reach the Sultan and save him from his enemies.
But all the doors of her prison were locked, and neither knocks nor shouts produced any answer.
She went back to the fretted gallery, to see what could be seen from there.
A mile or so away, like a dark snake on the desert, she saw the relief party. As she watched, a white-robed force left El-Ammeh; an array of Arab soldiers. On recognising their leader, her soul went sick within her.
He was there. Her lover. The man she ought to hate. Going out to fight the men who had come to her rescue.