And the man noticed it and was quick to take advantage of her implication. "You might learn to love me," he exclaimed; and there was a note of triumph in his tone.
Halima marked it and hastened to reply, "Nay, Sir, you do violence to my thoughts, and make my word out-run them. I said not aught of love."
Buonaparte eyed her keenly. "For the present," he said, "I will be satisfied with your unspoken thought. But you talked of proof of your lover's death. Alas! I fear it will be only too easy to obtain. I doubt not that, before a month is out, I shall bring you such evidence as it will be impossible to disbelieve."
"But how will you convince me? Nothing short of the evidence of eye-witnesses will do it."
"You forget that St. Just had an escort of fifty tried and faithful Arabs. If one or more of these should testify to his death, would you then believe?"
And she, strong in her belief that St. Just would die, ere he would suffer himself to be taken captive—in which case the vision must have been false—assented. She knew her lover would strain every nerve to execute his trust; to deliver not only his General's but also her own letter; both his honor and his love were at stake. So, in the hope that the month's delay would bring a favorable turn in Fortune's Wheel, she parted from her new admirer.
CHAPTER XI.
Buonaparte was not the man to let the grass grow under his feet; whether the object of his pursuit was a hostile army or a woman. So, the next morning, he started enquiries for news of St. Just amongst the chiefs now under his sway. Failing to gain information in that quarter, he sent his Mameluke, Roustan, with a search party in a boat up the Nile, to learn whether any of the headmen of the villages on its bank had seen or heard anything of the young French Officer, or any of his party of fifty Arabs.
Day followed day with no result, until a month had slipped by since Buonaparte's parting with the Arab girl. The General was seated one afternoon under a tree in the garden of his house at Cairo musing on various matters and, among them, on Halima, when word was brought to him that Roustan was without, desiring to have speech with him.
Buonaparte ordered the messenger to admit him instantly. When the Mameluke entered, he bent his knee deferentially to his master, then stood in a position of attention, waiting to be addressed.