She looked beautiful indeed as she suddenly rose, stood there in the dim light, attired in her sarong-like bluish robe, the divided sleeves of which revealed her rounded arms. The broad scarlet sash, tied bow-wise at the left hip, fell negligently almost down to her ankle. A hot breath of sleepy wind crept through the cabin doorway, wafting the rich odours of exotic flowers that hung all along by the cuddy port-holes on the starboard side. The ship’s black cat suddenly whipped across the saloon, looked up into its master’s face with its yellow, burning orbs and then disappeared like a shadow.
Gabrielle trembled as she sought to answer the Rajah’s questions. She could faintly hear the tinkle of the weird zeirung as some dark man forward in the forecastle accompanied the mellow voice of someone who was singing a Malayan chantey.
“I felt that I liked you once, but I hate you now!” said Gabrielle impulsively. Then she added: “How could you expect me to like such as you, after all you’ve done?”
The Rajah gave a grin.
“I want you to take me back to my people,” the girl almost sobbed. Then she rose and began stealthily to move away from his presence; she had noticed the flushed, half-wild expression on his handsome face. She saw the fixed look of resolve in his eyes.
He swiftly put forth his hand and, catching hold of her fingers firmly, softly forced her to sit down once more in front of him.
For a moment he looked at her as though he was about to clasp her in his arms. Gabrielle’s heart thumped. She noticed that he sat on the side near the open door and so barred her progress should she attempt to make a bolt. She heard the voice of the man at the wheel humming words of an unknown tongue just over her head out on the poop. She knew that the Rajah’s mate was laid up with fever in the deckhouse amidships, and so she was quite alone with the Rajah.
“I know that I am only Pa-ooan. You no’ like me ’cause I dark man, eh? Wilt lover me, canst thou deny me, O maid of mine heart?”
Gabrielle knew by his lapse into Biblical pidgin-English that he was in an excited, treacherous state of mind; she also realised that it was wiser for her to attempt to mollify him.
“I don’t dislike the people of your race at all; it’s the wicked way that you kidnapped me that makes me hate you. Won’t you take me back to my people?”