Читать книгу Desert Love - Joan Conquest - Страница 13

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Jill's memory being of the kind which retains only the pleasant word and act, the disagreeable episode of the afternoon had completely evacuated that cell which in one second can raise us through the bluest ether to the heaven as understood by the prayer-book, or send us diving to the mud flats of the ocean bed to co-habit for a time with wingless and non-temperamental oddities.

Having stopped several times to discover by ear and eye if she was being followed from the hotel, and being satisfied that the sight of her dressing-case had in no wise aroused the hall porter's curiosity, she propped her luggage against the base of a palm tree growing casually in the middle of a small street and proceeded to take her bearings.

"Somehow it seemed quite easy to find when the maid was explaining," she communed to herself as she dug a hatpin afresh into her hat as is the way of woman when at a loss. "How stupid of me to try a short cut, because she distinctly said I was to stick to the main street until I came to two mosques side by side, and then to turn off sharply to the right. Oh! well, I turned off too soon and am lost—and I don't like these little streets—no! not one little bit, but that big red star hangs right over the house so I can but follow it—here goes!"

She picked up her case, and then drew back quickly behind the tree as a white-robed figure slowly crossed the street, turned up another and disappeared.

"Oh! Moll and Jack, what on earth would you think if you knew I was alone in Egypt. Alone! but free! free! at last, quite, quite free!"

And stretching out her arms on each side and giving herself a little shake, Jill laughed ever so softly in pure exuberance of that feeling of freedom, which seems to make an air pocket all about you and in the middle of which you float contentedly, oblivious of the winds raging on the outside.

So glancing up at the red star, and once more picking up her bag, she too crossed the street and disappeared up a narrower one, halting for a moment at the sight of a man standing with bent head in the attitude of prayer and the beads of Allah hanging from the hands crossed upon the breast.

Jilt's intuition was intense, and never once in all her life had it failed her, and though to her all Eastern men seemed exactly alike in the moonlight, yet her inner consciousness began to tap ont a message of warning, and the bristles of her self-protection to rise at the threatenings of danger.

"Bother!" however, was her only comment as, keeping the star ahead, she walked steadily onward.

But she made a silent, strenuous, but unavailing struggle when something white and soft was slipped over her head and a hand placed firmly upon her mouth, as she felt herself lifted in a pair of strong arms and carried some considerable distance until she heard the click of a key, the opening and shutting of a door, and her captor's soft footfall through what seemed to be a deserted house.

She stood perfectly still when planted on her feet, and looked around her when the cloth had been removed from about her head.

White was her face indeed, but a little smile twisted the corner of her mouth as she noted the oriental luxury of the room in which she stood.

Ornate could hardly describe it so offensive was it in its multitudinous hangings, mirrors, lamps, and clutter of stools, tables, divans, and couches, inlaid or plastered with glittering sequins, bits of glass, and coloured imitation jewels.

But scorn simply blazed in the great blue eyes as she looked into those of a man standing in front of the one and only door to the whole apartment.

"You brute!" she said undiplomatically and in French as he moved a few steps nearer and salaamed deeply. "Why, you're the man who followed me from the restaurant to-day! What do you want? Backsheesh? I haven't any so you had better let me go at once unless you want the police after you! You can't treat English women in this off-hand way with impunity, I can assure you. Open the door immediately if you please!"

Poor little Jill, who by involuntarily harking back to the insular belief that the veriest heathen will quake in unison with the British culprit at the mere threat of British law, showed the absolute yarborough she held in this game, the stakes of which she guessed were something more precious than life itself, and in which she held not a single winning card.

"Let not Madame cause herself worry," answered the oriental also in French, as he approached nearer still, his eyes ablaze with passion of sorts as be looked the girl up and down from head to foot. "The police—the law—you are in Egypt, Madame, or I should say Mademoiselle I think. Money! when a man holds heaven itself within his grasp, does he open his hand to grasp a passing cloud?"

"I should advise you to let me go at once," repeated Jill, "if you don't want my friends to raise trouble!"

But her bluff was of no avail as she was soon aware when once more the man salaamed with a world of mockery in the action.

"But Mademoiselle has but now run away from her friends! No?—she has but little—oh! very little money!—yes?—and nowhere to go—it is for that that I have thrown my protection around her!"

Jill thought hard for a moment, wondering how much the man knew of her escapade.

"How do you know? Who told you I had no money? I have a friend as it happens———!"

"Mademoiselle has no friend but me," interrupted the man; "she left them at the hotel when she went to take a walk."

And Jill retreated step by step before him as he came closer still, his voice sinking to a whisper, his hand within an inch of her wrist.

"I will not harm you because you are oh, very beautiful! You are a feast of loveliness and I—I am hungry!"

But still the little smile twisted the corner of Jill's red mouth as she looked unflinchingly into the brown eyes in the depths of which smouldered a something which was not good to look upon.

"I suppose you have stolen my dressing-case too," was her next, somewhat irrelevant remark. "Men of your type I dare say can find a use for everything from women to hair-pins. You black dog, who are you?"

Red murder flared in the room for one moment and then died down, leaving a little smoke cloud of uncertainty in the man's mind.

He was used—oh, very used to the breaking in of women, for was not his name notorious in Northern Egypt and were there not whispers of many young and beautiful who had mysteriously disappeared.

Were not men and women in his pay in every corner of the big cities posing as honest individuals? And was he not in direct communication with them? And had he not a coterie of jackal friends who hunted with him, though of a truth not half so successfully or artistically as he?

And yet this slip of a girl, this pale white blossom, held him at bay, more by her seeming indifference to the fate before her than by any effort of will she made to combat the danger.

Blasé to tears of the exquisite women of his own country with their lustrous brown eyes, marvellous languorous figures, and well-trained, inherited ideas on love, the man was violently attracted by the whiteness of this girl allied to her indifferent manner and an intense virility which seemed to envelop her from head to foot.

True, there are natives of a white and surpassing beauty, but which whiteness when compared to the genuine colouring of a very fair Englishwoman has the same effect on the purchaser or temporary owner as would a white sapphire bought in mistake for a diamond.

Very, very beautiful, but somehow giving an impression of masquerade.

"Your so valuable dressing-case is behind those cushions, Mademoiselle, but you shall have things of gold to adorn your apartment, at least for a time. I tire easily even of the most perfect fruit, but I have friends, oh, many who are not so easily wearied!"

The man paused a moment as though awaiting some outburst, but none forthcoming continued the enlightening discourse.

"Who am I?—that will you know shortly. A merry chase you gave me this afternoon, and even baffled me for a time, but surely I have not enjoyed an hour so much for many a day. You are unique, therefore not to be run to earth by a common black dog, otherwise I could have secured you earlier in the day and by now———"

The man's lips, of an almost negroid fullness, curved in a smile, the abomination of which sent a little shudder from Jill's high held head to her steady little feet.

"But I have you now, beautiful maiden, and if you will not bend to my will, I will break you to it, even if I spoil your satin skin and the soles of your small feet by the lash of the whip!"

"So!" said Jill after an interval in which the atmosphere, charged with the electricity of anger, lust, scorn, and all the kindred sisters of evilness, resembled what might be the result of a cross between a spitting cat and a wireless installation. "So! Am I to understand that you have vulgarly kidnapped me—and are holding me not for ransom, but for your evil pleasures and those of your friends?"

"Quite so, Mademoiselle! Your words are as clear as the stream running through a certain oasis which long I coveted, but which fell to my greatest enemy because he had a few more piastres than I—and maybe a little more diplomacy—a man who would kill me if he could but find the excuse, the moral breeder of camels, the fanatic son of Solomon, Hahmed the great, Hahmed the most noble—pah!"

For one brief second Jill's eyes scanned the sensual face in front, but seeing nothing more subtle than an intense hatred therein for the absent man, shrugged her shoulders and then flung up her hand sharply as the man's hand suddenly fastened on her wrist.

"Let go my hand at once," she said as indifferently as though she were asking for a glass of water, but she wrenched herself free and fled behind a divan almost hidden in a bower of growing tropical plants as the man let go at her command to suddenly grip her about the waist.

"I shall scream the place down, and bite, and kick, and scratch, if you touch me again."

For one moment they looked at each other across the pile of silken cushions, the dark shining leaves of the plants throwing up the girl's wonderful colouring, the white petals of a flower falling like snow about her as she stood waiting for the next move in the exceedingly dangerous game in which she was taking part.

The silence was absolutely deathly until the oriental broke it, smiling the while as he might on a rebellious child.

"If you make a noise you will bring women and servants, and perhaps my friends, packing to the door from the most distant corners of the house. They do not know that you are here as I brought you in by a secret door and private way, also no one is allowed to place foot in my own quarter of the house without my permission, with the exception of the guardian of the big door itself, but their curiosity would outweigh their prudence if they heard cries, for their delight is unbounded when trouble reigns between their friend or master and a woman. If you bite and kick and scratch I shall have you overpowered and bound to your great sorrow, and their greater delight. It has been written that you shall be one of those whom I honour with my favour, why then try to fight against that which is ordained?"

Jill answered never a word, contenting herself with keeping a watch on the man's movements, though to the very innermost part of her she longed to fling herself upon him to mutilate or to kill.

"We will have coffee, O! very lovely daughter of the North, and consider this little matter settled even before we were born. Does my suggestion find favour in those eyes which are as the sky at night?"

But for all answer Jill moved round the couch and sat herself down upon the satin cushions, opened her hand-bag, and finding her cigarette case lit a cigarette.

"By Allah! but you are wonderful, you English girl. I do not understand you. I have had women here screaming, fighting, fainting, begging for mercy upon their knees. Pah! they sickened me, but you—well! I will go and order the coffee, not wishing to bring a slave into your presence, and give orders also, Mademoiselle, that no matter what noise may be heard I must on no account be disturbed! And death by knife, or whip, or water, is the ordinary punishment for those who disobey!"

Jill blew a smoke ring through another and smiled.

"It's no good ordering coffee because I shan't drink it!"

"You will drink it," was the sharp reply.

"Will you take a bet?" was the ready answer.

For a moment the man who was becoming more and more amazed stared in silence and then laughed softly as the absurdity of the situation struck him.

"Certainly I will, for do not we orientals love a seeming hazard? So although I take an unfair advantage of you I will lay this emerald ring engraven with my name against one kiss from your red mouth that within the half of one hour you will have drunk the coffee."

And taking the ring from his finger as he spoke he laid it upon a small table beside Jill.