The Sheik

"Your own plans will stop any possibility of inquiry for some time to come." He paused, and behind her, Diana heard him strike another match. The banal little incident nearly snapped her nerves that were stretched to breaking-point. She put her hands to her head to try and stop the throbbing in her temples.

"You engaged a caravan in charge of Mustafa Ali," he went on evenly, "to travel in the desert for a month. You set out from Biskra, but your intention was at the end of the time to travel northward to Oran and there dismiss the caravan. From there you were to cross to Marseilles, then to Cherbourg, where you would embark for America to follow your brother, who has already started."

She listened breathlessly with an ever-increasing fear growing in her eyes. The slow, casual voice detailing her itinerary with the quiet certainty of perfect knowledge filled her with a terror that made her want to scream. She swayed a little as she stood, her eyes fixed on the endless strip of desert and gold-flecked sky visible through the opening of the tent, but she saw nothing of the undulating sand, nor the red glory of the setting sun.

"How do you know—all—this?" she whispered with dry lips that trembled.

"I wished to know. It was quite simple." The answer was given carelessly, and again the thin thread of smoke drifted across her face.

Her anger flamed up again. "Is it money that you want? Are you holding me for ransom?" But her scornful voice faltered and died away on the last word, and it did not need his silence to convince her that it was no question of ransom. She had only spoken to try and stifle the inner conviction that grew despite her efforts to crush it. Her hands were locked together tightly, her eyes still staring out unseeing at the wonderful sunset. She felt dazed, hopeless, like a fugitive who has turned into a cul-de-sac, hemmed in on every side; there seemed no way out, no loophole of escape. She wrung her hands convulsively and a great shudder shook her. Then in her despair a faint ray of hope came.

"Mustafa Ali, or one of the caravan men may have given the alarm already in Biskra—if you have not—murdered them all," she whispered jerkily.

"I have not murdered them all," he rejoined shortly, "but Mustafa Ali will not give any alarm in Biskra."

"Why?" She tried to keep silent, but the question was forced from her, and she waited tense for his answer. Tales of ruthless Arab cruelty surged through her mind. What had been the fate of the unfortunate caravan leader? Her eyes closed and her throat grew dry.

"There was no need for any murder," he continued sarcastically. "When you come to know me better you will realise that I do not leave too much to chance. 'All things are with Allah, blessed be his name.' Good! But it is well to remember that Allah does not always concern himself with the affairs of men, and arrange accordingly. If I had left this affair to chance there might very easily have been, as you suggest, murder done—though we do not call it murder in the desert. It was very simple. Voyons! You paid Mustafa Ali well to guide you in the desert. I paid him better to lead you to me. I paid him well enough to make him content to remove himself from Biskra, where awkward questions might be asked, to another sphere of usefulness where he is not known, and where he can build up for himself a new reputation as a caravan leader."

There was another silence and her hands went groping to her throat. It had been no chance affair then—no accidental meeting that the Arab chief had turned to his own account, but an organised outrage that had been carefully planned from the beginning. From the very outset she had been a dupe. She ground her teeth with rage. Her suave, subservient guide had been leading her the whole time, not in the direction that had been mapped out in Biskra, but towards the man who had bought him to betray his trust. Mustafa Ali's shifting eyes, his desire to hurry her from the oasis where they had rested at mid-day, his tone were all explained. He had acted well. The last touch—the imaginary wound that had toppled him slowly out of his saddle had been a masterpiece, she reflected bitterly. Nothing had been omitted to make the attempt a success. The horse that had been given her to ride was the Sheik's beyond all doubt, trained to his whistle. Even her revolver had been tampered with. She had not missed, as she had thought. She remembered the noise, the fleeting vision she had had in the hotel at Biskra. It had been some one in her room, Mustafa Ali himself, or one of his men, who had stolen in and substituted the blank cartridges. The possibility of Aubrey changing his mind and accompanying her must also have been thought of, for the Sheik had provided against the resistance that would certainly have then been made by the number of followers he had brought with him—a large enough force to frustrate easily any attempted opposition to the attack.