She could not think of him as an Englishman. The mere accident
of his parentage was a factor that weighed nothing. He was and always
would be an Arab of the wilderness. If he lived! He must live!
He could not go out like that, his magnificent strength and fearless
courage extinguished by a treacherous blow that had not dared to meet
him face to face--in spite of the overwhelming numbers--but had struck
him down from behind, a coward stroke. He must live, even if his life
meant death to her hopes of happiness; that was nothing compared with
his life. She loved him well enough to sacrifice anything for him. If
he only lived she could bear even to be put out of his life. It was
only he that mattered, his life was everything. He was so young, so
strong, so made to live. He had so much to live for. He was essential
to his people. They needed him. If she could only die for him. In the
days when the world was young the gods were kind, they listened to the
prayers of hapless lovers and accepted the life that was offered in
place of the beloved whose life was claimed. If God would but listen to
her now. If He would but accept her life in exchange for his. If----!
if----!
Her fingers crept up lightly across his breast, fearful lest even their
tender touch should injure his battered body, and she looked long and
earnestly at him. His crisp brown hair was hidden by the bandages that,
dead white against his tanned face, swathed his bruised head. His
closed eyes with the thick dark lashes curling on his cheek, hiding the
usual fierce expression that gleamed in them, and the relaxation of the
hard lines of his face made him look singularly young. That youthful
look had been noticeable often when he was asleep, and she had watched
it wondering what Ahmed the boy had been like before he grew into the
merciless man at whose hands she had suffered so much.
And now the knowledge of his boyhood seemed to make him even dearer
than he had been before. What sort of man would he have been if the
little dark-eyed mother had lived to sway him with her gentleness? Poor
little mother, helpless and fragile!--yet strong enough to save her boy
from the danger that she feared for him, but paying the price of that
strength with her life, content that her child was safe.
Diana thought of her own mother dying in the arms of a husband who
adored her, and then of the little Spanish girl slipping away from
life, a stranger in a strange land, her heart crying out for the
husband whom she still loved, turning in ignorance of his love for
consolation in the agony of death to the lover she had denied, and
seeking comfort in his arms. A sudden jealousy of the two dead women
shook her. They had been loved. Why could not she be loved? Wherein did
she fail that he would not love her? Other men had loved her, and his
love was all she longed for in the world. To feel his arms around her
only once with love in their touch, to see his passionate eyes kindle
only once with the light she prayed for. She drew a long sobbing
breath. "Ahmed, mon bel Arabe," she murmured yearningly.