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Meriem had traversed half the length of the village street when a score of white-robed Negroes and half-castes leaped out upon her from the dark interiors of surrounding huts. She turned to flee, but heavy hands seized her, and when she turned at last to plead with them her eyes fell upon the face of a tall, grim, old man glaring down upon her from beneath the folds of his burnous.
Then, one day, he announced that half his boys had deserted, for a hunting party from the bungalow had come across his northerly camp and he feared that they might have noticed the reduced numbers of his following. And thus matters stood when, one hot night, Meriem, unable to sleep, rose and wandered out into the garden. The Hon.
When the Hon. Morison had listened to all that the boy had to say and realized that the trader had used him as a tool whereby he himself might get Meriem into his possession, his blood ran hot with rage and he trembled with apprehension for the girl's safety. That another contemplated no worse a deed than he had contemplated in no way palliated the hideousness of the other's offense.
"Now get out," said the stranger, "and next time you see me remember who I am," and he spoke a name in the Swede's ear a name that more effectually subdued the scoundrel than many beatings then he gave him a push that carried him bodily through the tent doorway to sprawl upon the turf beyond. "Now," he said, turning toward Meriem, "who has the key to this thing about your neck?"
Yet he still loved her, and jealousy seared his soul as he recalled the sight of her in the arms of the dapper young Englishman. What were his intentions toward her? Did he really love her? How could one not love her? And she loved him, of that Korak had had ample proof. Had she not loved him she would not have accepted his kisses. His Meriem loved another!
The anguish in her little heart was not alone the anguish of physical pain; but that infinitely more pathetic anguish of love denied a childish heart that yearns for love. Little Meriem could scarce recall any other existence than that of the stern cruelty of The Sheik and Mabunu.
"I couldn't sleep," he explained, "and was going for a bit of a ride when I chanced to see you out here, and I thought you'd like to join me. Ripping good sport, you know, night riding. Come on." Meriem laughed. The adventure appealed to her. "All right," she said. Hanson swore beneath his breath. The two led their horses from the garden to the gate and through it.
It was as though in some subtile way the girl had breathed a message of kindred savagery to their savage hearts. With her slim fingers grasping the collar of a wolf hound upon either side of her Meriem walked on toward the bungalow upon the porch of which a woman dressed in white waved a welcome to her returning lord.
Meriem would have demurred, but The Killer seized them both by the shoulders and hustled them through the slit wall and out into the shadows beyond. "Now run for it," he admonished, and turned to meet and hold those who were pouring into the tent from the front.
The statement brought Baynes to a realization of the cause of their return. "Wait here," he said. "I will go and see. If he is dead we can do him no good. If he lives I will do my best to free him." "We will go together," replied Meriem. "Come!" And she led the way back toward the tent in which they last had seen Korak.
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