The Sheik Retold(41)

I chewed my lip. "I hope the sand hasn't damaged this. Perhaps it just needs winding and setting," I said hopefully. I released the band from my wristlet and held the dead timepiece to my ear. "Could you perhaps look at it for me, Gaston?"

"But of course, madam."

I held it out to him, but just as he would have taken it, I jabbed my horse with my spur, gasping as the watch fell to the ground. I then spun around, stirring up the sand. I cried out in dismay, "Oh my! Where is it? That was a gift from my dead father."

"Do not fear, madam." In an instant the gallant little Frenchman had slipped to the ground. The moment he released the horse's bridle to begin digging in the sand, I brought my riding crop down with a smack on his horse's rump, stampeding it in the direction of the camp.

Then, deaf to Gaston's cries, I wheeled Silver Star due north, spurring him hell-for-leather across the dunes.

Wild with excitement and free to go his own pace at last, my mount galloped swiftly. I rode hard with the wind whistling in my ears, paying no heed to the fate of the Frenchman left so far from the camp. I had no thought for anybody but myself. I laughed and shouted like a crazed thing, and my excitement only added to that of the grey, who was already going at racing speed. He was wildly out of control, and I could not have stopped him if I tried. I knew I was mad to attempt the desert alone, but desire for freedom only added to my delirium. As long as I judged the direction right, I didn't care. He could go until he exhausted himself.

I was fast putting miles between me and the camp that had been a prison, miles between me and the barbaric brute, who had dared to do what he had done. But thoughts of my sheik invoked simultaneous feelings of longing and fear. I recalled the terror of my first night with a shudder and then thought about all I had gone through since. The girl who had started out so bold and triumphant from Biskra had become a woman in every sense of the word.

What if he should catch me?

I tamped down my apprehension as idiotic, impossible. It would be hours, perhaps even the next day, before the alarm was even given. And they would not even know what direction I had taken. I had miles of start on one of his fleetest horses. With those reassurances, I tried to put him out of my mind.

I had escaped. The nightmare of captivity was over.

Silver Star had settled down into a less-punishing pace, the steady, tireless gallop for which Ahmed Ben Hassan's horses were famous. There was little breeze, and I roasted in the heat, but it would cool quickly once the sun dipped below the horizon.

What would I do when night came?

It was madness what I had done. I had only a bit of bread, fruit, and cheese wrapped in a napkin in my pocket and only a single water skin. Heaven alone knew where the next well might be. I was alone in an unknown country among a savage people with only a few shots in the revolver as protection. I might come across an encampment, or I might wander for days and see no one. In any case, a strong possibility of death from hunger and thirst stared me in the face.

I gazed at that same horizon that seemed so different now with an endless, undulating expanse stretching out before me. As the grey topped each rise my interest had grown keener, but for the past hour or more the ground rose and fell in monotonous succession. My horse was tiring, and I was slumping in the saddle. My head ached, and I was growing dizzy—sure signs of heat exhaustion.

Might there be an oasis soon?

The desert grew level again, and quite suddenly I could see for miles. There it was at last! About two miles distant, a few palm trees clustered. They probably meant a well. We could ride no farther. It was past time to rest. I pulled up my horse and dismounted. Beside the well, forming a triangle, stood what had been three particularly fine palm trees, but the tops had been broken off about twenty feet up from the ground, and the mutilated trunks reared themselves bare and desolate. The sad notes of the pigeons and the broken palms vaguely suggested a tragedy and lent an air of mystery to the place that I found strangely unnerving, but I shook it off.

I took off my heavy helmet and tossed it to the ground, allowing the faint breeze to stir my hair and cool my head. It was the tiniest little oasis, but there was a well, albeit much silted up. I set to work to clear it and procure water for me and Silver Star. It was tiring work, but I managed to satisfy us both. After loosening my horse's girths, I flung myself down in a small patch of shade with my helmet over my eyes.

The grey, tired of nosing around the well and blowing at the thorn bushes, wandered to my side and nuzzled me. I caught at his velvety nose and drew it down to me. He was a very affectionate beast and gentler than most of the others. He pressed close up to me, whinnying softly and gazing at me with large expressive eyes. I fed him a single date.

"I haven't anything more to give you, poor old boy," I said regretfully, kissing his muzzle.

I looked toward the sun that had already begun dipping to the horizon. It would be dark soon. Surely I had ridden far enough away to make camp for the night, but then I realized I had nothing with which to make a fire. If I camped with no shelter and no fire, I risked exposure from the freezing nighttime temperatures. I leaped to my feet and looked frantically around the little oasis, at the few palm trees and clumps of camel thorn, the broken well and the grey horse.

What was I to do?

I was frightened for the first time. I was alone in a desolate, unending space. I was an atom, insignificant, the least of all things. But even in my panic, I could not repent. I was free again. I took another calming breath. I would sleep, I decided, just for a couple of hours, and then ride through the night. The moon would be almost full tonight and I would be much warmer and safer on the move, but the exposure to the desert heat had taken its toll on my body, fatiguing me to the extreme. With my head cradled on my arms, I leaned back against a broken palm and went into an almost-instant sleep.