26 Chapter 26

She was asleep when the servant brought tea, but she started up as he put the tray on a stool beside her.

"It is Madame's own tea. If she will be good enough to say if it is made to her taste," he said anxiously, as if his whole happiness was contained in the tiny teapot at which he was frowning deprecatingly.

His assiduity jarred on Hana's new-found jangling nerves. She recognised that he was sincere in his efforts to please her, but just now they only seemed an added humiliation. She longed to shout "Go away!" like an angry schoolboy, but she managed to give him the information he wanted, then he went out with a little smile of satisfaction. The longing for fresh air and the desire to see what place she had been brought to grew irresistible as the evening came nearer. She went to the open doorway. A big awning stretched before it, supported on lances. She stepped out from under its shade and looked about her wonderingly. It was a big oasis—bigger than any she had seen. In front of the tent there was an open space with a thick belt of palm trees beyond. The rest of the camp lay behind the Chief's tent. The place was alive with men and horses. There were some camels in the distance, but it was the horses that struck Hana principally. They were everywhere, some tethered; some wandering loose, some exercising in the hands of grooms. Mounted Sunas on the outskirts of the oasis crossed her view occasionally. There were groups of men engaged on various duties all around her. Those who went by near her greeted her in their native way as they passed, but took no further notice of her. A strange look came into Hana's eyes. This was the desert indeed, the desert as she had never expected to see it, the desert as few could expect to see it. But the cost! She shuddered, then turned at a sudden noise near her. A biting, screaming chestnut fury was coming past close to the tent, taking complete charge of the two men who clung, yelling, to his head. He was stripped, but Hana recognised him at once. The one brief view she had had of his small, vicious head as he shot past her elbow the evening before was written on her brain for all time. He came to a halt opposite Hana, refusing to move, his ears laid close to his head, quivering all over, snatching continually at his grooms, who seemed unable to cope with him. Once he swung up on his hind legs and his cruel teeth flashed almost into the face of one of the men, who was taken off his guard, and who dropped on to the ground, rolling out of the way with a howl that provoked a shout of laughter from a knot of Sunas who had gathered to watch the usual evening eccentricities of the chestnut. The Sound servant, coming from behind the tent, stopped to speak to the man as he picked himself up and made a grab at the horse's head, and then turned to Hana with his pleasant smile.

"He is rightly named Shaitan, Madame, for he is assuredly possessed of a devil," he said, indicating the chestnut, who, at that moment, with a violent plunge, broke away from the men who were holding him and headed for the edge of the oasis with the Sunas streaming after him. "The mounted men will catch him," he added with a little laugh, in response to Hana's exclamation.

"Is he amusing himself, or is it really vice?" she asked.

"Pure vice, Madame. He has killed three men."

Hana looked at him incredulously, for his tone was casual and his manner did not indicate any undue feeling.

"He ought to be shot," she said indignantly.

The man shrugged. "My lord is fond of him," he said quietly.

And so because Cheif was fond of him the vicious animal was surrounded with every care that his master's pleasure might not be interfered with. Evidently the lives of his wretched people were of less value to him than that of a favourite horse. It sounded compatible with the mercilessness she had herself experienced. What she would not have believed yesterday, today seemed terribly credible. The courage that the relief of his absence brought back was sinking fast, as fast as the red ball glowing in the heavens was sinking down towards the horizon. She turned from her own fearful thoughts to look at some more horses that were being led away to the lines on the other side of the camp.

"The horses are magnificent, but they are bigger than any Sunas I have seen before."

"They are a special breed, Madame," replied the Sound attendant. "The tribe has been famous for them for generations. My lord's horses are known through all the Western Continent, and as far as Sound Country (Far East?)," he added, with a little accent of pride creeping into his voice.

Hana looked at him speculatively. There was an inflection in his voice each time he mentioned his master that indicated a devotion that she was unable to accredit to the brute for whose treatment she was still suffering. But her thoughts were broken into abruptly.

"There is Master," said the servant suddenly. He spoke as if she, too, must be glad of his coming. Did the valet imagine for one moment that she was here of her own free will? Or was it all a part of the hypocrisy in which she seemed to be enveloped? She flashed one glance at the horseman riding through the belt of trees that fringed the oasis and an icy perspiration chilled her from head to foot. She shrank back under the awning and into the coolness of the tent, raging against the mastering fear that she could not overcome. But just inside the open doorway she stood firm; even her fear could make her go no further. She would meet him here, not cowering into the inner room like a trembling creature skulking in the furthest corner of its cage. That much pride at least was left.

From the shelter of the tent she watched the troop arrive at the open space before her. The horse the Cheif was riding was jet black, and Hana looked from the beautiful creature's satiny coat to the man's white robes with angry contempt.

"Black and white! Black and white! A charlatan!" she muttered through her clenched teeth. Then as he swung to the ground every thought fell from her but the terror he inspired. She waited, breathless, the swift racing of her heart an actual physical pain.