This was, indeed, the Arab of her imaginings, this gross, unwieldy
figure lying among the tawdry cushions, his swollen, ferocious face
seamed and lined with every mark of vice, his full, sensual lips parted
and showing broken, blackened teeth, his deep-set, bloodshot eyes with
a look in them that it took all her resolution to sustain, a look of
such bestial evilness that the horror of it bathed her in perspiration.
His appearance was slovenly, his robes, originally rich, were stained
and tumbled, the fat hands lying spread out on his knees were engrained
with dirt, showing even against his dark skin. His heavy face lit up
with a gleam of malicious satisfaction as Diana came towards him, his
loose mouth broadened in a wicked smile. He leaned forward a little,
weighing heavily on the hands that were on his knees, his eyes roving
slowly over her till they rested on her face again.
"So! the white woman of my brother Ahmed Ben Hassan," he said slowly,
in villainous French, with a sudden, snarling intonation as he uttered
his enemy's name. "Ahmed Ben Hassan! May Allah burn his soul in hell!"
he added with relish, and spat contemptuously.
He leaned back on the cushions with a grunt, and drank some coffee
noisily.
Diana kept her eyes fixed on him, and under their unwavering stare he
seemed to be uneasy, his own inflamed eyes wandering ceaselessly over
her, one hand fumbling at the curved hilt of a knife stuck in his belt,
and at last he grew exasperated, hitching himself forward once more and
beckoning her to come nearer to him. She hesitated, and as she paused
uncertainly, there was a flutter of draperies behind her, and the Arab
woman from the inner room, evading the negro who stepped forward to
stop her, flung herself at the feet of Ibraheim Omair, clinging to his
knees with a low wailing cry. In a flash Diana realised the meaning of
the hatred that had gleamed in the woman's eyes earlier in the evening.
To her she was a rival, whose coming to share the favours of her lord
had aroused all the jealousy of the reigning favourite. A wave of
disgust mingled with the fear that was torturing her. She jerked her
head angrily, fighting against the terror that was growing on her, and
for a moment her lashes drooped and hid her eyes. When she looked up
again the woman was still crouched at the old Arab's feet, imploring
and distraught.
Ibraheim Omair looked down on her curiously, his lips drawn back from
his blackened teeth in an evil grin, and then shook her off violently
with a swift blow in the mouth, but the woman clung closer, with
upturned, desperate face, a thin trickle of blood oozing from her lips,
and with a hoarse growl that was like the dull roar of a savage beast
the robber chief caught her by the throat and held her for a moment,
her frantic, clutching hands powerless against his strong grasp, then
slowly drew the long knife from the ample folds of his waist-cloth, and
as slowly drove it home into the strangling woman's breast. With savage
callousness, before he released his hold of her, he wiped the stained
knife carefully on her clothing and replaced it, and then flung the
dead body from him. It rolled over on the rug midway between him and
Diana.