For a moment the two men looked into each other's eyes and the
knowledge of death leaped into Ibraheim Omair's. With the fatalism of
his creed he made no resistance, as, with a slow, terrible smile, the
Sheik's left hand reached out and fastened on his throat. It would be
quicker to shoot, but as Diana had suffered so should her torturer die.
All the savagery in his nature rose uppermost. Beside the pitiful,
gasping little figure on the rug at his feet there was the memory of
six mutilated bodies, his faithful followers, men of his own age who
had grown to manhood with him, picked men of his personal bodyguard who
had been intimately connected with him all his life, and who had served
him with devotion and unwavering obedience. They and others who had
from time to time fallen victims to Ibraheim Omair's hatred of his more
powerful enemy. The man who was responsible for their deaths was in his
power at last, the man whose existence was a menace and whose life was
an offence, of whose subtleties he had been trained from a boy to
beware by the elder Ahmed Ben Hassan, who had bequeathed to him the
tribal hatred of the race of whom Ibraheim Omair was head, and whose
dying words had been the wish that his successor might himself
exterminate the hereditary enemy. But far beyond the feelings inspired
by tribal hatred or the remembrance of the vow made five years ago
beside the old Sheik's deathbed, or even the death of his own
followers, was the desire to kill, with his bare hands, the man who had
tortured the woman he loved. The knowledge of her peril, that had
driven him headlong through the night to her aid, the sight of her
helpless, agonised, in the robber chief's hands, had filled him with a
madness that only the fierce joy of killing would cure. Before he could
listen to the clamouring of the new love in his heart, before he could
gather up into his arms the beloved little body that he was yearning
for, he had to destroy the man whose murders were countless and who had
at last fallen into his hands.
The smile on his face deepened and his fingers tightened slowly on
their hold. But with the strangling clasp of Ahmed Ben Hassan's hands
upon him the love of life waked again in Ibraheim Omair and he
struggled fiercely. Crouched on the floor Diana watched the two big
figures swaying in mortal combat with wide, fearful eyes, her hands
still holding her aching throat. Ibraheim Omair wrestled for his life,
conscious of his own strength, but conscious also of the greater
strength that was opposed to him. The Sheik let go the hold upon his
throat and with both arms locked about him manoeuvred to get the
position he required, back to the divan. Then, with a wrestler's trick,
he swept Ibraheim's feet from under him and sent his huge body
sprawling on to the cushions, his knee on his enemy's chest, his hands
on his throat. With all his weight crushing into the chief's breast,
with the terrible smile always on his lips, he choked him slowly to
death, till the dying man's body arched and writhed in his last agony,
till the blood burst from his nose and mouth, pouring over the hands
that held him like a vice.