"Oh, Gaston, my handkerchief!" and pointed to where the morsel of
cambric lay white against a rock. With a comical exclamation of dismay
he slipped to the ground and started to run across the sand.
She waited until he had got well on his way, sitting tense with shining
eyes and thumping heart, then, snatching off her helmet, she brought it
down with a resounding smack on the hindquarters of the servant's
horse, stampeding it in the direction of the camp, and, wheeling Silver
Star, headed for the north, deaf to Gaston's cries.
Wild with excitement and free to go his own pace at last her mount
galloped swiftly and the wind whistled past Diana's ears. To the
possible fate of the little Frenchman left on foot so far from the
encampment she gave no heed. For the moment she did not even think of
him, she had no thought for anybody but herself. Her ruse by its very
simplicity had succeeded. She was free and she did not care about
anything else. She had no plans or ideas what she should do or where
she should go beyond the fact that she would keep riding northward. She
had vague hopes that she might fall in with friendly Arabs who, for a
promised reward, would guide her to civilisation. Most of them could
speak a little French, and for the rest her small stock of Arabic must
do. She knew that she was mad to attempt to ride across the desert
alone, but she did not mind. She was free. She was too excited to think
coherently.
She laughed and shouted like a mad thing and her madness
communicated itself to the grey, who was going at racing speed. Diana
knew that he was out of control, that she could not stop him if she
tried, but she did not want to try, the faster the better. In time he
would tire himself, but until then let him go as he pleased. She was
fast putting miles between herself and the camp that had been a prison,
between herself and the brute who had dared to do what he had done. At
the thought of the Sheik a sick feeling of fear ran through her. If
anything should happen? If he should catch her again? She shuddered,
and a cry burst from her lips, but she gripped herself at once. She was
idiotic, contemptible; it was impossible. It would be hours, perhaps
even the next day, before the alarm was given; he would not know in
what direction she had gone. She would have miles of start on one of
the fleetest of his horses. She tried to put him out of her mind. She
had escaped from him and his cruelty, it was a nightmare that was over.
The effects would remain with her always, nothing would ever be the
same again, but the daily dread, the daily contamination would be gone,
the helpless tortured feeling, the shame of submission that had filled
her with an acute self-loathing that was as intense as her passionate
hatred of the man who had forced her to endure his will. The memory of
it would live with her for ever. He had made her a vile thing. Her
cheeks scorched with the thought and she shivered at the remembrance of
all that she had gone through. She had been down into the depths and
she would carry the scars all her life. The girl who had started out so
triumphantly from Biskra had become a woman through bitter knowledge
and humiliating experience.