Chapter XVI

“_My soul seem’d numbed by the blow,_ _A faintness followed, a sickly swoon._”

When Leslie returned to consciousness she seemed to be in quite a different world--a world of darkness, damp and chill, full of wild howls and animal snarlings, and over it all a savage voice was thundering.

Fearsomely she glanced round, the terrors of a ghastly nightmare upon her, not yet awake to the events of the evening. Above her head a voice was speaking, full of triumph, arrogance, and barbaric pride.

It roused her to a further review of her surroundings.

She became aware of a big brown hand holding hers, pressed close in fierce possession. In a dazed way, she studied it. No reassuring ring of white flesh appeared beneath the wet, blistered cuff. This caught her attention. Many men had brown hands, quite as dark as this one. Captain Fletcher had, in fact. Yet on his arm the brown stopped all at once, just beyond the cuff, and the white began. But on this arm the brown did not stop. It went on and on, until it was lost in the depths of the sleeve.

Leslie’s eyes went to the swarthy, powerful face above her head, and stayed there in a puzzled fashion.

It was like a once well-known scene that had been devastated by some wild flood, vaguely haunting in outline, yet changed almost beyond recognition: all the old familiar landmarks had been swept away and unknown signs had taken their places.

A sickly shudder ran through her. Through the numbness that had followed her brief swoon, came a sudden dawning of the terror which had been with her before a merciful unconsciousness had seized her--when the knowledge of who and what Lebrassa really was had thundered down on her.

She stayed frozen with the horror of recollection, gazing at the wild figures around her, hoping they would not go and leave her quite alone with him.

Her strained eyes watched them as they slipped away one by one, to be swallowed up in the night.

When Lebrassa put her into the chair, Leslie was limp with terror. As from a long way off she heard his voice talking in a manner that filled her with even greater fear.

Then presently, mercifully, he was gone too.

When he left the hut she got up. With uncertain steps she crossed to the door, looking up at Yoni in a wild way.

“Let me pass. I want to go at once,” she said.

Yoni looked back at her, but she made no sign of moving from the narrow doorway.

Leslie tried to push past her, but it was no use.

For the first time the full sense of her captivity dawned on her, and with it some of the cunning which is the heritage of all trapped weakness.

Going back to the chair, she sat there trying to think of some means of getting her jailor away before Lebrassa returned.

Presently she got up, and taking one of the lamps went into the inner room.

She returned, sponge in one hand and empty water jug in the other. By pantomime she pointed out to her jailor that she wanted to wash but there was no water.

Yoni shook her head and refused to move. Leslie smiled at her--a smile that got no further than her lips--and pointed to a stream of water pouring off the roof not more than a couple of yards away, which Yoni could reach by just moving from the door.

As the negress took the jug and leaned across to hold it under the stream, Leslie darted past her.

Yoni dropped the jug and made a grab at her, seizing whatever she could grasp. A brief struggle ensued. Then a wave of fear went over the negress, for the girl suddenly collapsed in her grip.

Lifting her charge, she carried her back into the room, and laid her in the chair. Then she stood watching Leslie’s white, unconscious face, chafing her cold hands, in an access of mortal fear as to what her fate would be if the Sultan returned and found this cherished being injured.

The chafing had no effect. Yoni tried forcing palm wine between the girl’s slightly parted lips. But she could bring no flicker of life back to the heavy, black-fringed lids, no glimmer of returning consciousness to the small white face pillowed on the cushions.

The case was beyond her. She must send and let the Sultan know. Perhaps his voice and arms would coax this strange Star back to life.

For a moment Yoni hesitated, then she went quickly from the hut.

She was not gone two minutes, yet, when she returned, the hut was empty!

The discovery left her petrified. To her came the knowledge of what her fate would be when the Sultan returned and found out what had happened. The thought made her run from the hut towards the sheltering forest.

Then there were two women lost in the night, flying through rain and storm, away from the fate that would be theirs if they fell again into the hands of the Hyena.