Beloved Sheikh. ALEXANDRA SELLERS
Читать онлайн книгу.
him. For a moment, one arm loosed her and he wrestled with the reins, and Zara lifted her head and saw a man flung to the ground by the horse’s powerful forequarters as they rode past.
In the moonlight the colour of his coat seemed purple, but he was impossible to mistake. Prince Rafi leapt to his feet and gave chase as she watched, but the horseman had goaded his horse into a violent gallop and in seconds he was left far behind.
She screamed then, loud and long, but it was too late. All around her stretched the glow of moonlight on the wide, bleak, empty desert. Fear was nearly overwhelming. She gasped and choked, but before she could scream again the strong hand came up and pressed her face into the stifling folds of the burnous.
She was afraid of falling off the horse as it made its headlong plunge down a cliff of sand, but the suffocating hold was too firm. The sickness of terror was in her throat and she wondered which would be worse—what the bandit had in mind for her, or being crippled or killed under the sharp hooves.
She must get calm. She gained nothing by thinking of what lay ahead. She had to plan. She had already missed a crucial opportunity. If she had not believed it was Prince Rafi on the horse, she might have . . . but it was no use thinking of that, either. She should think of escape now.
“If you struggle I will tie you over the saddle,” the man grunted as she stirred. “If you scream I will knock you on the head.” Shivers of terror chased up and down her spine at the threat in his voice. He sounded like a man who said what he meant, who would stop at nothing.
“I can’t breathe!” she cried, and he must have some humanity, she thought, because he let her turn her face into the air.
He kept one hand over her mouth, her head pressed back against him. Zara impatiently forced her stupid mind to think. There must be something she could do! They would follow her. Prince Rafi, Gordon—they were sure to chase the bandit. They might already be in the helicopter. And there were the Land Rovers, too.
He had thought of the same thing, she realized, for after a time she could not measure they left the sand and entered an area of stony ground they had been galloping at an angle to for some time, and here he turned the horse so sharply that it was almost facing back on its own path. He had ridden away from the camp towards the east, but now she thought they were headed west north west. How long would it take the searchers to give up on the easterly direction and search other possibilities?
Far to the left now on the clear desert air they heard the sound of the helicopter beating the air. Her head was pressed firmly back against the bandit’s chest, but she could just see the light in the distance that told her the helicopter had a searchlight. If only she could leave some sign, some signal of the way they had gone! Something that would shine in the searchlight . . . her sandals were gold.
She still had both her sandals on. It seemed impossible, after all that had happened. There was a little strap between each toe, fanning out to a lacy pattern over her instep. She had never realized before how firmly they held.
Slowly, trying not to think of what she was doing lest the bandit pick up the thought, Zara worked one sandal off her foot and kicked it free. She didn’t look back, didn’t try to see how it had fallen. It might be days before it was found, if ever. A few miles later she let the second sandal drop.
The helicopter was going the wrong way, carefully following the horse’s first easterly direction. The sound grew faint. Her captor’s firm hold on her slackened. “They will not hear you now, if you scream,” he told her. But the horse’s pace continued.
Her hip felt bruised and she shifted to a more comfortable position. The golden robe was billowing in the wind. She pulled at it, amazed to find that she was still wearing that, too. “Where are you taking me?” she asked. Her throat was hoarse.
“To my camp.”
“Isn’t your camp on the other side of the river?”
He glanced down at her, the moonlight full on his face, and did not answer. She caught her breath on a gasp.
“You look like Prince Rafi!” she whispered.
The man laughed, flinging his head back. “Do I so?”
Fear chased up and down her spine. “Who are you?”
“Have not you been told tales of me? I am Jalal the Bandit, grandson of the great Selim.”
“Who—” Zara began, but he interrupted her.
“Do not waste your breath with asking questions. I will answer nothing and we have a long, hard way to go.”
He hadn’t been exaggerating. Zara had lost track of time. She had rarely been on a horse for longer than an hour, and she was sitting sidesaddle, one hip thrust higher than the other in a posture that became increasingly uncomfortable as the time passed. She was glad when numbness set in, but even that was painful.
“I must blindfold you now.”
She surfaced from the daze she had sunk into, and wondered how long they had been riding. The horse was covered in lather, and obviously miserable, but doing his best for his master.
Jalal lifted an arm and pulled the large keffiyeh from his head. “Wrap this around your head and eyes.”
They must be near some landmark that she would be able to identify. She prayed that this meant that he intended to keep her alive—for otherwise why bother about what she saw?—and sobbed once with the relief of a fear she hadn’t been letting herself feel.
She cast one last glance around her, trying to memorize the scene, imprint it on her mind, as she reached to take the cloth and wrap her face in it. Ahead there was a mound of rock, made huge with shadow. She thought she heard the sound of running water in the distance, but the desert was full of moonshadows that made it hard to distinguish features.
A buffet of wind caught them then, and her golden robe suddenly snapped and billowed out behind her.... Zara thought, It’s the one certain marker I could leave—if she could drop it without his noticing. If they found it, Prince Rafi would recognize it, she was certain. He would know that she had passed this way... if anyone, nomad or trader, ever passes this way, she told herself ruthlessly. And if the wind hasn’t buried it, and if the nomad takes it to his prince . . . but she had to try something. If she gave up hope now she was lost.
Under cover of wrapping her head, Zara released one arm from the beautiful robe. Now it was held on only by one arm. She finished wrapping the scarf around her eyes. Then blindly, inch by inch, working by touch alone, she drew the robe into a bundle in her lap.
The horse, very tired now, struggled on for minutes while she nearly suffocated with fear behind the constricting cloth. At last it was reined to a very slow walk. Zara tensed for action. She sensed an echo, their approach to something large. They were about to enter some place. Pulling her arm from the robe, she screamed and began to struggle.
She was no match for the bandit’s strength, and her rebellion lasted hardly more than a second. But the robe was now loose in her hands. “Bend down, it is low,” he ordered curtly, pushing her flat against the horse’s neck and bending over her. This was her last chance. Lying over the horse’s neck, Zara dragged the crushed robe from under her and flung it away. A moment later the sounds told her that they were entering something like a cave.
“Cover your face,” he ordered again.
Behind them, the golden cloth glittered for a moment in the moonlight as it fell to the desert floor.
Rafi ran all the way to the helicopter and pulled futilely at the door before he realized that Ammar had locked it. Precautions against Jalal, he reflected grimly, but this would give the bandit a head start he would probably never lose. Rafi ran back towards the tent, calling for the Companions. But the party was noisy, drowning his cry as it had drowned the sound of the horse and Zara’s scream.
By the time he had