Page 54 of Desert Barbarian

'You never heard any sound of vehicles? Any voices outside? Sounds from other houses?'

'Nothing like that. It was very quiet, I noticed that.'

'Was it marshland?' Stonor asked. 'You must have noticed what sort of country you drove through?'

'I was blindfolded,' she explained.

'What sort of roads were they? Main roads or cart tracks?'

'Rough hill roads,' she said.

Then Stonor pounced. 'Hill roads ? How do you know they were hill roads?'

She looked at him crossly. 'We were coming down them at that sort of speed and angle. I could just tell we were driving down hills.'

'Good,' said the King. 'That is one solid point, any­way. A village in the hills, an isolated house.'

'It wasn't a village,' she said quickly. 'I'm sure I would have noticed sounds from other houses.'

'A farm,' Stonor said quietly. 'The cows indicate that, surely. A small hill farm.'

The King nodded. 'There are only a few hundred of them,' he said grimly. 'If it takes us a year we will search every one.'

'Did they talk to you?' Stonor demanded of her. 'Surely they spoke?'

'They only spoke when they had to,' she told him. 'In fact, I only saw one of them more than once. He had the gun.'

Stonor swore. 'Did he threaten you? Hurt you?' His eyes were wild with rage.

She shook her head. 'He never hurt me at all. He was really quite polite.'

'So he did speak to you?' Stonor had taken over the questioning, while the King sat silently watching them shrewdly.

Marie glared at Stonor. 'He spoke occasionally. It was he who dictated that letter to you.'

'But not the postscript?' he suggested softly.

She flushed, remembering all the words she had not written but had longed to put down. 'No, I wrote that.'

'Could he read English? Why didn't he cross it out? It was hardly a message to scare the hell out of me.'

'He very honourably allowed me to write a few words which he didn't read.' She hesitated, then said, 'He thought I was writing a love letter, you see. He thought it would make you more anxious to find me. And, don't you see, he was so sure I knew nothing that could help you that he didn't even ask to read it!'

Stonor glanced at the King.

The King sighed. 'That sounds obvious enough, does it not? Why else should he permit her to write a private message?'

Stonor shrugged. 'Then if that is all, your highness, may I accompany her to the bungalow?'

'No,' Marie said quickly. 'Jess will have enough on her plate without you descending on her, Stonor. I'll go alone.'

Stonor looked obstinate, but the King smiled at him. 'She will be safe. I will send six soldiers to guard her.'

So Marie drove back to the bungalow in a car driven by Aziz, who was looking somewhat subdued now. The soldiers rode behind them on horses, two abreast.

'What's wrong?' she asked Aziz.

'Everything,' he told her. 'In all this trouble, somehow my cousin the King has found out about Aissa and myself, and has ordered that I must not see her again under such circumstances. I think one of the servants was afraid that the King might order severe punishments when he found out that I have been seeing Aissa every day, so he hurried to betray us in order to avert the hand of calamity.'

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