"And I know better," he said contemptuously. "My good girl, do you think I am a child? If I let them at the settlement know of the step I have taken, your people would send for help, and my country would be invaded, my campongs burned, and after they had driven me out, they would take possession of my land." "But I would not betray you." "Pish! They would discover it for themselves. They think you dead now. Let them think that you had been carried off, and my days would be but few in my land." "Oh, no, no!" she cried; "the English are not cruel." "Oh, no," he echoed, with a derisive smile, "not cruel, only just. Look here, Helen, I have been gambling: I staked all I had, even to my life, to win you, and I have won. Now you ask me to resign my gains. It is ridiculous. How would it be--how does the matter stand? On the one hand, here is ruin to my place and people and death to myself; on the other hand, happiness and joy--the happiness of a gratified love, as I rejoice in my triumph over the woman who first made my pulses throb, and then trifled with my love." Helen started to her feet and shrank away, feeling instinctively that she had as much prospect of finding pity from the tigers of the jungle as from Murad. As she retreated from him he smiled with all the consciousness of his power, and rested upon one elbow, as he reclined upon the mats, watching her movements, a very idealisation of some glistening serpent, gazing languidly at the trembling victim that has been placed within its cage, ready to be stricken down at his good pleasure. "There," he said, at last, "it is foolish to weary yourself and try to escape. I tell you it is impossible. You have now the skin and the dress of a Malay lady; why do you not adopt our ways as well? We are fatalists, as your people call us. When we see that a thing is to be, we take it as it comes, and do not murmur and strive against fate. You see now that it is your fate to be my favourite wife. Why should you strive against it like some dove that beats its breast against the close bars of its cage. Come," he continued, making a place for her by his side, "let us be friends at once, Helen. You do not wish to make me angry with you, I am dangerous then." "Angry? With me?" she cried, her indignation asserting itself now, and her eyes flashed as they met his. "I do not fear your anger." "And yet it is to be feared," he said quietly. "Ask one of the women here about my rage, and you will find that it may mean death. They fear it, and shrink from me when I frown." For answer, Helen strove once more to tear open the door, and then she uttered a wild and piercing shriek, for, as silently as one of the tigers of his own jungle, Murad had gathered himself up and sprung forward, catching her by the arms, and the next moment he held her strained to his breast.