"Get up," he said.

She looked at him sullenly without moving.

"I'm in a hurry," he repeated; "get up. I'm going to search you."

At that she bounded to her feet.

"What!" she exclaimed furiously.

But he caught hold of her, held her, untied the handkerchief, freeing her wrists.

"Now, pull out those papers you have concealed under your clothing," he said impatiently. And, as she made no motion to comply: "If you don't, I'll do it for you!"

"You dare lay your hand on me!" she flamed.

"You treacherous little cat, do you think I'll hesitate?" he retorted. "Do you imagine I retain any respect for you or your person? Give me those papers!"

"I have no papers!"

"You are lying. Listen to me once for all; I've a train to catch and a steamer to catch, and I'm going to do both. And if you don't instantly hand out those papers you've concealed I'll have no more compunction in taking them by force than I'd have in stripping an ear of corn! Make up your mind and make it up quick!"

"You mean you'd strip—me!" she stammered, scarlet to her hair.

"That's what I mean, you lying little thief. That's just what I mean. Kick and squall as you like, I'll take those papers with me if I have to take your clothing too!"

Breathless, infuriated, she looked desperately around her, caught sight of the Kurdish dagger, leaped at it; and for the third time found herself struggling in his arms.

"Don't!" she gasped. "Let me go! I—I'll give you what you want——"

"Do you mean it?"

"Yes."

He released the dishevelled girl, who shrank away from him. But the devil himself glowed in her black eyes.

"Go out of the room," she said, "if I'm to get the papers for you!"

"I can't trust you," he answered. "I'll turn my back." And he walked over to the olive-wood box, where the weapons lay.

Standing there he heard, presently, the rustle of crumpling papers, heard a half-smothered sob, waited, listening, alert for further treachery on her part.

"Hurry!" he said.

A board creaked.

"Don't move again!" he cried. The floor boards creaked once more; and he turned like a flash to find her in her stocking feet, already halfway to where he stood. In either hand she held out a bundle of papers; and, as they faced each other, she took another step toward him.

"Stand where you are," he warned her. "Throw those papers on the floor!"

"I——"

"Do you hear!"

Looking him straight in the eyes she opened both hands; the papers fell at her feet, and with them dropped the two dagger-like steel pins which had held her hat.

"Now, go and put on your shoes," he said contemptuously, picking up the papers and running over them. When he had counted them, he came back to where she was standing.

"Where are the others?"

"What others?"

"The remainder of the papers! You little devil, they're wrapped around your body! Go into that pantry! Go quick! Undress and throw out every rag you wear!"

She drew a deep, quivering breath, turned, entered the pantry and closed the door. Presently the door opened a little and her clothing dropped outside in a heap.

There were papers in her stockings, papers stitched to her stays, basted inside her skirts. A roll of drawings traced on linen lay on the floor, still retaining the warmth of her body around which they had been wrapped.

He pulled the faded embroidered cover from the old piano and knocked at the pantry door.

"Put that on," he said, "and come out."

She emerged, swathed from ankle to chin, her flushed face shadowed by her fallen mass of dark hair. He turned his flash light on the cupboard, but discovered nothing more. Then he picked up her hat, clothes, and shoes, laid them on the pantry shelf, and curtly bade her go back and dress.

"May I have the lamp and that looking glass?"

"If you like," he said, preoccupied with the papers.

While she was dressing, he repacked the olive-wood box. She emerged presently, carrying the lamp, and he took it from her hurriedly, not knowing whether she might elect to throw it at his head.

While she was putting on her jacket he stood watching her with perplexed and sombre gaze.

"I think," he remarked, "that I'll take you with me and drop you at the Orangeville jail on my way to town. Be kind enough to start toward the door."

As she evinced no inclination to stir he passed one arm around her and lifted her along a few feet; and she turned on him, struggling, her face convulsed with fury.

"Keep your insolent hands off me," she said. "Do you hear?"

"Oh, yes, I hear." He nodded again toward the door. "Come," he repeated impatiently; "move on!"

She hesitated; he picked up the olive-wood box, extinguished the lamp, opened his flash, and motioned with his head, significantly. She walked ahead of him, face lowered.

Outside he closed and locked the door of the house.

"This way," he said coldly. "If you refuse, I'll pick you up and carry you under my arm. I think by this time you realise I can do it, too."

Halfway across the dark pasture she stopped short in her tracks.

"Have I got to carry you?" he demanded sharply.

"Don't have me locked up."

"Why not?"

"I'm not a—a thief."

"Oh! Excuse me. What are you?"

"You know. Don't humiliate me."

"Answer my question! What are you if you're not a lady crook?"

"I'm employed—as you are! Play the game fairly." She halted in the dark pasture, but he motioned her to go forward.

"If you don't keep on walking," he said, "I'll pick you up as I would a pet cat and carry you. Now, then, once more, who are you working for? By whom are you employed, if you're not a plain thief?"

"The—Turkish Embassy."

"What!"

"You knew it," she said in a low voice, walking through the darkness beside him.

"What is your name?" he insisted.

"Dumont."

"What else?"

"Ilse Dumont."

"That's French."

"It's Alsatian German."

"All right. Now, why did you break into that house?"

"To take what you took."

"To steal these papers for the Turkish Embassy?"

"To take them."

"For the Turkish Ambassador!" he repeated incredulously.

"No; for his military attache."

"What are you, a spy?"

"You knew it well enough. You are one, also. But you have treated me as though I were a thief. You'll be killed for it, I hope."

"You think I'm a spy?" he asked, astonished.

"What else are you?"

"A spy?" he repeated. "Is that what you are? And you suppose me to be one, too? That's funny. That's extremely——" He checked himself, looked around at her. "What are you about?" he demanded. "What's that in your hand?"

"A cigarette."

They had arrived at the road. He got over the wall with the box; she vaulted it lightly.

In the darkness he caught the low, steady throbbing of his engine, and presently distinguished the car standing where he had left it.

"Get in," he said briefly.

"I am not a thief! Are you going to lay that charge against me?"

"I don't know. Is it worse than charging you with three separate attempts to murder me?"

"Are you going to take me to jail?"

"I'll see. You'll go as far as Orangeville with me, anyhow."

"I don't care to go."

"I don't care whether you want to go or not. Get into the car!"

She climbed to the seat beside the wheel; he tossed in the olive-wood box, turned on his lamps, and took the wheel.

"May I have a match for my cigarette?" she asked meekly.

He found one, scratched it; she placed a very thick and long cigarette between her lips and he lighted it for her.

Just as he threw in the clutch and the car started, the girl blew a shower of sparks from the end of her cigarette, rose in her seat, and flung the lighted cigarette high into the air. Instantly it burst into a flare of crimson fire, hanging aloft as though it were a fire balloon, and lighting up road and creek and bushes and fields with a brilliant strontium glare.

Then, far in the night, he heard a motor horn screech three times.

"You young devil!" he said, increasing the speed. "I ought to have remembered that every snake has its mate.... If you offer to touch me—if you move—if you as much as lift a finger, I'll throw you into the creek!"

The car was flying now, reeling over the dirt road like a drunken thing. He hung grimly to the wheel, his strained gaze fixed on the shaft of light ahead, through which the road streamed like a torrent.

A great wind roared in his ears; his cap was gone. The car hurled itself forward through an endless tunnel of darkness lined with silver. Presently he began to slow down; the furious wind died away; the streaking darkness sped by less swiftly.

"Have you gone mad?" she cried in his ear. "You'll kill us both!"

"Wait," he shouted back; "I'll show you and your friends behind us what speed really is."

The car was still slowing down as they passed over a wooden bridge where a narrow road, partly washed out, turned to the left and ran along a hillside. Into this he steered.

"Who is it chasing us?" he asked curiously, still incredulous that any embassy whatever was involved in this amazing affair.

"Friends."

"More Turks?"

She did not reply.

He sat still, listening for a few moments, then hastily started his car down the hill.

"Now," he said, "I'll show you what this car of mine really can do! Are you afraid?"

She said between her teeth:

"I'd be a fool if I were not. All I pray for is that you'll kill yourself, too."

"We'll chance it together, my murderous little friend."

The wind began to roar again as they rushed downward over a hill that seemed endless. She clung to her seat and he hung to his wheel like grim death; and, for one terrible instant, she almost lost consciousness.

Then the terrific pace slackened; the car, running swiftly, was now speeding over a macadam road; and Neeland laughed and cried in her ear:

"Better light another of your hell's own cigarettes if you want your friends to follow us!"

Slowing, he drove with one hand on the wheel.

"Look up there!" he said, pointing high at a dark hillside. "See their lights? They're on the worst road in the Gayfield hills. We cut off three miles this way."

Still driving with one hand, he looked at his watch, laughed contentedly, and turned to her with the sudden and almost friendly toleration born of success and a danger shared in common.

"That was rather a reckless bit of driving," he admitted. "Were you frightened?"

"Ask yourself how you'd feel with a fool at the wheel."

"We're all fools at times," he retorted, laughing. "You were when you shot at me. Suppose I'd been seized with panic. I might have turned loose on you, too."

For a while she remained silent, then she looked at him curiously:

"Were you armed?"

"I carry an automatic pistol in my portfolio pocket."

She shrugged.

"You were a fool to come into that house without carrying it in your hand."

"Where would you be now if I had done that?"

"Dead, I suppose," she said carelessly.... "What are you going to do with me?"

He was in excellent humour with himself; exhilaration and excitement still possessed him, keyed him up.

"Fancy," he said, "a foreign embassy being mixed up in a plain case of grand larceny!—robbing with attempt to murder! My dear but bloodthirsty young lady, I can hardly comprehend it."

She remained silent, looking straight in front of her.

"You know," he said, "I'm rather glad you're not a common thief. You've lots of pluck—plenty. You're as clever as a cobra. It isn't every poisonous snake that is clever," he added, laughing.

"What do you intend to do with me?" she repeated coolly.

"I don't know. You are certainly an interesting companion. Maybe I'll take you to New York with me. You see I'm beginning to like you."

She was silent.

He said:

"I never before met a real spy. I scarcely believed they existed in time of peace, except in novels. Really, I never imagined there were any spies working for embassies, except in Europe. You are, to me, such a rare specimen," he added gaily, "that I rather dread parting with you. Won't you come to Paris with me?"

"Does what you say amuse you?"

"What you say does. Yes, I think I'll take you to New York, anyway. And as we journey toward that great metropolis together you shall tell me all about your delightful profession. You shall be a Scheherazade to me! Is it a bargain?"

She said in a pleasant, even voice:

"I might as well tell you now that what you've been stupid enough to do tonight is going to cost you your life."

"What!" he exclaimed laughingly. "More murder? Oh, Scheherazade! Shame on your naughty, naughty behaviour!"

"Do you expect to reach Paris with those papers?"

"I do, fair houri! I do, Rose of Stamboul!"

"You never will."

"No?"

"No." She sat staring ahead of her for a few moments, then turned on him with restrained impatience:

"Listen to me, now! I don't know who you are. If you're employed by any government you are a novice——"

"Or an artist!"

"Or a consummate artist," she admitted, looking at him uncertainly.

"I am an artist," he said.

"You have an excellent opinion of yourself."

"No. I'm telling you the truth. My name is Neeland—James Neeland. I draw little pictures for a living—nice little pictures for newspapers and magazines."

His frankness evidently perplexed her.

"If that is so," she said, "what interests you in the papers you took from me?"

"Nothing at all, my dear young lady! I'm not interested in them. But friends of mine are."

"Who?"

He merely laughed at her.

"Are you an agent for any government?"

"Not that I know of."

She said very quietly:

"You make a terrible mistake to involve yourself in this affair. If you are not paid to do it—if you are not interested from patriotic motives—you had better keep aloof."

"But it's too late. I am mixed up in it—whatever it may mean. Why not tell me, Scheherazade?"

His humorous badinage seemed only to make her more serious.

"Mr. Neeland," she said quietly, "if you really are what you say you are, it is a dangerous and silly thing that you have done tonight."

"Don't say that! Don't consider it so tragically. I'm enjoying it all immensely."

"Do you consider it a comedy when a woman tries to kill you?"

"Maybe you are fond of murder, gentle lady."

"Your sense of humour seems a trifle perverted. I am more serious than I ever was in my life. And I tell you very solemnly that you'll be killed if you try to take those papers to Paris. Listen!"—she laid one hand lightly on his arm—"Why should you involve yourself—you, an American? This matter is no concern of yours——"

"What matter?"

"The matter concerning those papers. I tell you it does not concern you; it is none of your business. Let me be frank with you: the papers are of importance to a foreign government—to the German Government. And in no way do they threaten your people or your country's welfare. Why, then, do you interfere? Why do you use violence toward an agent of a foreign and friendly government?"

"Why does a foreign and friendly government employ spies in a friendly country?"

"All governments do."

"Is that so?"

"It is. America swarms with British and French agents."

"How do you know?"

"It's my business to know, Mr. Neeland."

"Then that is your profession! You really are a spy?"

"Yes."

"And you pursue this ennobling profession with an enthusiasm which does not stop short of murder!"

"I had no choice."

"Hadn't you? Your business seems to be rather a deadly one, doesn't it, Scheherazade?"

"Yes, it might become so.... Mr. Neeland, I have no personal feeling of anger for you. You offered me violence; you behaved brutally, indecently. But I want you to understand that no petty personal feeling incites me. The wrong you have done me is nothing; the injury you threaten to do my country is very grave. I ask you to believe that I speak the truth. It is in the service of my country that I have acted. Nothing matters to me except my country's welfare. Individuals are nothing; the Fatherland everything.... Will you give me back my papers?"

"No. I shall return them to their owner."

"Is that final?"

"It is."

"I am sorry," she said.

A moment later the lights of Orangeville came into distant view across the dark and rolling country.



CHAPTER XVI

SCHEHERAZADE

At the Orangeville garage Neeland stopped his car, put on his straw hat, got out carrying suitcase and box, entered the office, and turned over the care of the machine to an employee with orders to drive it back to Neeland's Mills the next morning.

Then he leisurely returned to his prisoner who had given him her name as Ilse Dumont and who was standing on the sidewalk beside the car.

"Well, Scheherazade," he said, smiling, "teller of marvellous tales, I don't quite believe your stories, but they were extremely entertaining. So I won't bowstring you or cut off your unusually attractive head! No! On the contrary, I thank you for your wonder-tales, and for not murdering me. And, furthermore, I bestow upon you your liberty. Have you sufficient cash to take you where you desire to waft yourself?"

All the time her dark, unsmiling eyes remained fixed on him, calmly unresponsive to his badinage.

"I'm sorry I had to be rough with you, Scheherazade," he continued, "but when a young lady sews her clothes full of papers which don't belong to her, what, I ask you, is a modest young man to do?"

She said nothing.

"It becomes necessary for that modest young man to can his modesty—and the young lady's. Is there anything else he could do?" he repeated gaily.

"He had better return those papers," she replied in a low voice.

"I'm sorry, Scheherazade, but it isn't done in ultra-crooked circles. Are you sure you have enough money to go where destiny and booty call you?"

"I have what I require," she answered dryly.

"Then good-bye, Pearl of the Harem! Without rancour, I offer you the hand that reluctantly chastened you."

They remained facing each other in silence for a moment; his expression was mischievously amused; hers inscrutable. Then, as he patiently and good-humouredly continued to offer her his hand, very slowly she laid her own in it, still looking him directly in the eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said in a low voice.

"For what? For not shooting me?"

"I'm sorry for you, Mr. Neeland.... You're only a boy, after all. You know nothing. And you refuse to learn.... I'm sorry.... Good-bye."

"Could I take you anywhere? To the Hotel Orange? I've time. The station is across the street."

"No," she said.

She walked leisurely along the poorly lighted street and turned the first corner as though at hazard. The next moment her trim and graceful figure had disappeared.

With his heart still gay from the night's excitement, and the drop of Irish blood in him lively as champagne, he crossed the square briskly, entered the stuffy station, bought a ticket, and went out to the wooden platform beside the rails.

Placing box and suitcase side by side, he seated himself upon them and lighted a cigarette.

Here was an adventure! Whether or not he understood it, here certainly was a real, story-book adventure at last. And he began to entertain a little more respect for those writers of romance who have so persistently attempted to convince an incredulous world that adventures are to be had anywhere and at any time for the mere effort entailed in seeking them.

In his case, however, he had not sought adventure. It had been thrust upon him by cable.

And now the drop of Irish in him gratefully responded. He was much obliged to Fate for his evening's entertainment; he modestly ventured to hope for favours to come. And, considering the coolly veiled threats of this young woman whom he had treated with scant ceremony, he had some reason to expect a sequel to the night's adventure.

"She," he thought to himself, "had nothing on Godiva—except a piano cover!"

Recollection of the absurd situation incited his reprehensible merriment to the point of unrestrained laughter; and he clasped his knees and rocked to and fro, where he sat on his suitcase, all alone under the stars.

The midnight express was usually from five to forty minutes late at Orangeville; but from there east it made up time on the down grade to Albany.

And now, as he sat watching, far away along the riverside a star came gliding into view around an unseen curve—the headlight of a distant locomotive.

A few moments later he was in his drawing-room, seated on the edge of the couch, his door locked, the shade over the window looking on the corridor drawn down as far as it would go; and the train rushing through the starry night on the down grade toward Albany.

He could not screen the corridor window entirely; the shade seemed to be too short; but it was late, the corridor dark, all the curtains in the car closed tightly over the berths, and his privacy was not likely to be disturbed. And when the conductor had taken both tickets and the porter had brought him a bottle of mineral water and gone away, he settled down with great content.

Neeland was in excellent humour. He had not the slightest inclination to sleep. He sat on the side of his bed, smoking, the olive-wood box lying open beside him, and its curious contents revealed.

But now, as he carefully examined the papers, photographs, and drawings, he began to take the affair a little more seriously. And the possibility of further trouble raised his already high spirits and caused that little drop of Irish blood to sing agreeably in his veins.

Dipping into Herr Wilner's diary added a fillip to the increasing fascination that was possessing him.

"Well, I'm damned," he thought, "if it doesn't really look as though the plans of these Turkish forts might be important! I'm not very much astonished that the Kaiser and the Sultan desire to keep for themselves the secrets of these fortifications. They really belong to them, too. They were drawn and planned by a German." He shrugged. "A rotten alliance!" he muttered, and picked up the bronze Chinese figure to examine it.

"So you're the Yellow Devil I've heard about!" he said. "Well, you certainly are a pippin!"

Inspecting him with careless curiosity, he turned the bronze over and over between his hands, noticing a slight rattling sound that seemed to come from within but discovering no reason for it. And, as he curiously considered the scowling demon, he hummed an old song of his father's under his breath:

"Wan balmy day in May Th' ould Nick come to the dure; Sez I 'The divil's to pay, An' the debt comes harrd on the poor!' His eyes they shone like fire An' he gave a horrid groan; Sez I to me sister Suke, 'Suke!!!! Tell him I ain't at home!'

"He stood forninst the dure, His wings were wings of a bat, An' he raised his voice to a roar, An' the tail of him switched like a cat, 'O wirra the day!' sez I, 'Ochone I'll no more roam!' Sez I to me brother Luke, 'Luke!!!! Tell him I ain't at home!'"

As he laid the bronze figure away and closed, locked and strapped the olive-wood box, an odd sensation crept over him as though somebody were overlooking what he was doing. Of course it could not be true, but so sudden and so vivid was the impression that he rose, opened the door, and glanced into the private washroom—even poked under the bed and the opposite sofa; and of course discovered that only a living skeleton could lie concealed in such spaces.

His courage, except moral courage, had never been particularly tested. He was naturally quite fearless, even carelessly so, and whether it was the courage of ignorance or a constitutional inability to be afraid never bothered his mind because he never thought about it.

Now, amused at his unusual fit of caution, he stretched himself out on his bed, still dressed, debating in his mind whether he should undress and try to sleep, or whether it were really worth while before he boarded the steamer.

And, as he lay there, a cigarette between his lips, wakeful, his restless gaze wandering, he suddenly caught a glimpse of something moving—a human face pressed to the dark glass of the corridor window between the partly lowered shade and the cherry-wood sill.

So amazed was he that the face had disappeared before he realised that it resembled the face of Ilse Dumont. The next instant he was on his feet and opening the door of the drawing-room; but the corridor between the curtained berths was empty and dark and still; not a curtain fluttered.

He did not care to leave his doorway, either, with the box lying there on his bed; he stood with one hand on the knob, listening, peering into the dusk, still excited by the surprise of seeing her on the same train that he had taken.

However, on reflection, he quite understood that she could have had no difficulty in boarding the midnight train for New York without being noticed by him; because he was not expecting her to do such a thing and he had paid no attention to the group of passengers emerging from the waiting room when the express rolled in.

"This is rather funny," he thought. "I wish I could find her. I wish she'd be friendly enough to pay me a visit. Scheherazade is certainly an entertaining girl. And it's several hours to New York."

He lingered a while longer, but seeing and hearing nothing except darkness and assorted snores, he stepped into his stateroom and locked the door again.

Sleep was now impossible; the idea of Scheherazade prowling in the dark corridor outside amused him intensely, and aroused every atom of his curiosity. Did the girl really expect an opportunity to steal the box? Or was she keeping a sinister eye on him with a view to summoning accomplices from vasty metropolitan deeps as soon as the train arrived? Or, having failed at Brookhollow, was she merely going back to town to report "progress backward"?

He finished his mineral water, and, still feeling thirsty, rang, on the chance that the porter might still be awake and obliging.

Something about the entire affair was beginning to strike him as intensely funny, and the idea of foreign spies slinking about Brookhollow; the seriousness with which this young girl took herself and her mission; her amateur attempts at murder; her solemn mention of the Turkish Embassy—all these excited his sense of the humorous. And again incredulity crept in; and presently he found himself humming Irwin's immortal Kaiser refrain:

"Hi-lee! Hi-lo! Der vinds dey blow Joost like die wacht am Rhine! Und vot iss mine belongs to me, Und vot iss yours iss mine!"

There came a knock at his door; he rose and opened it, supposing it to be the porter; and was seized in the powerful grasp of two men and jerked into the dark corridor.

One of them had closed his mouth with a gloved hand, crushing him with an iron grip around the neck; the other caught his legs and lifted him bodily; and, as they slung him between them, his startled eyes caught sight of Ilse Dumont entering his drawing-room.

It was a silent, fierce struggle through the corridor to the front platform of the vestibule train; it took both men to hold, overpower, and completely master him; but they tried to do this and, at the same time, lift the trap that discloses the car steps. And could not manage it.

The instant Neeland realised what they were trying to do, he divined their shocking intention in regard to himself, and the struggle became terrible there in the swaying vestibule. Twice he nearly got at the automatic pistol in his breast pocket, but could not quite grasp it. They slammed him and thrashed him around between them, apparently determined to open the trap, fling him from the train, and let him take his chances with the wheels.

Then, of a sudden, came a change in the fortunes of war; they were trying to drag him over the chain sagging between the forward mail-car and the Pullman, when one of them caught his foot on it and stumbled backward, releasing Neeland's right arm. In the same instant he drove his fist into the face of his other assailant so hard that the man's head jerked backward as though his neck were broken, and he fell flat on his back.

Already the train was slowing down for the single stop between Albany and New York—Hudson. Neeland got out his pistol and pointed it shakily at the man who had fallen backward over the chain.

"Jump!" he panted. "Jump quick!"

The man needed no other warning; he opened the trap, scrambled and wriggled down the mail-car steps, and was off the train like a snake from a sack.

The other man, bloody and ghastly white, crept under the chain after his companion. He was a well-built, good-looking man of forty, with blue eyes and a golden beard all over blood. He seemed sick from the terrific blow dealt him; but as the train had almost stopped, Neeland pushed him off with the flat of his foot.

Drenched in perspiration, dishevelled, bruised, he slammed both traps and ran back into the dark corridor, and met Ilse Dumont coming out of his stateroom carrying the olive-wood box.

His appearance appeared to stupefy her; he took the box from her without resistance, and, pushing her back into the stateroom, locked the door.

Then, still savagely excited, and the hot blood of battle still seething in his veins, he stood staring wickedly into her dazed eyes, the automatic pistol hanging from his right fist.

But after a few moments something in her naive astonishment—her amazement to see him alive and standing there before her—appealed to him as intensely ludicrous; he dropped on the edge of the bed and burst into laughter uncontrolled.

"Scheherazade! Oh, Scheherazade!" he said, weak with laughter, "if you could only see your face! If you could only see it, my dear child! It's too funny to be true! It's too funny to be a real face! Oh, dear, I'll die if I laugh any more. You'll assassinate me with your face!"

She seated herself on the lounge opposite, still gazing blankly at him in his uncontrollable mirth.

After a while he put back the automatic into his breast pocket, took off coat and waistcoat, without paying the slightest heed to her or to convention; opened his own suitcase, selected a fresh shirt, tie, and collar, and, taking with him his coat and the olive-wood box, went into the little washroom.

He scarcely expected to find her there when he emerged, cooled and refreshed; but she was still there, seated as he had left her on the lounge.

"I wanted to ask you," she said in a low voice, "did you kill them?"

"Not at all, Scheherazade," he replied gaily. "The Irish don't kill; they beat up their friends; that's all. Fist and blackthorn, my pretty lass, but nix for the knife and gun."

"How—did you do it?"

"Well, I got tired having a ham-fisted Dutchman pawing me and closing my mouth with his big splay fingers. So I asked him to slide overboard and shoved his friend after him."

"Did you shoot them?"

"No, I tell you!" he said disgustedly. "I hadn't a chance in hot blood, and I couldn't do it in cold. No, Scheherazade, I didn't shoot. I pulled a gun for dramatic effect, that's all."

After a silence she asked him in a low voice what he intended to do with her.

"Do? Nothing! Chat affably with you until we reach town, if you don't mind. Nothing more violent than that, Scheherazade."

The girl, sitting sideways on the sofa, leaned her head against the velvet corner as though very tired. Her small hands lay in her lap listlessly, palms up-turned.

"Are you really tired?" he asked.

"Yes, a little."

He took the two pillows from his bed and placed them on the sofa.

"You may lie down if you like, Scheherazade."

"Won't you need them?"

"Sunburst of my soul, if I pillow my head on anything while you are in the vicinity, it will be on that olive-wood box!"

For the first time the faintest trace of a smile touched her lips. She turned, settled the pillows to her liking, and stretched out her supple figure on the sofa with a slight sigh.

"Shall I talk to you, Scheherazade, or let you snuggle into the chaste arms of Morpheus?"

"I can't sleep."

"Is it a talk-fest, then?"

"I am listening."

"Then, were the two recent gentlemen who so rudely pounced upon me the same gentlemen who so cheerfully chased me in an automobile when you made red fire?"

"Yes."

"I was betting on it. Nice-looking man—the one with the classical map and the golden Frick."

She said nothing.

"Scheherazade," he continued with smiling malice, "do you realise that you are both ornamental and young? Why so young and murderous, fair houri? Why delight in manslaughter in any degree? Why cultivate assault and battery? Why swipe the property of others?"

She closed her eyes on the pillow, but, as he remained silent, presently opened them again.

"I asked them not to hurt you," she said irrelevantly.

"Who? Oh, your strenuous friends with the footpad technique? Well, they obeyed you unwillingly."

"Did they hurt you?"

"Oh, no. But the car-wheels might have."

"The car-wheels?"

"Yes. They were all for dumping me down the steps of the vestibule. But I've got a nasty disposition, Scheherazade, and I kicked and bit and screamed so lustily that I disgusted them and they simply left the train and concluded to cut my acquaintance."

It was evident that his good-humoured mockery perplexed her. Once or twice the shadow of a smile passed over her dark eyes, but they remained uncertain and watchful.

"You really were astonished to see me alive again, weren't you?" he asked.

"I was surprised to see you, of course."

"Alive?"

"I told you that I asked them not to really hurt you."

"Do you suppose I believe that, after your pistol practice on me?"

"It is true," she replied, her eyes resting on him.

"You wished to reserve me for more pistol practice?"

"I have no—enmity—for you."

"Oh, Scheherazade!" he protested, laughing.

"You are wrong, Mr. Neeland."

"After all I did to you?"

To his surprise a bright blush spread over her face where it lay framed by the pillows; she turned her head abruptly and lay without speaking.

He sat thinking for a few minutes, then leaning forward from where he sat on the bed's edge:

"After a man's been shot at and further intimidated with a large, unpleasantly rusty Kurdish dagger, he is likely to proceed without ceremony. All the same, I am sorry I had to humiliate you, Scheherazade."

She lay silent, unstirring.

"A girl would never forgive that, I know," he said. "So I shall look for a short shrift from you if your opportunity ever comes."

The girl appeared to be asleep. He stood up and looked down at her. The colour had faded from the one cheek visible. For a while he listened to her quiet breathing, then, the imp of perversity seizing him, and intensely diverted by the situation, he bent over her, touched her cheek with his lips, put on his hat, took box and suitcase, and went out to spend the remaining hour or two in the smoking room, leaving her to sleep in peace.

But no sooner had he closed the door on her than the girl sat straight up on the sofa, her face surging in colour, and her eyes brilliant with starting tears.

When the train arrived at the Grand Central Station, in the grey of a July morning, Neeland, finding the stateroom empty, lingered to watch for her among the departing passengers.

But he lingered in vain; and presently a taxicab took him and his box to the Cunard docks, and deposited him there. And an hour later he was in his cabin on board that vast ensemble of machinery and luxury, the Cunarder Volhynia, outward bound, and headed straight at the dazzling disc of the rising sun.

And thought of Scheherazade faded from his mind as a tale that is told.



CHAPTER XVII

A WHITE SKIRT

It was in mid-ocean that Neeland finally came to the conclusion that nobody on board the Volhynia was likely to bother him or his box.

The July weather had been magnificent—blue skies, a gentle wind, and a sea scarcely silvered by a comber.

Assorted denizens of the Atlantic took part in the traditional vaudeville performance for the benefit of the Volhynia passengers; gulls followed the wake to mid-ocean; Mother Carey's chickens skimmed the baby billows; dolphins turned watery flip-flaps under the bows; and even a distant whale consented to oblige.

Everybody pervaded the decks morning, noon, and evening; the most squeamish recovered confidence in twenty-four hours; and every constitutional lubber concluded he was a born sailor.

Neeland really was one; no nausea born from the bad adjustment of that anatomical auricular gyroscope recently discovered in man ever disturbed his abdominal nerves. Short of shipwreck, he enjoyed any entertainment the Atlantic offered him.

So he was always on deck, tranquilly happy and with nothing in the world to disturb him except his responsibility for the olive-wood box.

He dared not leave it in his locked cabin; he dared not entrust it to anybody; he lugged it about with him wherever he went. On deck it stood beside his steamer chair; it dangled from his hand when he promenaded, exciting the amazement and curiosity of others; it reposed on the floor under the table and beneath his attentive feet when he was at meals.

These elaborate precautions indicated his wholesome respect for the persistence of Scheherazade and her friends; he was forever scanning his fellow-voyagers at table, in the smoking room, and as they strolled to and fro in front of his steamer chair, trying to make up his mind concerning them.

But Neeland, a clever observer of externals, was no reader of character. The passenger list never seemed to confirm any conclusions he arrived at concerning any of the passengers on the Volhynia. A gentleman he mistook for an overfed broker turned out to be a popular clergyman with outdoor proclivities; a slim, poetic-looking youth who carried a copy of "Words and Wind" about the deck travelled for the Gold Leaf Lard Company.

Taking them all in all, Neeland concluded that they were as harmless a collection of reconcentrados as he had ever observed; and he was strongly tempted to leave the box in his locked stateroom.

He decided to do so one afternoon after luncheon, and, lugging his box, started to return to his stateroom with that intention, instead of going on deck, as usual, for a postprandial cigarette.

There was nobody in the main corridor as he passed, but in the short, carpeted passage leading to his stateroom he caught a glimpse of a white serge skirt vanishing into the stateroom opposite to his, and heard the door close and the noise of a key turned quickly.

His steward, being questioned on the first day out, had told him that this stateroom was occupied by an invalid gentleman travelling alone, who preferred to remain there instead of trusting to his crutches on a temperamental deck.

Neeland, passing the closed and curtained door, wondered whether the invalid had made a hit, or whether he had a relative aboard who wore a white serge skirt, white stockings and shoes, and was further endowed with agreeable ankles.

He fitted his key to his door, turned it, withdrew the key to pocket it; and immediately became aware that the end of the key was sticky.

He entered the stateroom, however, and bolted the door, then he sat down on his sofa and examined his fingers and his door key attentively. There was wax sticking to both.

When he had fully digested this fact he wiped and pocketed his key and cast a rather vacant look around the little stateroom. And immediately his eye was arrested by a white object lying on the carpet between the bed and the sofa—a woman's handkerchief, without crest or initials, but faintly scented.

After he became tired of alternately examining it and sniffing it, he put it in his pocket and began an uneasy tour of his room.

If it had been entered and ransacked, everything had been replaced exactly as he had left it, as well as he could remember. Nothing excepting this handkerchief and the wax on the key indicated intrusion; nothing, apparently, had been disturbed; and yet there was the handkerchief; and there was the wax on the end of his door key.

"Here's a fine business!" he muttered to himself; and rang for his steward.

The man came—a cockney, dense as his native fog—who maintained that nobody could have entered the stateroom without his knowledge or the knowledge of the stewardess.

"Do you think she's been in my cabin?"

"No, sir."

"Call her."

The stewardess, an alert, intelligent little woman with a trace of West Indian blood in her, denied entering his stateroom. Shown the handkerchief and invited to sniff it, she professed utter ignorance concerning it, assured him that no lady in her section used that perfume, and offered to show it to the stewardesses of other sections on the chance of their identifying the perfume or the handkerchief.

"All right," said Neeland; "take it. But bring it back. And here's a sovereign. And—one thing more. If anybody pays you to deceive me, come to me and I'll outbid them. Is that a bargain?"

"Yes, sir," she said unblushingly.

When she had gone away with the handkerchief, Neeland closed the door again and said to the steward:

"Keep an eye on my door. I am positive that somebody has taken a wax impression of the keyhole. What I said to that stewardess also holds good with you. I'll outbid anybody who bribes you."

"Very good, sir."

"Sure it's good! It's devilish good. Here's a beautiful and newly minted gold sovereign. Isn't it artistic? It's yours, steward."

"Thanky, sir."

"Not at all. And, by the way, what's that invalid gentleman's name?"

"'Awks, sir."

"Hawks?"

"Yes, sir; Mr. 'Erbert 'Awks."

"American?"

"I don't know, sir."

"British?"

"Shall I inquire, sir?" starting to go.

"Not of him! Don't be a lunatic, steward! Please try to understand that I want nothing said about this matter or about my inquiries."

"Yes, sir."

"Very well, then! Find out, if you can, who Mr. Herbert Hawks is. Find out all you can concerning him. It's easy money, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, sir——"

"Wait a moment. Has he any friends or relatives on board?"

"Not that I know, sir."

"Oh, no friends, eh? No ladies who wear white serge skirts and white shoes and stockings?"

"No, sir, not as I knows of."

"Oh! Suppose you step across to his door, knock, and ask him if he rang. And, if the door is opened, take a quick slant at the room."

"Very good, sir."

Neeland, his door at the crack, watched the steward cross the corridor and knock at the door of Mr. Herbert Hawks.

"Well, what iss it?" came a heavy voice from within.

"Mr. 'Awks, sir, did you ring?"

"No, I did not."

"Oh, beg pardon, sir——"

The steward was starting to return to Neeland, but that young man motioned him violently away from his door and closed it. Then, listening, his ear against the panel, he presently heard a door in the passage creak open a little way, then close again, stealthily.

He possessed his soul in patience, believing that Mr. Hawks or his fair friend in the white skirt had merely taken a preliminary survey of the passage and perhaps also of his closed door. But the vigil was vain; the door did not reopen; no sound came from the stateroom across the passageway.

To make certain that the owner of the white shoes and stockings did not leave that stateroom without his knowledge, he opened his door with many precautions and left it on the crack, stretching a rubber band from knob to bolt, so that the wind from the open port in the passage should not blow it shut. Then, drawing his curtain, he sat down to wait.

He had a book, one of those slobbering American novels which serve up falsehood thickly buttered with righteousness and are consumed by the morally sterilised.

And, as he smoked he read; and, as he read he listened. One eye always remained on duty; one ear was alert; he meant to see who was the owner of the white shoes if it took the remainder of the voyage to find out.

The book aided him as a commonplace accompaniment aids a soloist—alternately boring and exasperating him.

It was an "uplift" book, where the heroine receives whacks with patient smiles. Fate boots her from pillar to post and she blesses Fate and is much obliged. That most deadly reproach to degenerate human nature—the accidental fact of sex—had been so skilfully extirpated from those pages that, like chaste amoebae, the characters merely multiplied by immaculate subdivision; and millions of lineal descendants of the American Dodo were made gleeful for $1.50 net.

It was hard work waiting, harder work reading, but between the two and a cigarette now and then Neeland managed to do his sentry go until dinner time approached and the corridors resounded with the trample of the hungry.

The stewardess reappeared a little later and returned to him his handkerchief and the following information:

Mr. Hawks, it appeared, travelled with a trained nurse, whose stateroom was on another deck. That nurse was not in her stateroom, but a similar handkerchief was, scented with similar perfume.

"You're a wonder," said Neeland, placing some more sovereigns in her palm and closing her fingers over them. "What is the nurse's name?"

"Miss White."

"Very suitable name. Has she ever before visited Herr—I mean Mr.—Hawks in his stateroom?"

"Her stewardess says she has been indisposed since we left New York."

"Hasn't been out of her cabin?"

"No."

"I see. Did you inquire what she looked like?"

"Her stewardess couldn't be certain. The stateroom was kept dark and the tray containing her meals was left at the bedside. Miss White smokes."

"Yes," said Neeland reflectively, "she smokes Red Light cigarettes, I believe. Thank you, very much. More sovereigns if you are discreet. And say to my steward that I'll dine in my stateroom. Soup, fish, meat, any old thing you can think of. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

When she had withdrawn he kneeled down on his sofa and looked out through the port at the sunset sea.

There was a possibility that Scheherazade and her friends might be on board the Volhynia. Who else would be likely to take wax impressions of his keyhole and leave a scented scrap of a handkerchief on his stateroom floor?

That they had kept themselves not only out of sight but off the passenger list merely corroborated suspicion. That's what they'd be likely to do.

And now there was no question in his mind of leaving the box in his cabin. He'd cling to it like a good woman to alimony. Death alone could separate his box from him.

As he knelt there, sniffing the salt perfume of the sea, his ears on duty detected the sound of a tray in the corridor.

"Leave it on the camp-table outside my door!" he said over his shoulder.

"Very good, sir."

He was not hungry; he was thinking too hard.

"Confound it," he thought to himself, "am I to squat here in ambush for the rest of the trip?"

The prospect was not agreeable for a man who loved the sea. All day and most of the starry night the hurricane deck called to him, and his whole anatomy responded. And now to sit hunched up here like a rat in the hold was not to his taste. Suppose he should continue to frequent the deck, carrying with him his box, of course. He might never discover who owned the white serge skirt or who owned the voice which pronounced is as "iss."

Meanwhile, it occurred to him that for a quarter of an hour or more his dinner outside his door had been growing colder and colder. So he slid from the sofa, unstrapped the rubber band, opened the door, lifted table and tray into his stateroom with a sharp glance at the opposite door, and, readjusting the rubber band, composed himself to eat.



CHAPTER XVIII

BY RADIO

Perhaps it was because he did not feel particularly hungry that his dinner appeared unappetising; possibly because it had been standing in the corridor outside his door for twenty minutes, which did not add to its desirability.

The sun had set and the air in the room had grown cold. He felt chilly; and, when he uncovered the silver tureen and discovered that the soup was still piping hot, he drank some of it to warm himself.

He had swallowed about half a cupful before he discovered that the seasoning was not agreeable to his palate. In fact, the flavour of the hot broth was so decidedly unpleasant that he pushed aside the cup and sat down on the edge of his bunk without any further desire to eat anything.

A glass of water from the carafe did not seem to rid him of the subtle, disagreeable taste lingering in his mouth—in fact, the water itself seemed to be tainted with it.

He sat for a few moments fumbling for his cigarette case, feeling curiously uncomfortable, as though the slight motion of the ship were affecting his head.

As he sat there looking at the unlighted cigarette in his hand, it fell to the carpet at his feet. He started to stoop for it, caught himself in time, pulled himself erect with an effort.

Something was wrong with him—very wrong. Every uneven breath he drew seemed to fill his lungs with the odour of that strange and volatile flavour he had noticed. It was beginning to make him giddy; it seemed to affect his vision, too.

Suddenly a terrible comprehension flashed through his confused mind, clearing it for a moment.

He tried to stand up and reach the electric bell; his knees seem incapable of sustaining him. Sliding to the floor, he attempted to crawl toward the olive-wood box; managed to get one arm around it, grip the handle. Then, with a last desperate effort, he groped in his breast pocket for the automatic pistol, freed it, tried to fire it. But the weapon and the unnerved hand that held it fell on the carpet. A muscular paralysis set in like the terrible rigidity of death; he could still see and hear as in a thickening dream.

A moment later, from the corridor, a slim hand was inserted between the door and jamb; the supple fingers became busy with the rubber band for a moment, released it. The door opened very slowly.

For a few seconds two dark eyes were visible between door and curtain, regarding intently the figure lying prone upon the floor. Then the curtain was twitched noiselessly aside; a young woman in the garb of a trained nurse stepped swiftly into the stateroom on tip-toe, followed by a big, good-looking, blue-eyed man wearing a square golden beard.

The man, who carried with him a pair of crutches, but who did not appear to require their aid, hastily set the dinner-tray and camp-table outside in the corridor, then closed and bolted the door.

Already the nurse was down on her knees beside the fallen man, trying to loosen his grasp on the box. Then her face blanched.

"It's like the rigor of death itself," she whispered fearfully over her shoulder. "Could I have given him enough to kill him?"

"He took only half a cup and a swallow of water. No."

"I can't get his hand free——"

"Wait! I try!" He pulled a big, horn-handled clasp-knife from his pocket and deliberately opened the eight-inch blade.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, seizing his wrist. "Don't do that!"

The man with the golden beard hesitated, then shrugged, pocketed his knife, and seized Neeland's rigidly clenched hand.

"You are right. It makes too much muss!" tugging savagely at the clenched and unconscious hand. "Sacreminton! What for a death-grip is this Kerls? If I cut his hand off so iss there blood and gossip right away already. No—too much muss. Wait! I try another way——"

Neeland groaned.

"Oh, don't! Don't!" faltered the girl. "You're breaking his wrist——"

"Ugh!" grunted her companion; "I try; I can it not accomplish. See once if the box opens!"

"It is locked."

"Search this pig-dog for the key!"

She began a hurried search of Neeland's clothing; presently discovered her own handkerchief; thrust it into her apron pocket, and continued rummaging while the bearded man turned his attention to the automatic pistol. This he finally succeeded in disengaging, and he laid it on the wash basin.

"Here are his keys," whispered the nurse feverishly, holding them up against the dim circle of evening sky framed by the open port. "You had better light the stateroom; I can't see. Hurry! I think he is beginning to recover."

When the bearded man had switched on the electric light he returned to kneel once more beside the inert body on the floor, and began to pull and haul and tug at the box and attempt to insert the key in the lock. But the stiffened clutch of the drugged man made it impossible either to release the box or get at the keyhole.

"Ach, was! Verfluechtete' schwein-hund——!" He seized the rigid hand and, exerting all the strength of a brutally inflamed fury, fairly ripped loose the fingers.

"Also!" he panted, seizing the stiffened body from the floor and lifting it. "Hold you him by the long and Yankee legs once, und I push him out——"

"Out of the port?"

"Gewiss! Otherwise he recovers to raise some hell!"

"It is not necessary. How shall this man know?"

"You left your handkerchief. He iss no fool. He makes a noise. No, it iss safer we push him overboard."

"I'll take the papers to Karl, and then I can remain in my stateroom——"

"No! Lift his legs, I tell you! You want I hold him in my arms all day while you talk, talk, talk! You take his legs right away quick——!"

He staggered a few paces forward with his unwieldy burden and, setting one knee on the sofa, attempted to force Neeland's head and shoulders through the open port. At the same moment a rapid knocking sounded outside the stateroom door.

"Quick!" breathed the nurse. "Throw him on his bed!"

The blue-eyed, golden-bearded man hesitated, then as the knocking sounded again, imperative, persistent, he staggered to the bed with his burden, laid it on the pillows, seized his crutches, rested on them, breathing heavily, and listening to the loud and rapid knocking outside the door.

"We've got to open," she whispered. "Don't forget that we found him unconscious in the corridor!" And she slid the bolt noiselessly, opened the stateroom door, and stepped outside the curtain into the corridor.

The cockney steward stood there with a messenger.

"Wireless for Mr. Neeland——" he began; but his speech failed and his jaw fell at sight of the nurse in her cap and uniform. And when, on his crutches, the bearded man emerged from behind the curtain, the steward's eyes fairly protruded.

"The young gentleman is ill," explained the nurse coolly. "Mr. Hawks heard him fall in the corridor and came out on his crutches to see what had happened. I chanced to be passing through the main corridor, fortunately. I am doing what I can for the young gentleman."

"Ow," said the steward, staring over her shoulder at the bearded man on crutches.

"There iss no need of calling the ship's doctor," said the man on crutches. "This young woman iss a hospital nurse und she iss so polite and obliging to volunteer her service for the poor young gentleman."

"Yes," she said carelessly, "I can remain here for an hour or two with him. He requires only a few simple remedies—I've already given him a sedative, and he is sleeping very nicely."

"Yess, yess; it iss not grave. Pooh! It is notting. He slip and knock his head. Maybe too much tchampagne. He sleep, and by and by he feel better. It iss not advisable to make a fuss. So! We are not longer needed, steward. I return to my room."

And, nodding pleasantly, the bearded man hobbled out on his crutches and entered his own stateroom across the passage.

"Steward," said the nurse pleasantly, "you may leave the wireless telegram with me. When Mr. Neeland wakes I'll read it to him——"

"Give that telegram to me!" burst out a ghostly voice from the curtained room behind her.

Every atom of colour left her face, and she stood there as though stiffened into marble. The steward stared at her. Still staring, he passed gingerly in front of her and entered the curtained room.

Neeland was lying on his bed as white as death; but his eyes fluttered open in a dazed way:

"Steward," he whispered.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Neeland."

"My—box." His eyes closed.

"Box, sir?"

"Where—is—it?"

"Which box, sir? Is it this one here on the floor?"—lifting the olive-wood box in its case. The key was in the lock; the other keys hung from it, dangling on a steel ring.

The nurse stepped calmly into the room.

"Steward," she said in her low, pleasant voice, "the sedative I gave him has probably confused his mind a little——"

"Put that box—under—my head," interrupted Neeland's voice like a groan.

"I tell you," whispered the nurse, "he doesn't know what he is saying."

"I got to obey him, ma'am——"

"I forbid you——"

"Steward!" gasped Neeland.

"Sir?"

"My box. I—want it."

"Certainly, sir——"

"Here, beside my—pillow."

"Yes, sir." He laid the box beside the sick man.

"Is it locked, steward?"

"Key sticking in it, sir. Yes, it's locked, sir."

"Open."

The nurse, calm, pale, tight-lipped, stood by the curtain looking at the bed over which the steward leaned, opening the box.

"'Ere you are, sir," he said, lifting the cover. "I say, nurse, give 'im a lift, won't you?"

The nurse coolly stepped to the bedside, stooped, raised the head and shoulders of the prostrate man. After a moment his eyes unclosed; he looked at the contents of the box with a perceptible effort.

"Lock it, steward. Place it beside me.... Next the wall.... So.... Place the keys in my pocket.... Thank you.... I had a—pistol."

"Sir?"

"A pistol. Where is it?"

The steward's roving glance fell finally upon the washbasin. He walked over, picked up the automatic, and, with an indescribable glance at the nurse, laid it across Neeland's up-turned palm.

The young man's fingers fumbled it, closed over the handle; and a ghost of a smile touched his ashen face.

"Do you feel better, sir?"

"I'm tired.... Yes, I feel—better."

"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Neeland?"

"Stay outside—my door."

"Do you wish the doctor, sir?"

"No.... No!... Don't call him; do you hear?"

"I won't call him, sir."

"No, don't call him."

"No, sir.... Mr. Neeland, there is a—a trained nurse here. You will not want her, will you, sir?"

Again the shadow of a smile crept over Neeland's face.

"Did she come for—her handkerchief?"

There was a silence; the steward looked steadily at the nurse; the nurse's dark eyes were fixed on the man lying there before her.

"You shan't be wanting her any more, shall you, sir?" repeated the steward, not shifting his gaze.

"Yes; I think I shall want her—for a little while."... Neeland slowly opened his eyes, smiled up at the motionless nurse: "How are you, Scheherazade?" he said weakly. And, to the steward, with an effort: "Miss White and I are—old friends.... However—kindly remain outside—my door.... And throw what remains of my dinner—out of—the port.... And be ready—at all times—to look after the—gentleman on crutches.... I'm—fond of him.... Thank you, steward."

* * * * *

Long after the steward had closed the stateroom door, Ilse Dumont stood beside Neeland's bed without stirring. Once or twice he opened his eyes and looked at her humorously. After a while he said:

"Please be seated, Scheherazade."

She calmly seated herself on the edge of his couch.

"Horrid soup," he murmured. "You should attend a cooking school, my dear."

She regarded him absently, as though other matters absorbed her.

"Yes," he repeated, "as a cook you're a failure, Scheherazade. That broth which you seasoned for me has done funny things to my eyes, too. But they're recovering. I see much better already. My vision is becoming sufficiently clear to observe how pretty you are in your nurse's cap and apron."

A slow colour came into her face and he saw her eyebrows bend inward as though she were annoyed.

"You are pretty, Scheherazade," he repeated. "You know you are, don't you? But you're a poor cook and a rotten shot. You can't be perfection, you know. Cheer up!"

She ignored the suggestion, her dark eyes brooding and remote again; and he lay watching her with placid interest in which no rancour remained. He was feeling decidedly better every minute now. He lifted the automatic pistol and shoved it under his pillow, then cautiously flexed his fingers, his arms, and finally his knees, with increasing pleasure and content.

"Such dreadful soup," he said. "But I'm a lot better, thank you. Was it to have been murder this time, too, Scheherazade? Would the entire cupful have made a pretty angel of me? Oh, fie! Naughty Scheherazade!"

She remained mute.

"Didn't you mean manslaughter with intent to exterminate?" he insisted, watching her.

Perhaps she was thinking of her blond and bearded companion, and the open port, for she made no reply.

"Why didn't you let him heave me out?" inquired Neeland. "Why did you object?"

At that she reddened to the roots of her hair, understanding that what she feared had been true—that Neeland, while physically helpless, had retained sufficient consciousness to be aware of what was happening to him and to understand at least a part of the conversation.

"What was the stuff with which you flavoured that soup, Scheherazade?"

He was merely baiting her; he did not expect any reply; but, to his surprise, she answered him:

"Threlanium—Speyer's solution is what I used," she said with a sort of listless effrontery.

"Don't know it. Don't like it, either. Prefer other condiments."

He lifted himself on one elbow, remained propped so, tore open his wireless telegram, and, after a while, contrived to read it:

* * * * *

"James Neeland, "S. S. Volhynia.

"Spies aboard. Be careful. If trouble threatens captain has instructions British Government to protect you and order arrests on your complaint.

"Naia."

* * * * *

With a smile that was almost a grin, Neeland handed the telegram to Ilse Dumont.

"Scheherazade," he said, "you'll be a good little girl, now, won't you? Because it would be a shocking thing for you and your friend across the way to land in England wearing funny bangles on your wrists and keeping step with each other, wouldn't it?"

She continued to hold the slip of paper and stare at it long after she had finished reading it and the words became a series of parallel blurs.

"Scheherazade," he said lightly, "what on earth am I going to do with you?"

"I suppose you will lodge a charge with the captain against me," she replied in even tones.

"Why not? You deserve it, don't you? You and your humorous friend with the yellow beard?"

She looked at him with a vague smile.

"What can you prove?" said she.

"Perfectly true, dear child. Nothing. I don't want to prove anything, either."

She smiled incredulously.

"It's quite true, Scheherazade. Otherwise, I shouldn't have ordered my steward to throw the remains of my dinner out of the corridor porthole. No, dear child. I should have had it analysed, had your stateroom searched for more of that elusive seasoning you used to flavour my dinner; had a further search made for a certain sort of handkerchief and perfume. Also, just imagine the delightful evidence which a thorough search of your papers might reveal!" He laughed. "No, Scheherazade; I did not care to prove you anything resembling a menace to society. Because, in the first place, I am absurdly grateful to you."

Her face became expressionless under the slow flush mounting.

"I'm not teasing you," he insisted. "What I say is true. I'm grateful to you for violently injecting romance into my perfectly commonplace existence. You have taken the book of my life and not only extra illustrated it with vivid and chromatic pictures, but you have unbound it, sewed into its prosaic pages several chapters ripped bodily from a penny-dreadful, and you have then rebound the whole thing and pasted your own pretty picture on the cover! Come, now! Ought not a man to be grateful to any philanthropic girl who so gratuitously obliges him?"

Her face burned under his ridicule; her clasped hands in her lap were twisted tight as though to maintain her self-control.

"What do you want of me?" she asked between lips that scarcely moved.

He laughed, sat up, stretched out both arms with a sigh of satisfaction. The colour came back to his face; he dropped one leg over the bed's edge; and she stood erect and stepped aside for him to rise.

No dizziness remained; he tried both feet on the floor, straightened himself, cast a gaily malicious glance at her, and slowly rose to his feet.

"Scheherazade," he said, "isn't it funny? I ask you, did you ever hear of a would-be murderess and her escaped victim being on such cordial terms? Did you?"

He was going through a few calisthenics, gingerly but with increasing abandon, while he spoke.

"I feel fine, thank you. I am enjoying the situation extremely, too. It's a delightful paradox, this situation. It's absurd, it's enchanting, it's incredible! There is only one more thing that could make it perfectly impossible. And I'm going to do it!" And he deliberately encircled her waist and kissed her.

She turned white at that, and, as he released her, laughing, took a step or two blindly, toward the door; stood there with one hand against it as though supporting herself.

After a few moments, and very slowly, she turned and looked at him; and that young man was scared for the first time since their encounter in the locked house in Brookhollow.

Yet in her face there was no anger, no menace, nothing he had ever before seen in any woman's face, nothing that he now comprehended. Only, for the moment, it seemed to him that something terrible was gazing at him out of this girl's fixed eyes—something that he did not recognise as part of her—another being hidden within her, staring out through her eyes at him.

"For heaven's sake, Scheherazade——" he faltered.

She opened the door, still watching him over her shoulder, shrank through it, and was gone.

He stood for a full five minutes as though stupefied, then walked to the door and flung it open. And met a ship's officer face to face, already lifting his hand to knock for admittance.

"Mr. Neeland?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Captain West's compliments, and he would be glad to see you in his cabin."

"Thank you. My compliments and thanks to Captain West, and I shall call on him immediately."

They exchanged bows; the officer turned, hesitated, glanced at the steward who stood by the port.

"Did you bring a radio message to Mr. Neeland?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, I received the message," said Neeland.

"The captain requests you to bring the message with you."

"With pleasure," said Neeland.

So the officer went away down the corridor, and Neeland sat down on his bed, opened the box, went over carefully every item of its contents, relocked it with a grin of satisfaction, and, taking it with him, went off to pay a visit to the captain of the Volhynia.

The bearded gentleman in the stateroom across the passage had been listening intently to the conversation, with his ear flat against his keyhole.

And now, without hesitating, he went to a satchel which stood on the sofa in his stateroom, opened it, took from it a large bundle of papers and a ten-pound iron scale-weight.

Attaching the weight to the papers by means of a heavy strand of copper wire, he mounted the sofa and hurled the weighted package into the Atlantic Ocean.

"Pig-dogs of British," he muttered in his golden beard, "you may go and dive for them when The Day dawns."

Then he filled and lighted a handsome porcelain pipe, and puffed it with stolid satisfaction, leaving the pepper-box silver cover open.

"Der Tag," he muttered in his golden beard; and his clear eyes swept the starlit ocean with the pensive and terrifying scrutiny of a waiting eagle.



CHAPTER XIX

THE CAPTAIN OF THE VOLHYNIA

The captain of the Volhynia had just come from the bridge and was taking a bite of late supper in his cabin when the orderly announced Neeland. He rose at once, offering a friendly hand:

"Mr. Neeland, I am very glad to see you. I know you by name and reputation already. There were some excellent pictures by you in the latest number of the Midweek Magazine."

"I'm so glad you liked them, Captain West."

"Yes, I did. There was a breeze in them—a gaiety. And such a fetching girl you drew for your heroine!"

"You think so! It's rather interesting. I met a young girl once—she comes from up-state where I come from. There was a peculiar and rather subtle attraction about her face. So I altered the features of the study I was making from my model, and put in hers as I remembered them."

"She must be beautiful, Mr. Neeland."

"It hadn't struck me so until I drew her from memory. And there's more to the story. I never met her but twice in my life—the second time under exceedingly dramatic circumstances. And now I'm crossing the Atlantic at a day's notice to oblige her. It's an amusing story, isn't it?"

"Mr. Neeland, I think it is going to be what you call a 'continued' story."

"No. Oh, no. It ought to be, considering its elements. But it isn't. There's no further romance in it, Captain West."

The captain's smile was pleasant but sceptical.

They seated themselves, Neeland declining an invitation to supper, and the captain asking his indulgence if he talked while eating.

"Mr. Neeland," he said, "I'm about to talk rather frankly with you. I have had several messages by wireless today from British sources, concerning you."

Neeland, surprised, said nothing. Captain West finished his bite of supper; the steward removed the dishes and went out, closing the door. The captain glanced at the box which Neeland had set on the floor by his chair.

"May I ask," he said, "why you brought your suitcase with you?"

"It's valuable."

The captain's keen eyes were on his.

"Why are you followed by spies?" he asked.

Neeland reddened.

"Yes," continued the captain of the Volhynia, "my Government instructs me, by wireless, to offer you any aid and protection you may desire. I am informed that you carry papers of military importance to a certain foreign nation with which neither England nor France are on what might be called cordial terms. I am told it is likely that agents of this foreign country have followed you aboard my ship for the purpose of robbing you of these papers. Now, Mr. Neeland, what do you know about this business?"

"Very little," said Neeland.

"Have you had any trouble?"

"Oh, yes."

The captain smiled:

"Evidently you have wriggled out of it," he said.

"Yes, wriggled is the literal word."

"Then you do not think that you require any protection from me?"

"Perhaps I do. I've been a singularly innocent and lucky ass. It's merely chance that my papers have not been stolen, even before I started in quest of them."

"Have you been troubled aboard my ship?"

Neeland waved his hand carelessly:

"Nothing to speak of, thank you."

"If you have any charge to make——"

"Oh, no."

The captain regarded him intently:

"Let me tell you something," he said. "Since we sailed, have you noticed the bulletins posted containing our wireless news?"

"Yes, I've read them."

"Did they interest you?"

"Yes. You mean that row between Austria and Servia over the Archduke's murder?"

"I mean exactly that, Mr. Neeland. And now I am going to tell you something else. Tonight I had a radio message which I shall not post on the bulletins for various reasons. But I shall tell you under the seal of confidence."

"I give you my word of honour," said Neeland quietly.

"I accept it, Mr. Neeland. And this is what has happened: Austria has decided on an ultimatum to Servia. And probably will send it."

They remained silent for a moment, then the captain continued:

"Why should we deceive ourselves? This is the most serious thing that has happened since the Hohenzollern incident which brought on the Franco-Prussian War."

Neeland nodded.

"You see?" insisted the captain. "Suppose the humiliation is too severe for Servia to endure? Suppose she refuses the Austrian terms? Suppose Austria mobilises against her? What remains for Russia to do except to mobilise? And, if Russia does that, what is going to happen in Germany? And then, instantly and automatically, what will follow in France?" His mouth tightened grimly. "England," he said, "is the ally of France. Ask yourself, Mr. Neeland, what are the prospects of this deadly combination and deadlier situation."

After a few moments the young man looked up from his brown study:

"I'd like to ask you a question—perhaps not germane to the subject. May I?"

"Ask it."

"Then, of what interest are Turkish forts to any of the various allied nations—to the Triple Entente or the Triple Alliance?"

"Turkish fortifications?"

"Yes—plans for them."

The captain glanced instinctively at the box beside Neeland's chair, but his features remained incurious.

"Turkey is supposed to be the ally of Germany," he said.

"I've heard so. I know that the Turkish army is under German officers. But—if war should happen, is it likely that this ramshackle nation which was fought to a standstill by the Balkan Alliance only a few months ago would be likely to take active sides?"

"Mr. Neeland, it is not only likely, it is absolutely certain."

"You believe Germany would count on her?"

"There is not a doubt of it. Enver Pasha holds the country in his right hand; Enver Pasha is the Kaiser's jackal."

"But Turkey is a beaten, discredited nation. She has no modern guns. Her fleet is rusting in the Bosporus."

"The Dardanelles bristle with Krupp cannon, Mr. Neeland, manned by German gunners. Von der Goltz Pasha has made of a brave people a splendid army. As for ships, the ironclads and gunboats off Seraglio Point are rusting at anchor, as you say; but there are today enough German and Austrian armored ships within running distance of the Dardanelles to make for Turkey a powerful defensive squadron. Didn't you know any of these facts?"

"No."

"Well, they are facts.... You see, Mr. Neeland, we English sailors of the merchant marine are also part of the naval reserve. And we are supposed to know these things."

Neeland was silent.

"Mr. Neeland," he said, "in case of war between the various powers of Europe as aligned today, where do you imagine your sympathy would lie—and the sympathies of America?"

"Both with France and England," said Neeland bluntly.

"You think so?"

"Yes, I do—unless they are the aggressors."

The captain nodded:

"I feel rather that way myself. I feel very sure of the friendliness of your country. Because of course we—France and England—never would dream of attacking the Central Powers unless first assailed." He smiled, nodded toward the box on the floor: "Don't you think, Mr. Neeland, that it might be safer to entrust those—that box, I mean—to the captain of the Royal Mail steamer, Volhynia?"

"Yes, I do," said Neeland quietly.

"And—about these spies. Do you happen to entertain any particular suspicions concerning any of the passengers on my ship?" urged the captain.

"Indeed, I entertain lively suspicions, and even a few certainties," replied the young fellow, laughing.

"You appear to enjoy the affair?"

"I do. I've never had such a good time. I'm not going to spoil it by suggesting that you lock up anybody, either."

"I'm sorry you feel that way," said the captain seriously.

"But I do. They're friends of mine. They've given me the time of my life. A dirty trick I'd be serving myself as well as them if I came to you and preferred charges against them!"

The captain inspected him curiously for a few moments, then, in a soft voice:

"By any chance, Mr. Neeland, have you any Irish blood in your veins?"

"Yes, thank God!" returned the young fellow, unable to control his laughter. "And I'll bet there isn't a drop in you, Captain West."

"Not a drop, thank G—I'm sorry!—I ask your pardon, Mr. Neeland!" added the captain, very red in the face.

But Neeland laughed so hard that, after a moment, the red died out in the captain's face and a faint grin came into it.

So they shook hands and said good night; and Neeland went away, leaving his box on the floor of the captain's cabin as certain of its inviolability as he was of the Bank of England.



CHAPTER XX

THE DROP OF IRISH

The usual signs of land greeted Neeland when he rose early next morning and went out on deck for the first time without his olive-wood box—first a few gulls, then puffins, terns, and other sea fowl in increasing numbers, weed floating, fishing smacks, trawlers tossing on the rougher coast waters.

After breakfast he noticed two British torpedo boat destroyers, one to starboard, the other on the port bow, apparently keeping pace with the Volhynia. They were still there at noon, subjects of speculation among the passengers; and at tea-time their number was increased to five, the three new destroyers appearing suddenly out of nowhere, dead ahead, dashing forward through a lively sea under a swirling vortex of gulls.

The curiosity of the passengers, always easily aroused, became more thoroughly stirred up by the bulletins posted late that afternoon, indicating that the tension between the several European chancelleries was becoming acute, and that emperors and kings were exchanging personal telegrams.

There was all sorts of talk on deck and at the dinner table, wild talk, speculative talk, imaginative discussions, logical and illogical. But, boiled down to its basic ingredients, the wildest imagination on board the Volhynia admitted war to be an impossibility of modern times, and that, ultimately, diplomacy would settle what certainly appeared to be the ugliest international situation in a hundred years.

At the bottom of his heart Neeland believed this, too; wished for it when his higher and more educated spiritual self was flatly interrogated; and yet, in the everyday, impulsive ego of James Neeland, the drop of Irish had begun to sing and seethe with the atavistic instinct for a row.

War? He didn't know what it meant, of course. It made good poetry and interesting fiction; it rendered history amusing; made dry facts succulent.

Preparations for war in Europe, which had been going on for fifty years, were most valuable, too, in contributing the brilliant hues of uniforms to an otherwise sombre civilian world, and investing commonplace and sober cities with the omnipresent looming mystery of fortifications.

To a painter, war seemed to be a dramatic and gorgeous affair; to a young man it appealed as all excitement appeals. The sportsman in him desired to witness a scrap; his artist's imagination was aroused; the gambler in him speculated as to the outcome of such a war. And the seething, surging drop of Irish fizzed and purred and coaxed for a chance to edge sideways into any fight which God in His mercy might provide for a decent gossoon who had never yet had the pleasure of a broken head.

"Not," thought Neeland to himself, "that I'll go trailing my coat tails. I'll go about my own business, of course—but somebody may hit me a crack at that!"

He thought of Ilse Dumont and of the man with the golden beard, realising that he had had a wonderful time, after all; sorry in his heart that it was all over and that the Volhynia was due to let go her mudhooks in the Mersey about three o'clock the next morning.

As he leaned on the deck rail in the soft July darkness, he could see the lights of the destroyers to port and starboard, see strings of jewel-like signals flash, twinkle, fade, and flash again.

All around him along the deck passengers were promenading, girls in evening gowns or in summer white; men in evening dress or reefed in blue as nautically as possible; old ladies toddling, swathed in veils, old gentlemen in dinner coats and sporting headgear—every weird or conventional combination infested the decks of the Volhynia.

Now, for the first time during the voyage, Neeland felt free to lounge about where he listed, saunter wherever the whim of the moment directed his casual steps. The safety of the olive-wood box was no longer on his mind, the handle no longer in his physical clutch. He was at liberty to stroll as carelessly as any boulevard flaneur; and he did so, scanning the passing throng for a glimpse of Ilse Dumont or of the golden-bearded one, but not seeing either of them.

In fact, he had not laid eyes on them since he had supped not wisely but too well on the soup that Scheherazade had flavoured for him.

The stateroom door of the golden-bearded man had remained closed. His own little cockney steward, who also looked out for Golden Beard, reported that gentleman as requiring five meals a day, with beer in proportion, and the porcelain pipe steaming like AEtna all day long.

His little West Indian stewardess also reported the gossip from her friend on another corridor, which was, in effect, that Miss White, the trained nurse, took all meals in her room and had not been observed to leave that somewhat monotonous sanctuary.

How many more of the band there might be Neeland did not know. He remembered vaguely, while lying rigid under the grip of the drug, that he had heard Ilse Dumont's voice mention somebody called Karl. And he had an idea that this Karl might easily be the big, ham-fisted German who had tried so earnestly to stifle him and throw him from the vestibule of the midnight express.

However, it did not matter now. The box was safe in the captain's care; the Volhynia would be lying at anchor off Liverpool before daylight; the whole exciting and romantic business was ended.

With an unconscious sigh, not entirely of relief, Neeland opened his cigarette case, found it empty, turned and went slowly below with the idea of refilling it.

They were dancing somewhere on deck; the music of the ship's orchestra came to his ears. He paused a moment on the next deck to lean on the rail in the darkness and listen.

Far beneath him, through a sea as black as onyx, swept the reflections of the lighted ports; and he could hear the faint hiss of foam from the curling flow below.

As he turned to resume his quest for cigarettes, he was startled to see directly in front of him the heavy figure of a man—so close to him, in fact, that Neeland instinctively threw up his arm, elbow out, to avoid contact.

But the man, halting, merely lifted his hat, saying that in the dim light he had mistaken Neeland for a friend; and they passed each other on the almost deserted deck, saluting formally in the European fashion, with lifted hats.

His spirits a trifle subdued, but still tingling with the shock of discovering a stranger so close behind him where he had stood leaning over the ship's rail, Neeland continued on his way below.

Probably the big man had made a mistake in good faith; but the man certainly had approached very silently; was almost at his very elbow when discovered. And Neeland remembered the light-shot depths over which, at that moment, he had been leaning; and he realised that it would have been very easy for a man as big as that to have flung him overboard before he had wit to realise what had been done to him.

Neither could he forget the curious gleam in the stranger's eyes when a ray from a deck light fell across his shadowy face—unusually small eyes set a little too close together to inspire confidence. Nor had the man's slight accent escaped him—not a Teutonic accent, he thought, but something fuller and softer—something that originated east of Scutari, suggesting the Eurasian, perhaps.

But Neeland's soberness was of volatile quality; before he arrived at his stateroom he had recovered his gaiety of spirit. He glanced ironically at the closed door of Golden Beard as he fitted his key into his own door.

"A lively lot," he thought to himself, "what with Scheherazade, Golden Beard, and now Ali Baba—by jinx!—he certainly did have an Oriental voice!—and he looked the part, too, with a beak for a nose and a black moustache a la Enver Pasha!"

Much diverted by his own waxing imagination, he turned on the light in his stateroom, filled the cigarette case, turned to go out, and saw on the carpet just inside his door a bit of white paper folded cocked-hat fashion and addressed to him.

Picking it up and unfolding it, he read:

* * * * *

May I see you this evening at eleven? My stateroom is 623. If there is anybody in the corridor, knock; if not, come in without knocking.

I mean no harm to you. I give my word of honour. Please accept it for as much as your personal courage makes it worth to you—its face value, or nothing.

Knowing you, I may say without flattery that I expect you. If I am disappointed, I still must bear witness to your courage and to a generosity not characteristic of your sex.

You have had both power and provocation to make my voyage on this ship embarrassing. You have not done so. And self-restraint in a man is a very deadly weapon to use on a woman.

I hope you will come. I desire to be generous on my part. Ask yourself whether you are able to believe this. You don't know women, Mr. Neeland. Your conclusion probably will be a wrong one.

But I think you'll come, all the same. And you will be right in coming, whatever you believe.

Ilse Dumont.

* * * * *

It was a foregone conclusion that he would go. He knew it before he had read half the note. And when he finished it he was certain.

Amused, his curiosity excited, grateful that the adventure had not yet entirely ended, he lighted a cigarette and looked impatiently at his watch.

It lacked half an hour of the appointed time and his exhilaration was steadily increasing.

He stuck the note into the frame of his mirror over the washstand with a vague idea that if anything happened to him this would furnish a clue to his whereabouts.

Then he thought of the steward, but, although he had no reason to believe the girl who had written him, something within him made him ashamed to notify the steward as to where he was going. He ought to have done it; common prudence born of experience with Ilse Dumont suggested it. And yet he could not bring himself to do it; and exactly why, he did not understand.

One thing, however, he could do; and he did. He wrote a note to Captain West giving the Paris address of the Princess Mistchenka, and asked that the olive-wood box be delivered to her in case any accident befell him. This note he dropped into the mailbox at the end of the main corridor as he went out. A few minutes later he stood in an empty passageway outside a door numbered 623. He had a loaded automatic in his breast pocket, a cigarette between his fingers, and, on his agreeable features, a smile of anticipation—a smile in which amusement, incredulity, reckless humour, and a spice of malice were blended—the smile born of the drop of Irish sparkling like champagne in his singing veins.

And he turned the knob of door No. 623 and went in.

She was reading, curled up on her sofa under the electric bulb, a cigarette in one hand, a box of bonbons beside her.

She looked up leisurely as he entered, gave him a friendly nod, and, when he held out his hand, placed her own in it. With delighted gravity he bent and saluted her finger tips with lips that twitched to control a smile.

"Will you be seated, please?" she said gently.

The softness of her agreeable voice struck him as he looked around for a seat, then directly at her; and saw that she meant him to find a seat on the lounge beside her.

"Now, indeed you are Scheherazade of the Thousand and One Nights," he said gaily, "with your cigarette and your bonbons, and cross-legged on your divan——"

"Did Scheherazade smoke cigarettes, Mr. Neeland?"

"No," he admitted; "that is an anachronism, I suppose. Tell me, how are you, dear lady?"

"Thank you, quite well."

"And—busy?" His lips struggled again to maintain their gravity.

"Yes, I have been busy."

"Cooking something up?—I mean soup, of course," he added.

She forced a smile, but reddened as though it were difficult for her to accustom herself to his half jesting sarcasms.

"So you've been busy," he resumed tormentingly, "but not with cooking lessons! Perhaps you've been practising with your pretty little pistol. You know you really need a bit of small arms practice, Scheherazade."

"Because I once missed you?" she inquired serenely.

"Why so you did, didn't you?" he exclaimed, delighted to goad her into replying.

"Yes," she said, "I missed you. I needn't have. I am really a dead shot, Mr. Neeland."

"Oh, Scheherazade!" he protested.

She shrugged:

"I am not bragging; I could have killed you. I supposed it was necessary only to frighten you. It was my mistake and a bad one."

"My dear child," he expostulated, "you meant murder and you know it. Do you suppose I believe that you know how to shoot?"

"But I do, Mr. Neeland," she returned with good-humoured indifference. "My father was head jaeger to Count Geier von Sturmspitz, and I was already a dead shot with a rifle when we emigrated to Canada. And when he became an Athabasca trader, and I was only twelve years old, I could set a moose-hide shoe-lace swinging and cut it in two with a revolver at thirty yards. And I can drive a shingle nail at that distance and drive the bullet that drove it, and the next and the next, until my revolver is empty. You don't believe me, do you?"

"You know that the beautiful Scheherazade——"

"Was famous for her fantastic stories? Yes, I know that, Mr. Neeland. I'm sorry you don't believe I fired only to frighten you."

"I'm sorry I don't," he admitted, laughing, "but I'll practise trying, and maybe I shall attain perfect credulity some day. Tell me," he added, "what have you been doing to amuse yourself?"