"It would not be so terrible, you know, if a gardener or a donkey-boy did see my face!" laughed Arlee. "Plenty of them have had that pleasure before this."

She saw that the young man's face changed. Every clear-cut line of it was sharp with repugnance. "You need not remind me of that," he said with muffled fierceness, staring down at his plate.

"The danger line!" she thought while shaking her head at him, with the tense semblance of an amused little smile.... "You aren't the least bit English," she rebuked, "and I thought you were."

"Not in that.... And some day England will see her folly."

"America is seeing her folly now," thought Arlee with secret bitterness. But when she raised her eyes they were gently contemplative. She spoke musingly.

"In things like that you aren't at all what I thought you were—about our social customs, I mean. Yet fundamentally, I think you are."

"That I am what?"

"What I thought you were."

He waited, palpably waited, but Arlee continued to peel a tangerine with absorption, and the question had to come from him. He put it with an air of indolent amusement, yet she felt the intent interest in leash.

"And what did you think I was like, chere petite mademoiselle?"

"Very handsome for one thing, Monsieur! You see, I owe you a compliment for calling me such a pretty name as this!" With a mischievous smile she touched the roses nodding in her girdle. "And very autocratic for another, with a very bad temper. If you can't get your way you would be shockingly disagreeable!"

"But I always get my way," he assured her lazily, his teeth showing under his small, black mustache.

"I believe you do!" Ingenuous admiration, simple and sustained, was in the look she gave him. Her hands were not half so icy now, nor her nerves so tense. She felt strangely surer of herself; the actual presence of the danger calmed her. She must make good with this, she thought simply, in strenuous American.

"And yet," she went on thoughtfully, the pretty picture of fascinated absorption in this most feminine topic—the dissection of a young man—"yet, you are chivalrous. And I think that is the quality we American girls admire most of all."

"The quality—of indulgence?" he questioned, with a half-railing air.

"The quality—of gentleness."

"But is there not another quality which you American girls would admire more than that gentleness—if you ever had the chance in your lives to see it? The quality of dominance? The courage of the man who dares what he desires, and who takes what he wills? Is not that——"

"Ah, yes, we love strong men," Arlee flung into the speech that was bearing him on like a tide, "but we don't think them strong unless they are strong enough to fight themselves. They may take what they will—but they mustn't crush it.... There is a gentleness in great strength—I can't explain what I mean——"

"Ah, I see, I see." He smiled subtly. "I am not to crush you, little Rose of Desire," he said softly.

She met the sly significance of his gaze with a look of frank, unfaltering candor. "Of course not," she said stoutly. "When you—you make me afraid of you, you make me like you less. You seem less like the friend I knew on the boat."

"Ah, that boat!... You were my friend, then!" he added suddenly, with a note of question sounding through the affirmation, and she answered quickly, looking away with an air of petulant reproach. "Why, you know I was, Captain Kerissen. And here in Cairo——"

"Yes, here in Cairo," he interrupted triumphantly, "in the face of those eyes and tongues—I saw that red-headed dog of an Englishman looking his anger at you! But you smiled on me before them all—those fools, those tyrannic fools——"

"But you mustn't abuse my other friends! They were only—stupid!"

"Stupid as their blood brother, the ox!... But they are not in the picture now—those other friends!" Disagreeably he laughed. "And you do not grieve for them—no? The world has not touched you? There is no one out there,"—he made a gesture over the guarding walls—"no one who holds a fragment of your thought, of your heart in his hands?"

She looked at him as if puzzled, then burst into a bubbling laugh. "Why, of course not! I've just had a nice time with people. There has never been a bit of sentiment about it!"

"Not on your side," he said meaningly, and because this was hitting the truth smartly on the head she looked past him in some confusion.

"Oh—boys!" she said with a deprecating little laugh. "I've never listened to them."

He leaned back in his chair, feeling for his cigarette case, and the contentment of his look deepened. "You have been a child, asleep to life," he murmured complacently. "I told you you were a princess—let us say a sleeping princess waiting for the prince, like that old fairy tale of the English." He was looking at his cigarette as he tapped it on the arm of his chair, and slowly struck a light, then, after the first breath, "But do you not hear his footsteps in your sleep?" he added, and gave her a glance from the corner of his eyes.

She looked up and then down; she stared out into the sun-flooded garden and laughed softly. "Even princesses dream," she demurely acknowledged, and thought the line and her fleet, meaning glance went very well with this mad opera-bouffe which fate was forcing her to play.

Kerissen seemed to think that went very well, too, for his flashing teeth acknowledged his pleasure in her aptness; then his smile faded and she felt him studying her over his cigarette, studying her averted gaze, the bright color in her cheeks, the curves of her lips, and he was puzzled and perturbed by the sweet, baffling beauty of her. A wild elation began to swell his heart. His eyes glowed, his blood burned with the triumph, not so much of his daring capture of her, but of the flattering tribute that her pretty ways were paying toward his personality alone. Wary as he was, cynical of subterfuge, he did not penetrate her guard. His monstrous vanity whispered eager flattery in his ears.

And still he continued to stare at her, finding her unbelievably lovely. "My grandfather would call you an houri from paradise," he told her, the warmth of admiration deepening in his eyes.

"And your grandfather's grandson knows that I am only an houri from America!... But that is paradise for houris!"

"And not for men, no!... Sometimes I have wished that those English would restore in me that young belief in the heaven of the Prophet," he continued, smiling, "and now that wish is granted. It is here, that paradise," and his smile, flashing about the lonely garden, came to dwell again upon the girl before him.

She laughed. "But does one houri make a paradise?" she bantered, while the beating, hurrying heart of her went faster and faster till she thought his ears would hear it. "We have a proverb—one swallow does not make a summer."

"Cela depend—that depends upon the houri.... When you are that one it is paradise indeed." He leaned toward her, speaking softly, but with a voice that thrilled more and more in its own eloquence.

She was the Rose of Desire, he reminded her, and beside her all other flowers drooped in envy. She was as lovely as young Dawn to the eyes of men. She was the ravishing embodiment of gaiety and youth and delight. He quoted from the poets, not from his own Oriental poets, but snatches from Campion and Wilde, vowing that

"There was a garden in her face, Where roses and white lilies grow,"

and adding, with points of fire dancing in his heavy lidded eyes,

"Her neck is like white melilote, Flushing for pleasure of the sun,"

and went on to add praise to praise and extravagance to extravagance, till a sudden little imp of mirth caught Arlee by the throat, hysterically choking her. "I shall never like praise or poetry or—or men again," she thought, struggling between wild laughter and hot disgust, while aloud she mocked, "Ah, you know too much poetry, Captain Kerissen! I do not recognize myself at all! You are laughing at me!"

"Laughing at you?... I am worshipping you," he said tensely, his eyes on hers, and the fierce words shattered her light defenses to confusion.

Silence gripped her. She tried to meet his look and smile in mock reproof, but her eyes fled away affrighted, so full of desperate, passionate things was the dark gaze they touched. She gripped her cold little hands in her lap and looked out beyond the lebbek's shade into the vivid garden. The hot sunshine lay orange on the white-sanded paths; the shadows were purple and indigo. A little lizard had come out from a crack in a stone and was sunning himself, while one bright eye upon them, fixed, motionless, irridescent, warned him of their least stir. She envied him the safety of his crack.... She herself must meet this crisis—must turn this tide....

"It is—so soon," she faltered.

"Soon?" He had risen and was standing over her. "Soon? I was with you on the boat—I walked by your side—I danced with you and held you against my heart. And here in Cairo I walked and talked with you.... And now for three days you have been under my roof, eating at the table with me, alone within these walls, and you call it soon! Truly, you are beyond belief! Soon!"

"But soon—for me!" she interrupted swiftly, and sprang to her feet to face him with eyes and lips that smiled without a trace of fear. Only her cheeks were no longer crimson but white as chalk. "Too soon—for me to be sure—how I feel! I hadn't realized—I hadn't known—Oh, you mustn't hurry me! You mustn't hurry me!" She broke off in a confusion he might well misconstrue, and moved nervously away, her back to him.

He stood staring after her, a man not in two minds but in three and four. Her broken words—her smiles—her emotion—these might well arouse the most flattering surmise, and his vanity and his curiosity were stirred to swift delight. He broke into a storm of words, of protestations, of eager persuasion and honied flattery, drawing nearer and nearer to her, while she slipped continually away from him.

"You mustn't hurry me," she echoed defensively. "I am not like you—you Southerners. I——"

"You are asleep—I have told you that you are that sleeping princess," he broke in, and following after as she turned away from him, he put a quick arm about her, and bending over her, tried to turn her about toward him. "Do you know how that little sleeping princess was awakened by her prince?" he murmured fatuously, bending closer.

The hat saved her, that coquettish little hat with its jealously guarding brim which bent obstinately lower and lower between them. And in the instant of his indecision, while he waited for the surrender his vanity expected before exerting the force that would conquer brutally, she broke unexpectedly from his clasp and darted a few steps away from him, whirling about to face him with her head flung back, her eyes on fire, her lips parted in a breathless excitement.

"Captain Kerissen," she cried, and there was a ring of gaiety in her voice, "do I understand that you are proposing to me?"

Very formally he bowed, a bow that hid the astonishment and the cynical humor which zigzagged across his handsome face. "I am doing myself that honor," he most suavely returned, and eyed her with an astonished curiosity that checked his passion.

"Really?... So soon?" she cried very childishly, and again he bowed. But this time she caught his smile.

"Really so soon, little Arlee."

To his amazement she burst into prankish laughter.

"Oh, you are romantic!" she gave back. "And if I can believe you truly in earnest—last night I was furious at you," she went on rapidly, interrupting the speech forming on his lips, "for I thought you a dreadful flirt, just taking advantage of my being here, and yet—and yet you didn't seem that kind. You seemed a gentleman! And now if you really mean—all you are saying—but you can't, you can't! I know your words are running ahead of you!"

"My words—let my heart speak—I——"

"But I don't know whether I ought to listen or not!" she burst out, and with great naivete, "I'm afraid it would be very silly to let myself care for you."

"Silly? An adorable silliness! Could you not be happy with me here in this palace? You would be a princess, indeed, a queen of my heart. I would put every luxury at your command." In mingled eagerness and wariness he watched her, incredulous of her assenting mood, but with a hope that lured him on to believe. And in his eyes, dubious, desirous, calculating, watchful, she read the fluctuations of his thought. If afterwards there should happen to be any trouble about this affair, how wonderfully it would smooth things to have the girl infatuated with him, to show that she had been a party to the intrigue! And how spicily it sweetened the taste of success to his lips!

He had caught her two hands in his, and clasping them tightly he bent forward, trying to scan the changes in her hesitating look, while his words poured forth in a stream of praise and promise. She would live like a little princess. His love and his wealth were at her feet. Other women were eager for him, but he was hers alone. She would adore Egypt, the Egypt that he would reveal to her, and when she wearied they would go to the Continent and live always as she desired. Only she must be kind to him, be kind and sweet and lift her eyes and tell him that she would make him happy. She must not keep him waiting. He was not a man with whom one amused oneself.

"And I am not a girl whom one commands!" she gave back with a flash of spirit and a childish toss of her head. "I like you, Monsieur, at least I did like you before you hurt my fingers so horribly"—the tight grasp on her hands relaxed and she drew them swiftly away, rubbing them in mock ruefulness—"and I could like you better and better—perhaps"—her blue eyes flashed a look into his—"if you were very nice and polite and give me time to catch my breath! You are such a hurrying sort of person!" Her whimsical little smile enchanted him, even while he chafed at such delay.

"I am mad about you," he said in a low tone.

"And only me?" she laughed, her dimples showing.

So, teasing and luring, she held him off, and her heart beat exultantly as she saw that she had given him the thought of marriage for that of conquest, the dream of a perfect idyll for that of an enforced submission.... It was a desperate play, but she played it valiantly, and her fearfulness and the spell of her beauty sweetened the role of beseeching suitor for him, and gave a glamour to this pretty garden dalliance.... The memory of time came to him at last with a start, and frowningly he stared at the watch he drew out to consult.

"I must hurry away—to another part of the palace," he amended swiftly, "where I have an engagement.... I shall not be at liberty till to-night—rather late. I will send word to you, then——"

She shook her head at him. "To-morrow," she substituted gaily. "Let us have luncheon to-morrow under the trees again like this.

"To-morrow is too far away——"

"No, it is just right for me. And if you really want to please me——"

"But does it please you to make me miserable——?"

"You can't be very miserable when you have a luncheon engagement," she insisted. "I'm not!"

He shrugged. "Till luncheon then—unless I should be back earlier than I think." He gave her a quick look, but her face did not betray awareness of the slip.

"Oh, of course, if you are at liberty sooner—And while you are busy won't you manage things so I can stay out here awhile? I shall love this garden, I know, when I am better friends with it," and after an imperceptible pause he promised to send a maid back to keep watch over her, and with a lingering pressure of hands and a look that plainly said he was but briefly denying himself a more ardent farewell, he hurried away through the banquet hall into the court.

She dared not run after to spy upon his departure. She could only wait, hoping in every throbbing nerve that the maid would prove to be the little one with the wart over her eye. And as she hoped she feared, lest all her frail barrier of cards should be swept away by a single breath.

If he should learn that the little dancer had visited her! If he should discover that she was playing a game with him!



CHAPTER X

A MAID AND A MESSAGE

The March hare would have been a feeble comparison for Billy Hill's madness if Robert Falconer could have seen him that Saturday morning, that same Saturday on which Arlee was essaying her daring role, for Billy Hill was sitting in the sun upon a camp stool, a white helmet upon his head, an easel before him, and upon the easel a square of blank canvas, and in Billy's left hand was a box of oils and in his right a brush. And the camp stool upon which Billy was stationed was planted directly before the small, high-arched door of the Kerissen palace and in plain view of the larger door a few feet to the right.

It had all followed upon acquaintance with the one-eyed man.

Taciturn in the beginning and suspicious of Billy's questionings, that dark-skinned individual had at first betrayed abyssmal ignorance of all save the virtues of stuffed crocodiles, but convinced at last that this was no trap, but a genuine situation from which he could profit, his greed overcame his native caution, and through the aid of his jerky English and Billy's jagged Arabic a certain measure of confidence was exchanged.

The one-eyed man then recollected that he had noticed a Turkish officer and an American girl returning together to the hotel upon that Wednesday afternoon. He had stared, because truly it was amazing, even for American madness—and also the young girl was beautiful. "A wild gazelle," was his word for her. The man was Captain Kerissen. He was known to all the city—well known, he was—in a certain way. It was not a good way for the ladies. Yes, he had a motor car—a grand, gray car. (Billy remembered that the fatal limousine had been gray.) It was well known that he had bought it for a foreign woman whom he had brought from over-seas and installed in the palace of his fathers. Yes, he knew well where that palace was. His brother's wife's uncle was a eunuch there, but he was a hard man who held his own counsel and that of his master.

Could a girl be shut up in that palace and the world be no wiser? The one-eyed man stared scathingly at such ignorance. Why not? The underworld might know, but native gossip never reached white ears.

What was the best way of finding out, then? The one-eyed man had no hesitation about his answer.

A native must use his eyes and ears for the American. Through his subtle skill and the American's money the discovery could be made. The women servants would talk.

That was the way, Billy agreed, and quoted to the Arab his own proverb, "A saint will weary of well-doing and a braggart of his boasts, but a woman's tongue will never stop of itself," and the one-eyed man had nodded, with an air of resigned understanding, and quoted in answer, "There is nothing so great and nothing so small, nothing so precious and nothing so foul, but that a woman will put her tongue to it," and an understanding appeared to have been reached.

The one-eyed man was to loiter about the palace, calling upon the brother's wife's uncle if possible, and discover all that he could without arousing suspicion. And Billy determined to do a little loitering himself and quicken the one-eyed man's investigations and keep watch of Kerissen's comings and goings, and a donkey boy was hired by the one-eyed man to follow the Captain when he appeared in the street and report the places to which he went.

It was all very ridiculous, of course, Billy cheerfully agreed with himself, but by proving its own folly it would serve to allay that extraordinarily nagging uneasiness of his. If he could just be sure that little Miss Beecher wasn't tucked out of sight somewhere in the power of that barbaric scamp with his Continental veneer!

Meanwhile the Oriental methods to be employed in the finding out appealed to the young American's humor and his rash love of adventure. He was grinning as he sat there on that stool and stared at the blank canvas before him. He had felt the role of artist would be an excellent screen for his loitering, but he had done no painting for a little matter of twenty years, not since he was a tiny lad, flat upon his stomach in his home library, industriously tinting the robes and beards of Bible characters and the backgrounds of the Holy Land—this work of art being one of the few permitted diversions of the family Sabbath. Now he reflected that the scenes for his brush were decidedly similar.

With humorous interest he fell to work, scaling off the palace on his left, blocking off the cemetery ahead, and trying to draw a palm without emphasizing the thought of a feather duster. His engineering training made him critical of his lines and outlines, but when it came to the introduction of color he had the sensation of a shipwrecked mariner afloat upon uncharted seas.

The color that his eyes perceived was not the color which his stubborn memory persisted in reminding him was the actual hue of the events, and the color that he produced upon canvas was no kin to any of them. But it sufficed for an excuse, and he worked away, whistling cheerily, warily observant of the dark and silent facade of the old palace and alertly interested in the little groups his occupation transiently attracted. But these little groups were all of passers-by, shawl-venders, package-deliverers, beggars, veiled desert women with children astride their shoulders, and the live hens they were selling beneath their mantles, and these groups dissolved and drew away from him without his being able to attract any observation from the palace.

But at least, he thought doggedly, any girl behind those latticed windows up there could see him in the street, and if Arlee were there she would understand his presence and plan to get word down to him. But he began to feel extraordinarily foolish.

At length his patience was rewarded. The small door opened and the stalwart doorkeeper, in blue robes and yellow English shoes, marched pompously out to him and ordered him to be off.

Haughtily Billy responded that this was permitted, and displayed a self-prepared document, gorgeous with red seals, which made the man scowl, mutter, and shake his head and retire surlily to his door, and finding a black-veiled girl peering out of it at Billy, he thrust her violently within. But Billy had caught her eyes and tried to look all the significance into them of which he was capable.

Nothing, however, appeared to develop. The door remained closed, save for brief admissions of bread and market stuff from little boys on donkey-back or on a bicycle, all of whom were led willingly into conservation, but none of whom had been into the palace, and though Billy pressed as close to the door as possible when the boys knocked, he was only rewarded with a glimpse of the tiled vestibule and inner court.

To the irate doorkeeper he protested that he was yearning to paint a palace court, but though he held up gold pieces, the man ordered him away in fury and spoke menacingly of a stick for such fellows.

Now, however cool and fresh it was in the garden that Saturday, it was distinctly hot in the dusty street, and by noon, as Billy sat in the shade beside the palace door, eating the lunch he had brought and drinking out of a thermos bottle, he reflected that for a man to cook himself upon a camp stool, feigning to paint and observing an uneventful door, was the height of Matteawan. He despised himself—but he returned to the camp stool.

Nothing continued to happen.

Travelers were few. Occasionally a carriage passed; once a couple of young Englishmen on polo ponies galloped by; once a poor native came down the road, moving his harem—a donkey-cart load of black shrouded women, with three half-naked children bouncing on a long tailboard.

Several groups of veiled women on foot proceeded to the cemetery and back again.

The one-eyed man sauntered by in vain.

In the heat of the afternoon the wide door suddenly opened and Captain Kerissen himself appeared on his black horse. He spurred off at a gallop, intending apparently to ride down the artist on the way, but changed his mind at the last and dashed past, showering him with dust from his horse's hoofs. The little donkey-boy, lolling down the road, started to follow him, crying out for alms in the name of Allah.

Billy stared up at the windows. Not a handkerchief there, not a signal, not a note flung into the street! In great derision he squirted half a tube of cerulean blue upon his canvas.

This, he reflected, was zero in detective work. It was also minus in adventure.

But one never knows when events are upon the wing. Almost immediately there came into the flatness of his bored existence a victoria containing those two English ladies he had met—in the unconventional way which characterized his meetings with ladies in Cairo—two days before.

The recognition was mutual. The curiosity appeared upon their side. To his horror he saw that they had stopped their carriage and were descending.

"How interesting!" said Miss Falconer, with more cordiality than she had shown on the previous occasion. "How very interesting! So you are an artist—I do a little sketching myself, you know."

"You do happen in the most unexpected places," smiled Lady Claire.

The English girl looked very cool and sweet and fresh to the heated painter. His impression of her as a nice girl and a pretty girl was speedily reinforced, and he remembered that dark-haired girls with gray-blue eyes under dusky lashes had been his favorite type not so long ago ... before he had seen Arlee's fairy gold.

"We've just been driving through the old cemetery—such interesting tombs," said the elder lady, and Lady Claire added, "I should think you could get better views there than here."

By this time they had reached the easel and stood back of it in observation.

Blue, intensely blue, and thickly blue was the sky that Billy had lavished. Green and rigid were the palms. Purple was the palace. Very black lay the shadows like planks across the orange road.

Miss Falconer looked as if she doubted her own eyes. Hurriedly she unfolded her lorgnette.

"It—it's just blocked in," said Billy, speaking with a peculiar diffidence.

"Quite so—quite so," murmured the lady, bending closer, as if fascinated.

Lady Claire said nothing. Stealing a look at her, Billy saw that she was looking it instead.

Miss Falconer tried another angle. The sight of that lorgnette had a stiffening effect upon Billy B. Hill.

"You get it?" he said pleasantly. "You get the—ah—symphonic chord I'm striking?"

"Chord?" said Miss Falconer. "Striking," she murmured in a peculiar voice.

"It's all in thirds, you see," he continued.

"Thirds!" came the echo.

"Perhaps you're of the old school?" he observed.

"Really—I must be!" agreed the lady.

"Ah!" said Billy softly, commiseratingly. He cocked his head at an angle opposite from the slant of the lorgnette and stared his own amazing canvas out of countenance.

"Then, of course," he said, "this hardly conveys——"

"What are you?" she demanded. "Is this a—a school?"

"I?" He seemed surprised that there could be any doubt about it. "I am a Post-Cubist."

Miss Falconer turned the lorgnette upon him. "Oh, really," she said vaguely. "I fancy I've heard something of that—you're quite new and radical, aren't you?"

"Oh, we're old," he said gently, "very, very old. We have returned to Nature—but not the nature of mere academicians. We paint, not the world of the camera, but the world of the brain. We paint, not the thing you think you see, but the way you think you see it—its vibrations of your inner mentality. To paint the apple ripening on the bough one should reproduce the gentle swelling of the maturing fruit in your perception.... Now, you see, I am not trying to reproduce the precise carving of that door; I do not fix the wavings of that palm. I give you the cerebellic——"

"Quite so," said Miss Falconer, dropping her lorgnette and giving the canvas the fixity of her unobstructed gaze. "It's most interesting," she said, a little faintly. "Are there many of you?"

"I don't know," said Billy. "We do not communicate with one another. That always influences, you know, and it is better to work out thought alone."

"I should think it would be." Something in her tone suggested that the inviolated solitude of the asylum suggested itself to her as a fitting spot. "Well, we won't interrupt you any longer. You've been most interesting.... The sun is quite hot, isn't it?" and with one long, lingering look at the picture, a look convinced against its will, she went her way toward the victoria.

But Lady Claire stood still. Billy had fairly forgotten all about her, and now as he turned suddenly from the clowning with her chaperon, he found her gaze being transferred from his picture to himself. It was a very steady gaze, calm-eyed and deliberate.

"I'm afraid you're making game of us!" she said, in her musical, high-bred tones, her clear eyes disconcertingly upon him. "Aren't you?" she gently demanded.

"That's not fair." Billy was uncomfortable and looked away in haste. He felt a grin coming.

Perhaps he was a shade too late, for Lady Claire laughed suddenly and with a note of curious delight.

"You're too amusing!" she said. "What made you?... How did you think of it all?... Are you just beginning?"

"Oh, I began twenty years ago," he smiled back, "but I haven't done anything in the meantime."

Again she laughed with that ring of mischievous delight. "However you could think of it all! I shan't tell on you—but she'll never be done wondering." She turned away, her pretty face still bright with humor, and then she turned back hesitantly toward him.

"It is hot here in this sun," she said. "It can't be good for you. Shall we drive you back?"

She had lovely eyes, dark, smoky-blue under black lashes, and when they held a gentle, half-shy, half-proud invitation, as they did then, they were very unsettling eyes.... And it was hot on that infernal camp stool. And there was a crick in the back of his neck and his errand was glaringly a fool's errand....

He half rose, and as he did so the door in the palace opened a crack and a veiled face peered furtively out. Billy sat down again.

"No, thank you," he said, "I think I'd better do a little more of this."

In such light ways is the gate of opportunity closed and opened. Everything that happened afterwards with such appalling startlingness hung on that instant's decision.

For the moment he felt himself a donkey as Lady Claire turned quietly away and the victoria rattled off with brisk finality. Then the door opened again, and again the girl peered out, and furtively, stealthily slipped just outside.

Billy caught up a pad and a pencil and called out a request to sketch her, holding up some silver. Instantly she assumed a fixed pose, with a nervous giggle behind her veil, and he came quickly near her, pretending to be drawing. Her dark, curious eyes met his with questioning significance, and he threw all caution aside and plunged into his demands.

Did she want to earn money, he said quickly, in the Arabic he had been preparing for such an encounter, and on her eager assent, he asked if there was a foreign lady in the palace, an American.

The flash of her eyes told him that he had struck the mark before her half-frightened words came.

His heart quickened with excitement. He might have suspected this thing—but he had not really believed it! He asked, stammering in his haste, "Does she want to get away?"

Again that knowing nod and the quick assent. Then the girl burst into low-toned speech, glancing back constantly through the door she held nearly shut behind her. Billy was forced to shake his head. It was one thing to have picked up a little casual Arabic, and another, and horribly different, thing to comprehend the rapid outpourings behind that muffling veil.

Baffled, he went hurriedly on with his own questionings. Was this lady safe? Again the nod and murmur of assent. Did she want help? Vehement the confirmation. He repeated, with careful emphasis, "I will reward you well for your help," and this time the direct simplicity of her reply was entirely intelligible:

"How much?"

"One pound.... Two," he added, as she shook her head.

"Four," she demanded.

It was maddening to haggle, but it would be worse to yield.

"Two—and this," said Billy, drawing out the gold and some silver with it.

She gave a frightened upward glance at the windows over them and stepped closer. "I take it," she said. "Listen—" and that was all that Billy could understand of the swift words she whispered to him.

"Slower—slower," he begged. "Once more—slower."

She frowned, and then, very slowly and distinctly, she articulated, "T'ala lil genaina ... 'end eltura."

He wrote down what he thought it sounded like. "Go on."

"Allailade," she continued.

"That's to-night," he repeated. "What else?"

"Assaa 'ashara," she added hurriedly, and then, intelligible again, "Now, quick, the money."

"Hold on, hold on." He was in despair. "Go over that again, please," and hastily the girl whispered the words again and he wrote down his corrections. Then with a flourish he appeared to finish the sketch and held out the gold and silver to her, saying, "Thank you," carelessly.

Quick as a flash she seized the money, leaving a little crumpled ball of white linen in his hand, and then, apparently by lightning, she secreted the gold, and with the silver shining in her dark palm she came closer to him, urging him for another shilling, another shilling for having a picture made. In an undertone she demanded, "Is it yes? Shall I say yes to the lady?"

"Yes, yes, yes," said Billy, desperately, to whatever the unknown message might be. "Take a note to her for me?" he demanded, starting to scribble one, but she drew back with a quick negation, and as a sound came from the palace she slipped back through the door and was gone like a shadow when a blind is thrown open.

Only the crumpled little ball of linen remained in Billy's hand. He straightened it out. It was a lady's handkerchief, a dainty thing, delicately scented. In the corners were marvels of sheer embroidery and among the leaves he found the initial he was seeking. It was the letter B.

As he stared down on it, that tiny, telltale initial, his face went white under its tan and his mouth compressed till all the humor and kindliness of it were lost in a line of stark grimness. And then he swung on his heel and packed up his painting kit in a fury of haste, and with one last, upturned look at those mocking windows, he was off down the road like a shot.

There were just two things to do. The first was to discover the message hidden in those unknown words.

The second was to do exactly as that message bade.



CHAPTER XI

OVER THE GARDEN WALL

Two oil lamps flared in the little coffee-house. In one circle of yellow light two bearded Sheiks were playing dominoes with imperturbable gravity; the other lamp flickered over an empty table beneath which the thin, flea-bitten legs of a ragged urchin were showing in the oblivion of his tired sleep. In the shadow beyond sat a young American with a keen, impatient face, and a one-eyed Arab shrouded in a huge burnous.

"I make fine dragoman?" the Arab was saying proudly. "This is ver' old coffee-house. Many things happen here, ver' strange——"

"Yes, but I'm sick of the doggone place," said Billy fiercely. "I can't sit still and swallow coffee any longer. Can't we start now?"

"Too soon—too soon before the time. You say ten? Come, we go next door. Nice place next door, perhaps—dancing, maybe."

There was noise enough next door, certainly, to promise dancing. The strident notes of Oriental music came shrieking out the open doorway, but as Billy stepped within and stared over the heads of the squatting throng, he saw no sinewy dancers, but only two tiny girls in bright colors huddled wearily against the wall. The music which was absorbing every look came from the brazen throat of a huge instrument in the corner.

"Lord—a phonograph!" thought the young man in disgust, resenting this intrusion of the genius of his race into foreign fields.

The squatting men, their dark lips parted in pleased smiles, were too intent upon the innovation to turn at his entrance, but the little girls caught sight of him and ran forward, begging clamorously, their bracelets clanking on their outstretched arms.

With a little silver he tried to soften the vigor of the one-eyed man's dismissal. "This cheap place—no good dancers any more," the Arab uttered in disgust. "New man here—no good. Maybe next door better—eh?"

But next door was only a flight of steps and a lone little doll of a sentinel, painted and hung like a bedizened idol. Only the dark eyes in the tinted sockets were alive, and these turned curiously after the strange young white man who had dropped a coin into her outstretched hand and passed on so hurriedly.

"I don't want any more of these joints," Billy was saying vehemently to his harassed guide. "It's dark as the Styx now—let's be on our way."

The street they were on was narrow enough for any antiquarian, but the one into which the Arab guide now turned was so narrow that the jutting bays of the houses seemed pushing their faces impudently against their neighbors. A voice in one room could have been heard as clearly in the one over the way. It was a mean little street, squalid and poor and pitiful, but it maintained its stripped dignities of screened windows and isolation. It was better not to wonder what nights were like in those women's rooms in summer heat.

The lane-like path stopped at a rickety sort of wharf, and at their approach a black head bobbed quickly up from a waiting boat. It was the little boy who had shadowed the Captain that day—reporting his arrival at the Khedivial palace—and he climbed out now and sat on the wharf, watching curiously while Billy and his guide bestowed themselves in the long canoe, and pushed silently away.

It was an eerie backwater in which they were paddling, a sluggish stream which moved between dark houses. Sometimes it scraped against their sides and lapped their balconies; sometimes it was held in check by walls and narrow terraces. For Billy the water between the dark houses, the mirrored stars, the unexpected flare of some oil lamp and its still reflection, the long windings and the stagnant smells held their suggestions of Venice for his senses, and he thought the business he was going about was very similar to the business which had brought so many of the gentry of Venice to sudden and undesired ends.

The flies were horribly thick here. They settled upon the faces and arms of the paddlers, totally unapprehensive of rebuff. Billy's flesh crawled. He finished the swarm with a ringing slap that brought a low caution from his guide.

Now the canal was wider and shallower. The houses receded, and a field or so appeared, and frequent walls hedged the way. Then suddenly the houses came down again to the water, and the ruins of old mosques and palaces lined the banks for a time; to be replaced by walls again. The windings were interminable, and just when he was thinking that his silent guide was as confused as he was, the man made a sudden gesture to the right bank where a tiny strip of land showed above the water clinging to a high brick wall, and with careful, soundless strokes they brought the canoe up to that land.

Billy looked at his watch. It was nearly ten. Hurriedly he climbed out, taking out the stout, notched pole and the knotted rope with the iron hook at the end which he had prepared. The message which had been so unintelligible to him was very simple. "Escape by canal to-night—come to garden at ten," had been the words, and Billy, on hearing the description of the canal from the one-eyed man, had felt he understood.

"You're sure this is the place?" he demanded, and on the man's much injured protestation, "Because if it isn't I'll wring your neck instead of Kerissen's," he cheerfully promised and set his pole against the wall, showing the man how to steady it. It was not the best climbing arrangement in the world, but time had been extremely limited, and the one-eyed man not inclined to pursue any investigations which would advertise their expedition.

Wrapping the rope about his shoulders, he started to pull himself up that notched pole the Arab was holding against the wall, feeling desperately for any hold for toes and fingers in the rough chunks between the old bricks, and breathing hard he reached the top and threw one leg over. He felt something grind through the serge of his trousers and sting into the flesh.

"Ground glass—the Old Boy!" said Billy through his teeth. He hoisted himself cautiously, and with his handkerchief swept the top of the wall as clean as he could. He heard the little pieces fall with a perilously loud tinkling sound, and flattened himself upon the wall, and strained his eyes through the darkness of the garden, but no alarm was raised. The shadows seemed empty.

He hoped to the Lord that no disturbance would break out in the garden, for the man below would be off in the canoe like a flash. He had no illusions about the one-eyed man's loyalty, but the fellow was already in the secret; he was needy and resourceful and as trustworthy as any dragoman that he could have gone to. And a dragoman would have had a reputation and a patronage he'd fear to lose. This melancholy Arab, hawking crocodiles for a Greek Jew, had more to gain than lose.

By now he had caught the end of the rough hook over the top of the wall, and let down the knotted rope into the garden below. It was long enough, thank goodness, he thought, wondering under what circumstances and in what company he would ascend it again. Then with one more keen look into the garden, and a reassuring touch of the pocket where his revolver bulged, he gripped the rope and swiftly lowered himself.

Keeping close to the wall he pressed toward the buildings on the right, which he had been told was the wing of the harem, and as he stepped forward a flat black shadow near the wall came suddenly to life. It sprang to its feet, revealing a shrouded little form, wrapped and hooded in black, and ran to him with steps that stumbled in excitement.

"Quick, quick!" breathed an almost inaudible voice of terror, and Billy flung one strong arm about the girl and dashed toward the dangling rope. Gripping it with one hand he flung the light figure over his left shoulder, and with a cheerily whispered "Hang tight," he threw himself into the ascent. It was arm-wrenching, muscle-racking work, with that dead weight upon him, but the touch of those soft arms clinging childishly about his neck seemed to double and treble his strength, and with incredible quickness he lifted her to the top of the wall, and then, catching her by the wrists, he lowered her into the upreaching clasp of the Arab.

An instant more and he had reversed his rope ladder and climbed down beside her as she stood waiting, and in the throbbing triumph of that moment he flung his arm grippingly about her to sweep her into the boat. But as she raised her face to his, the shrouding mantle fell away, and he found himself staring down into the exultant face and bright, dark eyes of a girl he had never seen before.

Back of them beyond the wall, pandemonium was breaking out.





CHAPTER XII

THE GIRL FROM THE HAREM

He was dumb with the shock. Then, "Who are you?" he demanded. "And where is she—where is Arlee Beecher?"

On her own face the astonishment grew. "What you mean? Frederick—he not send you?" she gasped, and then as the outcries grew louder and louder behind them she gripped convulsively at his arms. "Oh, quick! come away—quick, quick!" she besought.

"I came for Arlee Beecher—an American girl. Isn't she held here? Isn't she back there?"

"What you going to do? What——"

"I'm going to get her!" he said fiercely. "Tell me——"

He had caught her and unconsciously shook her as if to shake the words out of her. Furiously she struggled with him.

"Let me go. No, no, she is not there! No one is there! You are gone crazy to stay! They will kill me if they catch me—they will fire over the wall. Oh, for God's sake, help me quick!"

"She's not there?" he repeated stupidly, and then at her vehement "No, no! I tell you no!" he drew a breath of deep astonishment and chagrin, and turned to stow her safely low in the boat. Hurriedly he and the one-eyed man bent over their paddles, and very swiftly the long, dark canoe went gliding down the stream, but not any too swiftly, for in an instant they heard a triumphant yell behind them, and then light, thudding feet along the path.

Steadily Billy urged the canoe forward with powerful strokes that seemed to be lifting it out of the water at each impulse, and they swept past a wall that reaching to the river bank must block their pursuers for a time, and though there was a path after that, there was soon another wall, and no more pursuit along the water edge. But every opening ahead now might mean an ambush, and as soon as a narrow lane showed between the houses to the left, the one-eyed man steered swiftly there and Billy sprang out with the girl and they raced through the lane into the adjoining street.

He looked up and down it; either they had got out at the wrong lane or the cab they had ordered to be in waiting had failed them, but there was no time for speculation and they walked on as fast as they could without the appearance of flight. The stray loiterers on the dark street stared curiously as they passed, to see a young American in gray tweeds, his cap pulled over his eyes, with a woman in the Mohammedan wrap and mantle, but no one stopped them, and in another minute they saw a lonely cab rattling through the streets and climbed quickly in.

"And now, for Heaven's sake, tell me all about it!" besought Billy B. Hill, staring curiously at his most unforeseen companion.

With a deep-drawn sigh of relief she had snuggled back against the cushioned seat, and now she flung off the shrouding mantle and looked up to meet his gaze with a smile of excited triumph.

She had the prettiest teeth he had ever seen, lovely little rows of pearls, and the biggest and brightest of dark eyes with wide lashes curling dramatically back. Even in the thrill and elation of the moment there was a spark of provocation in those eyes for the good-looking young man who stared down at her, and Billy would have been a very wooden young man, indeed, if he had not felt a tingling excitement in this unexpected capture, for all the destruction of his romantic plans. So this, he thought rapidly, was the foreign girl in Kerissen's house, and Arlee, bless her little golden head, was safe where she planned, in Alexandria. A warm glow of happiness enveloped him at that.

"Now tell me all about it," he demanded again. "You are running away from Kerissen?"

"Oh, yes," she cried eagerly. "You must not let him catch us. We are safe—yes?"

"I should rather think so," Billy laughed. "And there's a gun in my pocket that says so.... And so you sent me that message to-day by that little native girl? How in the world did that happen?"

"That girl is one who will do a little for money, you understand," said the Viennese, "and I have told her to look sharp out for a foreign gentleman who come to save me. You see I have sent for a friend, and I think that he—but never mind. That girl she come running this afternoon to where I am shut in way back in the palace, and she say that a foreign gentleman is painting a picture out in the street, and he stare very cunning at her. So I tell her to find out if he is the one for me, and to tell him to come quick this night. She was afraid to take note—afraid the eunuch catch her. So she went to you. She told afterwards that you ask her if there is any strange lady there anxious to get away, and she give you the message and my handkerchief and you say you will come—and my, how you give me one great surprise!"

"And a great disappointment," said Billy grinning.

"Oh, no, no," she denied, eyes and lips all mischievous smiles. "I say to myself, 'My God! That is a fine-looking young man! He and I will have something to say to each other'—h'm?"

"Now who in the world are you?" demanded Billy bluntly. "And how did you happen to get into all this?"

Volubly she told. She dwelt at picturesque length upon her shining place upon the Viennese stage; she recounted her triumphs, she prophesied the joy of the playgoers at her return to them. Darkly she expatiated upon the villainy of the Turkish Captain, who had lured her to such incarceration. Gleefully she displayed the diamonds upon her small person which she was extracting from that affair.

"Not so bad, after all—h'm?" she demanded, in a brazen little content. "Maybe that prison time make good for me," and Billy shook his head and chuckled outright at the little baggage.

But through his amusement a prick of uneasiness was felt. The picture she had painted of the Captain corroborated his wildest imaginings.

"You're dead sure you know all that was going on in that palace?" he demanded. "There wasn't any American girl coaxed into it on some pretext?"

He wanted merely the reassurance of her answer, but to his surprise and growing alarm she hesitated, looking at him half fearfully and half ashamedly. "Oh, I—I don't know about that," she murmured, with evasive eyes. "An American girl—very light hair—yes?"

"Very light hair—Oh, good God!" He leaned forward, gripping her wrist as if afraid she would spring out of the carriage. "You said she wasn't there," he thrust at her in a voice that rasped.

"I said I don't know—don't know any such name you say. I never hear it. You hurt me—take your hand away."

"Not till you tell me." But he loosened his harsh grip. "Now tell me all you know—please tell me all you know," he besought with a sudden melting into desperate entreaty. Worriedly he stared at this curious little kitten-thing beside him on whose truth now that other girl's life was resting.

"Well, I tell you true I do not know that name," began Fritzi Baroff, with a little sullen dignity over her shame. "And I saved your life, for it was death for you to go back to that palace. You heard them coming for us. You would have got yourself killed and that little girl would be no better. Now I can tell you how to help her."

"All right—tell me," said the young American in a tense voice. "Tell me everything you know about it," and Fritzi told him, throwing aside all pretense of her uncertainty about Arlee, revealing every detail of the situation that she knew.

And from the heights of his gay relief Billy Hill was flung back into the deeps of desperate indignation. The anger that had surged up in him that afternoon when he had felt his fears confirmed flamed up in him now in a fire of fury. His blood was boiling.... Arlee Beecher in the power of that Turkish devil! Arlee Beecher prisoned within that ghastly palace! It was unreal. It was monstrous.... That radiant girl he had danced with, that teasing little sprite, half flouting, half flirting. Why, the thing was unthinkable!

He put a hand on the dancer's arm. "We must go to the consul at once," he said. "We must get her out to-night."

"Consul!" The girl gave a short, derisive laugh. "This is no matter for consuls, my young friend. The law is slow, and by the time that law will stand knocking upon the palace doorstep, your little girl with the fair hair will be buried very deep and fast—I think she would not be the first woman bricked into those black walls.... You must go about this yourself.... You are in love with her—yes?" she added impertinently, with keen, uptilted eyes.

"That's another story," Billy curtly informed her. He made no attempt to analyze his feeling for Arlee Beecher. She had enchanted him in those two days that he had known her. She had obsessed his thoughts in those two days of her disappearance. Now that he was aware of her peril every selfish thought was overwhelmed in burning indignation. He told himself that he would do as much for any girl in her situation, and, indeed, so hot ran his rage and so dearly did his young blood love rash adventure and high-handed justice, that there was some honest excuse for the statement!

"Zut! A man does not risk his neck for a matter of indifference!" said the little Baroff sagely, her knowing eyes on Billy's grim young face. "So I am to be the sister to you—the Platonic friend—h'm?" she observed with droll resignation. "Never mind—I will help you get her out as you got me—Gott sei dank! There is a way, I think—if you are not too particular about that neck. I will tell you all and draw you a plan when we get to a hotel."

But before they got to a hotel there was an obstacle or two to be overcome. A lady in Mohammedan wraps might not be exactly persona grata at fashionable hotels at midnight. Casting off the wrap Fritzi revealed herself in a little pongee frock that appeared to be suitable for traveling, and with two veils and Billy's cap for a foundation she produced an effect of headgear not unlike that of some bedraped tourists.

"I arrived on the night train," she stated as they drew up before the shining hotel. "It is late now for that night train—but we waited for my luggage, which you will observe is lost. So I pay for my room in the advance—I think you had better give me some money for that—I have nothing but these," and she indicated her flashing diamonds.

"My name," said Billy, handing over some sovereigns with the first ray of humor since her revelation to him, "my name, if you should care to address me, is Hill—William B. Hill."

"William B. Hill," she echoed with an air of elaborate precision, and then flashed a saucy smile at him as he helped her out of the carriage. "What you call Billy, eh?"

"You've got it," he replied in resignation.

"Hill—that means a mountain," she commented. "A mountain of good luck for me—h'm? And that B—what is that for?"

"My middle name," said Billy patiently, as they reached the door the Arab doorman was holding open for them.

Absently she laughed. Her dark eyes were sparkling at the vision of the safe and shining hotel, the dear familiar luxury, the sounds and sights of her lost Continental life. A few late arrivals from some dance gave a touch of animation to the wide rooms, and Fritzi's eyes clung delightedly to the group.

"God, how happy I am!" she sighed.

Billy was busy avoiding the clerk's knowing scrutiny. It was the same clerk he had coerced with real cigars to enlighten him concerning Arlee Beecher, and he felt that that clerk was thinking things about him now, mistaken and misguided things, about his predilections for the ladies. Philosophically he wondered where they had better try after this.

But he underestimated the battery of Fritzi's charms, or else the serene assurance of her manner.

"My letters—letters for Baroff," she demanded of the clerk. "None yet. Then my room, please.... But I sent a wire from Alexandria. That stupid maid," she turned to explain to Billy, her air the last stand of outraged patience. "She is at the train looking for that luggage she lost," she added to the clerk, and thereupon she proceeded to arrange for the arrival of the fictitious maid whom Billy heard himself agreeing to go back and fetch if she did not turn up soon, and to engage a room for herself—a much nicer room than Billy himself was occupying—then handed over Billy's sovereigns and turned happily away jingling the huge key of her room.

"It is a miracle!" she cried again, exultant triumph in every pretty line of her. "My heart dances, my blood is singing—Oh, if I were on the stage now, the music crashing, the lights upon me, the house packed! I would enchant them! I would dance myself mad.... Ah, what you say now—shall we have a little bottle of champagne to drink to our better acquaintance, Mr. Billy?"

"Not this evening," said the unemotional young man. "You are going to sit down at this desk and draw me those plans of the palace."

Petulantly she shrugged at her rescuer. "How stupid—to-morrow you may not have that chance for the champagne," she observed. "You think of nothing but to go back and get killed, then? And I must help you? Very well. Here, I will draw it for you and I will tell you all I know."

She sat down at a desk and began working out the diagrams, and at last she handed the paper to Billy, who sat beside her, and pointed out the rooms and scribbled the words on them for his aid.

"It is very simple," she said. "That first square is for the court, and the next square is for the garden. The hall of banquets comes so, between them, and the hall is two stories tall, and across the top of that, from the selamlik to the harem, runs that little secret passage. And at the end of it, here, is the little panel into the rose room where she is, and beside the panel outside in the passage are the little steps that go up to that tower room, where they put me on the top. And from that top room I broke out a locked door on the roof—that is how I got away. I climbed down at the end of the harem from one roof to another where it is unfinished.... The rose room is here on the garden, but the windows have bars, and those bars are too strong for breaking. I have tried it! There is no way out but the secret way by that passage into the men's wing, or the other way through the door into the long hall and down the little stairs into the anteroom below. How Seniha hated me when I made laughter and noise and talk going up and down those stairs to my motor car!"

She laughed impishly, pointing out Seniha's rooms, facing on the street, and contributing several bizarre anecdotes of the palace life. But Billy was not to be diverted, and went over the plans again and again, before the diminished number of lights and the hoverings of the attendant Arabs recalled the lateness of the hour to his absorption.

But late as they were they were not the only occupants of the lift. Returning from a masquerade, a domino over his arm, stood Falconer. Civilly enough he returned Billy's greeting, with no apparent awareness of the little lady in pongee, but Billy was conscious that her flaunting caliber had been promptly registered. And to his annoyance the actress raised big eyes of reproach to him.

"No champagne for me, after all, Mr. Billy!" she sighed. "You are not very good for a celebration—h'm?... Well, then—good night."

Her parting smile as she left the car adroitly included the tall aristocratic young Englishman with the little moustache.

Sharply Billy turned to him. "Come up to my room, please. I have something to say to you."

In silence Falconer followed. Billy flung shut the door, drew a long breath, and turned to him.

"Do you know where I got that girl?" he demanded.

It took several seconds of Falconer's level-lidded look of distaste to bring home the realization.

"Oh, see here," he protested, "wait till you understand this thing.... I pulled that girl over Kerissen's back wall at ten o'clock to-night. I thought she was Miss Beecher, but a mistake had been made and the wrong girl arrived. But the point is this—Arlee Beecher is in that palace. This girl saw her and talked with her last night. Now we've got to get her out. It's a two-man job," said Billy, "or you'd better believe I'd never have come to you again."

He had given it like a punch, and it knocked the breath out of Falconer for one floored instant. But he was no open-mouthed believer. The thing was more unthinkable to him than to Billy's romantic and adventurous mind, and the very notion was so revolting that he fought it stoutly.

From beginning to end Billy hammered over the story as he knew it, explaining, arguing, debating, and then he drew out the plans of the palace and flung them on the table by Falconer while he continued his excited tramping up and down the room.

Falconer studied the plans, worried his moustache, stared at Billy's tense and resolute face, and took up the plans again, his own chin stubborn.

"Granted there's a girl—you can't be sure it's Miss Beecher," he maintained doggedly. "This Baroff girl had no idea of her name. Now Miss Beecher would have told her name, the very first thing, it appears to me, and the names of her friends in Cairo, asking for the Baroff's offices in getting a letter to me—us."

"She may have been too hurried to get to it. She had so many questions to ask. And she probably expected to see the girl again the next day or night."

"Possibly," said Falconer without conviction.

"But where, then, is Miss Beecher?"

"We may hear from her to-morrow morning."

"We won't," said Billy.

Falconer was silent.

"Good Lord!" the American burst out, "there can't be two girls in Cairo with blue eyes and fair hair whom Kerissen could have lured there last Wednesday! There can't be two girls with chaperons departing up the Nile! Why—why—the whole thing's as clear to me—as—as a house afire!"

"I don't share your conviction."

"Very well, then, if you don't think it is Miss Beecher, you don't have to go into this thing. If you can feel satisfied to lay the matter before the ambassador and let that unknown girl wait for the arm of the law to reach her, you are at perfect liberty, of course, to do so." Billy was growing colder and colder in tone as he grew hotter and hotter in his anger.

Falconer said nothing. He was a very plucky young man, but he had no liking at all for strange and unlawful escapades. He didn't particularly mind risking his neck, but he liked to do it in accredited ways, in polo, for instance, or climbing Swiss peaks, or swimming dangerous currents.... But he was young—and he had red hair. And he remembered Arlee Beecher. These three days had not been happy ones for him, even sustained as he was by righteous indignation. And if there was any chance that this prisoned girl was Arlee, as this infatuated American was so furiously sure—He reflected that Billy was doing the sporting thing in giving him the chance of it.

"I'll join you," he said shortly. "I can't let it go, you know, if there's a chance of its being Miss Beecher."

"Good!" said Billy, holding out his hand and the two young men clasped silently, eyeing each other with a certain mutual respect though with no great increase of liking.

"Now, this is my idea," Billy went on, and proceeded to develop it, while Falconer carefully studied the plans and made a shrewd suggestion here and there.

It was late in the morning when they parted.

"You must muzzle that Baroff girl," was Falconer's parting caution. "We must keep this thing deuced quiet, you know."

"Of course. He shan't get wind of it ahead."

"Not only that. We mustn't have talk afterwards. It would kill the girl, you know."

Billy nodded. "She would hate it, I expect."

"Hate it? My word, it would finish her—a tale of that kind going the rounds.... She could never live it down."

"Live it down? It would set her up in conversation for the rest of her life!" Billy chuckled softly. "That is, if it comes out all right—and that's the only way I can imagine its coming out."

With one hand on the door Falconer paused to stare back at him. "You don't mean she'd want to tell about it!" he ejaculated with unplumbed horror.

Billy was suddenly sobered. "Well, nobody but you and I and the Baroff know it now," he said, "and I think we can keep the Baroff's mouth shut.... I'll see her in the morning. You'd better get in a nap to-morrow, and I will, too, for we'll want steady nerves. Good night; I'm glad you're going with me."

"I'm damned if I'm glad," said the honest Englishman, with a wry grin. "If we get our throats cut, I hope Miss Beecher will return from the desert in time for our obsequies."

"Something in that red-headed chap I like after all," soliloquized Billy B. Hill, as he turned toward his long-deferred repose. "Hanged if he hasn't grit to go into a thing on an off chance!... Now, as for me, I'm sure."



CHAPTER XIII

TAKING CHANCES

Late as he went to sleep, Billy B. Hill was up in good season that Sunday morning. The need for cautioning Fritzi Baroff haunted him, and he was not satisfied until he had had breakfast with that lively young lady and laid down the law to her upon the situation.

She was very loath not to talk about herself at first. She wanted to tell her tale to the papers and see if one of them would be hardy enough to publish the story of the outrageous incarceration; she wanted to cable the Viennese theater where she had played of her sensational detention—in short, she wanted to get all the possible publicity out of her durance vile and to advertise her small person from Cairo to the Continent.

But Billy was urgent. "You just bide a wee on this publicity stunt," he demanded. "Cable your manager and press agent all you want to—but don't talk around the hotel here—and whatever you do and whatever you say, keep Miss Beecher's name and mine out of it."

He was very decided about that, and because she was very grateful to him and because she liked him and because she lacked other friends and other pocketbooks, the little Viennese held her tongue as directed. And she borrowed as much money as Billy would lend her, and drove off to the small shops which were open that day, and found a frock or two and a hat which she declared passable, and returned transfigured to the hotel and rendered the table where she lunched with Billy, with the air of possessing him, quite the most conspicuous in the room. The ladies gazed past them with chill eyes; the men stared covertly, with the surreptitious envy with which even the most virtuous of men surveys a lucky devil. And Billy sadly perceived that he was acquiring a reputation.

He did not blame Miss Falconer for turning haughtily aside as he and his vivid companion went past them in the veranda. But he did think her disdainful lack of memory a little overdone.

His cheeks were still red as he looked away from her and encountered the direct eyes of the girl who followed her.

"Oh, how do you do, Mr. Hill?" said Lady Claire, as clear as a bell. "It's such a nice day, isn't it?" she added, a little breathlessly, as she went by.

"It's much better than it was," said Billy, and he turned back to open the door for her.

"Claire!" said Miss Falconer from within.

"Coming, dear," said Lady Claire, and with a little smile of defiant friendliness at the young American she was gone.

But the memory of that plucky little smile stayed right with Billy. The girl liked him, she liked him in spite of his unknown antecedents, his preposterous picture, his conspicuous companion. She had a mind of her own, that tall English girl with the lovely eyes and the proud mouth. In a warm surge of friendliness his thoughts went out to her, and he wished vaguely that he could let her know how fine he thought she was.

Within an hour that vague wish came true. He had packed Fritzi off, with a newly acquired maid, for a drive up and down the safe public streets and he had re-interviewed the one-eyed man and the native chauffeur that the one-eyed man introduced for the evening's work, and he was at one of the public desks in the writing room, inditing a letter to his aunt, which, he whimsically appreciated, might be his last mortal composition, and reflecting thankfully that it was highly unnecessary to make a will, when Lady Claire strolled into the room and over to a desk.

She tried a pen frowningly, and Billy jumped to offer another. "Oh, thank you," she said. She seemed not to have seen him before.

"That was rather nice of you, you know," he said gravely.

She looked up at him.

"I'm not really a wolf," he continued, the gravity surrendering to his likable, warm smile, "and I'm glad you recognized it."

Her reply took him unawares. "I think you're splendid," said Lady Claire. "I thought so in the bazaars when you came to my help and stood up to that beastly German."

"Oh, he wasn't such a beastly German, after all," Billy deprecated. "And here I've had a message to you from him and never remembered to give it. The fellow called on me the next morning in gala attire and offered every apology and satisfaction in his power—even the satisfaction of the duel, if I desired it. I didn't. But I promised to express his deep apologies to you. He was horribly shocked at himself. He'd been drinking, he said, to forget a 'sadness' which possessed him. His lady love had failed to keep her tryst and life was very dark."

"I don't wonder at her," said Lady Claire unforgivingly. "I'm sure he must have been horrid to her!"

"I rather think she was horrid to him," Billy reflected, "although she was a very sprightly looking lady love. He showed me her picture in the back of his watch.... By George!" he uttered violently.

"What is it?"

"Oh—an idea, that's all. Something I must really attend to before I—this afternoon, I mean. But there's no hurry about it," he added cheerily.

Oh, Billy, Billy! Not even with his blood hot with thoughts of the evening's work, not even with his memory ridden with Arlee's gay witchery, could he keep his restless young eyes from laughing down at her. But there wasn't a notion in the back of his honest head as to the picture he was making in Lady Claire's eyes as he leaned, long-limbed, broad-shouldered, lazily at ease against the desk, his gray eyes very bright between their dark lashes, his dark hair sweeping back from his wide forehead.

"Are you sure?" she asked of him, with the smile that he drew from her. "Is it the inspiration for another picture?"

"No, no—that was my first and my last. That was the one purple bloom of my art. I have laid my brushes by.... But I'm keeping you from that letter you were going to write."

"It's just a few lines for Miss Falconer," Lady Claire unnecessarily explained. "We are going to drive out to the Gezireh Palace Hotel for tea, and she thought her brother might like to go out with us if he came in in time."

She did not add why Miss Falconer was unable to write her own notes, but slanted her blue-hatted head over the desk and then hastily blotted her brief lines and tucked the sheet into an envelope. Hesitantly she looked up at Billy.

"Have you been out to the Gezireh Palace?" she very innocently inquired.

"Alone," said Billy.

"It's very jolly there," said she. "It's so gay—and the music is quite good."

"H'm," meditated Billy. "The condemned man ate a hearty tea of Orange Pekoe and cress sandwiches," he reflected silently. He also reflected that Miss Falconer would be furious—and that invited him—and that time was interminable and that this expedition was as good a way of getting through the afternoon as any other. Thereupon he turned to the English girl, with a humorous challenge in his gaze. "I wonder if you and Miss Falconer would let this be my tea party?" he suggested.

"Miss Falconer will be delighted," said Lady Claire mendaciously.

The traces of that delight, however, lay beneath so well schooled an exterior that they were decidedly non-apparent. Nor did Robert Falconer's mien reveal any hint of joy when he returned to the hotel and found the two ladies starting with Billy. He joined them with rather the air of a watch dog, but that air soon wore away during the long drive under the spell of young Hill's frank friendliness and gay good humor. For Billy was extravagantly in spirits. Excitement stirred in him like wine; his blood was on fire with thoughts of the evening.

"It's the fool lark of the thing," he said, half apologetically, to Falconer's wonder when the two young men were alone for a minute on the Gezireh verandas. "Didn't you ever want to be a pirate?"

The red-headed young man nodded. "Yes, but this business doesn't make me feel like a pirate—more like a second-story man!"

"I've left letters with Fritzi Baroff," said Hill, "and if we're not back by morning, she's to go to the authorities with them."

"That won't do us any good," said the Englishman grimly.

But after the ladies returned it was a very merry-seeming tea party. Even Miss Falconer unbent to the artist, as she persisted in calling Billy, though he had dutifully enlightened her that engineering was his true and proper life work, and art but a random diversion, and she promised to show him the sketches which she had been making, and piled him with questions about his mysterious America.

And Lady Claire was very prettily animated, and rallied Falconer upon his absent-mindedness and told Billy tales of her English home and how her father had threatened to change the name of the Hall to Maedchenheim because there were five daughters of them. "Five girls near an age, Mr. Hill, and all poor as church mice!" she had blithely asserted.

But from what Billy heard of balls and hunters and "seasons," he gleaned that being poor as church mice, for these five titled girls, meant merely an effort in keeping up with the things they felt should be theirs by right divine. And as Billy listened, feeling the force of the girl's attraction, the charm of her serene confidence and the pleasant air of security and well-being that hedged her in, he stole a covert glance at Falconer's unrevealing countenance and reflected that it was rather a stormy day for that young man when he became entangled with the fortunes of little Miss Beecher. It was also a stormy day for himself, but he felt that storms belonged more naturally to his adventurous lot.

* * * * *

But it was characteristic of Falconer when once committed to a plan not to open his mind to the objections which besieged it. So that night, at the fall of dark, as the two young men motored forth together, he maintained a stolid resolution which refused to look back. The approach of the danger was tuning up his nerves, and whatever his common sense might think about it, his youth and pluck greeted the adventure with a quickening heart and a rash warmth of blood.

Both young men were resolute and confident. Either would have been more than human if he had not looked a trifle askance upon the other and wished to thunder that he had been able to go into it alone and to have tasted the intoxication of delivering the girl single-handed out of the den of thieves. But the success of the plan was paramount, as Billy reminded himself.

He found himself hoping wildly that she would see him as well as Falconer.

"She has probably forgotten all about me," he thought ruefully. "She won't remember that dance with me, nor that chat next morning. I'm just an Also Met. She won't even perceive me. She'll see that sandy-haired deliverer—and she'll tell him how right he was and how good to come after her——"

Thus jealousy darkly painted his undoing. "But, darn it, I had to ask him!" Thus he downed his ungenerous thoughts. "It needed two men at least—and besides, I don't want any handicap of gratitude in this."

They left the automobile in the Mohammedan graveyard with exact and impressive instructions. And then they stole back among the gloomy trees and ghostly tombs to where the canal washed the foot of the little terraces, and there the one-eyed man sat waiting in the canoe, a figure of profound misanthropy.

Silently he lifted a stricken but set countenance, and they climbed in and the three paddled off, approaching the back of the palace with wary eyes, for they were afraid that a guard might now be set upon the walls. But Billy had argued that Kerissen was unaware of Fritzi's knowledge of Arlee's identity; in fact she had at first supposed her a willing supplanter like herself, and so he would not be apprehensive of any of her revelations. And he did not dream that Fritzi's rescuers were interested in Arlee.

At the strip of path the canoe made softly to shore and the two young men climbed out, while the Arab remained in the canoe, his single eye peering into the darkness. This time Billy had provided three stout, but narrow, ladders, constructed of two poles nailed together with occasional cross pieces that gave narrow room for a foot. He set one of these in place against the wall now, grounding its ends deep in the soft earth, so that it would remain in readiness for any sudden descent. Then from the top of the wall they reconnoitered the scene before them.

It was very dark. The garden was full of blotting shadows, and the long wing of the harem lay almost in darkness, with only a faint beam from two adjacent windows to reveal a sign of life. Those windows were on the third story, next the angle made by the union of the banquet hall and the harem, and Billy's heart quickened as he recognized the location of the rose room.

"That's it—that's her room," he whispered excitedly to Falconer.

Falconer stared and nodded. "I wish that beastly hall wasn't in the way ahead of us. I'd like to see what lights are in the windows in that court beyond."

"We might both go and take a look," said Billy doubtfully, "but I guess you had better make, straight for your roofs. It wouldn't do to have us both nabbed. Do you hear anything?"

They listened, crouching flat upon the wall, straining their eyes toward the palace. There was a high wind blowing and above them the leaves of the palm trees were slapping against each other, and below the shrubs and flowers were stirring restlessly. But the noise of the wind, they felt, was helpful to cover the sounds of their approach.

"Why can't I make my way around on top of this wall and climb on the roofs from the start?" Falconer questioned, and Billy answered, "I asked her that. She said it couldn't be done. You'd have to climb through some unsafe rubbish. The best way is down and up again in that angle that she showed me. Shall we start?"

The same impulse made both men examine their revolvers, then drop them in readiness into their right-hand coat pockets. They moved along the top of the wall till they reached the angle with the wall on their right, and then they lowered the same knotted rope which Billy had used the night before, but now another rope added to it made it into a rope ladder. Suspending that over the top of the wall by iron hooks, they slipped down it, each with a pole ladder in his arms, and with another hook of iron they drove the ends down into the earth, so that the rope would not wave out in the wind and either betray them or become displaced.

It was insecure enough, anyway, but they felt it ought to be left in readiness for a flight that might have no second to waste. Now, with eyes sharply challenging the shadows, they stole along the edge of the palace.

Staring up at the building, Billy stopped. "Here's a place a story and a half high—you could almost climb up by those carvings without any ladder. And there's the next higher roof back of it—and then you must go there to the left."

"I can make it," said Falconer, surely. "Now how much time shall I allow you for your sawing—fifteen minutes?"

"Guess you'd better," Billy reflected, and they compared watches.

It was tremendously difficult to arrive at any sort of concerted action on this bewildering expedition, but they were hoping to achieve it. Their plan had the simplicity of all desperate measures. One from below and one from above they were to make their way to that rose room and fight the way out with the girl. They considered it wiser to come from two directions, for if one were discovered and the alarm raised, the other had still a chance of getting off with Arlee, and if one were trying to escape, the other could cover his flight. They had drawn straws for their positions, and Billy had been slightly relieved that the entrance from below, which he considered a trifle more difficult, had fallen to him. He felt responsible, as well as he might, for Falconer's neck.

Now he steadied one narrow ladder of poles while Falconer crept up it and then drew it up after him; and after a few moments of waiting, crouched in the shadow, Billy saw the Englishman's figure reappear against the sky on top of a higher roof. The route over the old buildings had been found, so Billy turned and crept forward along the wall, carrying the last long ladder of poles in his hand. It was an unwieldy thing to carry and it distracted his attention harassingly.

"My job," said he to himself, "is evidently to make a racket and draw their fire from below while that red-headed chap carries Arlee off from above. Well, I hope to the Lord he does. When I think of her here——"

But it was unnerving to think of her here, so he didn't. He kept his mind steadily on the plan. He had reached the stone steps that led from the garden to the harem now, and laying down his pole-like ladder he slipped up them and turned the handle.

But the door was locked. Fearful lest the grating of the knob should have roused some watcher, he ran down the steps and hurried into the shadow of the banquet hall, where he stood close beside a pillar until he satisfied himself of the objects in the court beyond. He saw an edge of light along the crack of a closed door to the left on the ground floor of the selamlik, and in the higher stories above that a couple of windows showed a pale illumination. On the right, in the harem, only one window betrayed a ray of light. Altogether the old pile was as gloomy and gruesome as a tomb.

Billy stared across the court to where the columned vestibule, uniting the two Ls, indicated the door. He had been told a watchman slept there, but he could see nothing now but vague outlines of the arches of the vestibule. To the left was the open passage left for the entry of the automobile and horses, but this, too, was roofed so that a black shadow lay over it. But for that watchman Billy would have made his way to those doors to draw back the bars in readiness, but fearful of raising an alarm, he judged it was better to leave escape to chance and turn his attention to his entry.

He went back now for his ladder, and on the right side of the banquet hall, up under the arched roof, he discovered the wooden grating where Fritzi had described it. Against this wall he placed his ladder and climbed to the top, from which he could reach up and clasp the spindles of the grating above him.

He drew himself swiftly up to this, and the end of his pole was dislodged by his departure and fell to the inlaid pavement with a bang that seemed to him to carry to the farthest echoes of the sounding court. Instantly there was an answering clatter of steps.

Like a monkey Billy clung to the grating, thrusting his toes desperately into the first openings they could find, hanging on with his hands for dear life, holding himself as close up in the darkness as he could, and nearly twisting his neck off in the effort to watch what was going on below him.

The steps sounded nearer and nearer, and a huge Nubian in baggy bloomers and a short jacket was outlined in the court. His bare feet were thrust into clattering English shoes. He peered about him for a time, with one hand pointing the muzzle of a revolver. Billy caught the unpleasant gleam of it; then the man stepped in underneath the arches of the hall and made a slow way across it.

Directly in his path lay that fatal pole. It lay along the shadow of a column, but its end protruded beyond that shadow and would surely catch his eye. Billy tried to free his right hand to get at a gun of his own. To be caught ridiculously like this, clutching like a monkey on a stick——!

Another man, shorter and bent, in a long robe and carrying a lantern, now emerged from that door along whose closed edge Billy had noticed the crack of light, and the Nubian diverged toward him. The pole was unnoticed and the two joined forces and made a slow circle in the garden. Billy remembered that dangling rope, and with a thumping heart he hoped that it would hang unregarded in that shadowed angle, overrun with vines.

Apparently it did, for he heard the footsteps passing on without a stop as he clung there to his grating, his muscles cramped, his sockets strained. Slowly the two recrossed the hall, talking together in low gutturals and not apparently of unpleasant things, for a note of laughter sounded. They lingered in parley in the court, but by the time that he thought that he could not hang on a minute longer and would drop like a peach from the wall, they separated and each moved slowly away. The man with the lantern shut the door after him and all was darkness there and the great Nubian was blotted out beneath the arches of the vestibule.

The fear that Falconer was in the palace alone made Billy desperate. Clinging with his feet and his left hand, he drew out a clasp knife with a razor edge and hacked furiously at the delicate spindles and frail carved work of the screen till he could thrust one arm through the opening. The work was easier then, but he had to resist the temptation to seize the brittle stuff and break it in pieces, for fear the splintering sound would be too sharp.

Torn between caution and impatience he worked on, and as soon as the hole was large enough he pulled himself cautiously up and dropped over the edge into the cage-like balcony on the other side. The panel which separated it from the rest of the old room was half open, and he stepped through it into what appeared utter darkness.

He stood listening keenly, for he knew that he was standing below the rose room; the very spot where he was must be almost exactly beneath that secret passage outside the panel in the rose room's wall. Not a sound came down to him and he dared not wait longer, but turned to the left and passed through the arched doorway into the next great salon.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark he saw that it was not utter blackness, but that some wan light from the paler night without faintly penetrated through those jealously guarded windows—windows not so heavily screened, he had been told, as those upon the front of the palace, for these were upon the court. He found time for a flash of horror at this stifling barricade as he made his hurried way through the room and stepped out into the little anteroom beyond.

Here he paused, for he knew that to the left, ahead of him, was the curtained opening into the long salon upon the street, and within that, Fritzi had warned him, a eunuch sometimes slept or Seniha occasionally came from her small salon to play on the piano there and lingered apparently in wait. But no one seemed stirring, and Billy stole to the door on his right, opening on the encased stairs, and found it locked. Hurriedly he pried at it with a burglarious tool, and then a sudden outburst sounded overhead.

There was a racket of hurrying feet and then a muffled explosion of a shot. A hoarse voice yelled. Another shot, and then a thud of something falling.

Desperately Billy fired his gun into the lock. The noise did not matter now and might serve to divert the fight from Falconer. Throwing his weight against the shattered lock, he bounded up the narrow stairs and raced down the long hall to the door that was brightly gilded. From beyond, but fainter now, came the sounds of conflict. With a heart beating to suffocation he flung open the door and rushed into that room.



CHAPTER XIV

IN THE ROSE ROOM

Candles flared on the table but not a figure greeted his eye. The room was deathly still; nothing stirred but the long draperies fluttering in the wind.

"Arlee!" he whispered in a voice strained with excitement. "Arlee Beecher, are you here?... Arlee!"

No voice answered. No motion revealed her. Only the candle flames danced drunkenly in a puff of air, flaunting their secret knowledge of the tenant they had lighted.

He darted to the tumbled bed and flung aside the covers; he looked beneath it and beneath the couch; he sent a candle's light traveling about the empty whiteness of the bath. No little figure, pitifully silenced, was, hidden there. The room was empty. And all the while that din sounded somewhere beyond them—running feet and strident yells.

"He's got her!" thought Billy, and first his heart leaped and then it sank. For very dear to that boy's heart had been the dream of rescuing her himself. And then he hated himself for that base envy. For what did it matter as long as little Arlee was safe, and that she was gone with Falconer, the empty room and the signs of hasty departure all spoke in witness. He wondered sharply how they had gone and whether he had better try to follow them and then thought it was shrewder to go back the way he had come and from below to try to guard whatever descent they must make.

He turned swiftly and crossed to the door. With a hand outstretched toward it he caught suddenly, beneath all the distant din, the click of a sliding lock, and he whirled about, dropping his right hand into his pocket, to see a pale face staring at him from the other side of the bed.

"Not a move—or you drop!" said Captain Kerissen. The candle lights glinted on the muzzle of a gun leveled steadily at him.

"Stay where you are," the Captain added, and Billy stayed, and through the dusk the two men stood eyeing each with a glare of hatred. But Kerissen's eyes held hatred triumphant.

"So, Monsieur," said the Turk. "This is the midnight call you gentlemen pay—in the chamber of my wife."

"Your wife!" Billy gave a snort of unbelief. "She says you did not marry her!"

"When you are found dead—if you are found," the other continued, looking lovingly along the sight, "there will not even be a question into the cause. You will be carted off like carrion—carrion that prowled too near."

"Just the same you've made a mistake," said Billy in a dogged and argumentative tone. "I'm not interested in visiting any wife of yours. The lady I'm representing says you didn't marry her. But she says you did keep back most of her jewelry and she's giving the story to the papers to-morrow unless I return with the stuff to-night."

He could not guess what impression this speech was making.

"I am not interested in your stories, Monsieur," the Turk returned blandly. "I am interested only in your dispatching—which I feel should be prolonged beyond the mercy of a shot."

"Look here, I'm not a common robber and you know it," said Billy, and his voice sounded rough and angry. "I'm here to collect the property of the lady you detained here, while she was under contract in Vienna. I don't want anything more than belongs to her. She left——"

"With a great deal more upon her than she brought! But am I to suppose, Monsieur, that you have made your way here, at some personal inconvenience, I should say, to discuss the generosity of my remuneration to the lady?" There was a tense silence and the Captain continued in a low, almost purring voice, "You do not appear, even now, to comprehend the thing you have done. I shall do my best to make you comprehend—and before I have finished it may be that I shall have a clearer explanation of this impulsive call. You have no notion, Monsieur, how certain things unloose the tongue—but you shall discover."

Billy saw his white teeth show in a deadly smile. Back of him a dark, heavy figure appeared and the Captain, without turning his head or moving his eyes or his gun from Billy, gave some rapid directions in Turkish and the figure disappeared. It occurred to Billy like a flash that from that secret passage where the figure had appeared there was a panel into the room on the right and that room had a door opening into the hall outside. The next moment he felt the door behind him open.

Then he pulled the trigger of that gun in his pocket in which his hand had been so lightly resting. The Captain seemed to fire the same instant, but Billy had jumped aside as he shot his own gun and he heard the bullet singing past his ear, and now, with his revolver out of his pocket, he shot again with an aim so true that the other man's right hand gave a spasmodic jerk and the revolver went spinning to the ground.

Across the room he hurled himself, springing from the onslaught of the assailant entering behind him, and thrusting the cursing Captain from his path he leaped through the sliding panel. The lock clicked home and he paused even in that moment of hammering pulses and pounding heart to fumble in the darkness to shut that other panel into the next room, remembering Fritzi's warning that those locks needed a key to open them from within. The minute's delay for the key would mean many minutes for him.

He stumbled against the tiny stairs that led to the tower room through which Falconer had descended, but he did not dash up those stairs for he heard the noise of feet overhead, as if returning from pursuit, and he darted straight on through the long, narrow, unlighted corridor, running like a hare.

At the other end he crashed against a half-open door and fell headlong down a flight of stairs. From his astonished fingers the revolver went clattering and though he picked himself up, battered but unbroken, at the foot, he dared not waste a minute to go back and hunt for the gun in the dark. He was totally at a loss for directions; he had expected to find himself in the Captain's rooms, and the stairs were unknown. Now he could just make out a door ahead of him and sent it flying open, smash in the face of an astonished black boy who went stumbling backwards.

Out went Billy's fist and caught the unguarded chin a staggering blow, and as the boy reeled back he flung one hurried glance about the big, lamp-lit chamber in which he found himself, the room evidently of Captain Kerissen, and darted to an arsenal of weapons that glinted against the inlaid panels. Wrenching down the shortest scabbard he jerked out a most villainous looking two-edged knife and gripping this piratical weapon he bounded out the door, fled through the dim hall to his right, rounded a corner, to the right again, hearing the sounds of pursuit louder and louder now behind him, shot through a vast reception hall and plunged down a flight of stairs.

From the darkness below a figure rose up to receive him with a grip like iron. Billy's right arm was doubled at his side; the blade of that villainous old dagger was pressed against the yielding softness of the fellow's sash, but for the life of him Billy could not drive home that knife against the human flesh. With a convulsive movement he tore himself from those gorilla arms and sent up a desperate kick, then leaped past the staggering man, and with the unused knife in his teeth, he tore at the bars of the great gate in the wall at his left. The bars were stiff and primitive and resisted his furious fingers, and the big gate-keeper, gasping for a moment against the stairs, suddenly straightened and sprang toward him.

"Here's one hero that didn't open the door 'in the nick of time'!" raced through Billy's grimly humorous mind, as he dodged the savage thrust of a knife the man had drawn and turned and scuttled across the court with the other on his heels. Through the arches he darted and then down into the garden, sprinting as he had never sprinted before, on, on to the southwest angles of the wall, thanking Heaven fervently, as every step outdistanced his pursuer, that the man had evidently no gun.