on!"

"And you knew and did not tell him!"

"Of a truth I knew!"

She stood in silence for a moment, gazing at the red glow on the
skyline, and then turned to read, if she could, what was on the grim,
grizzled face of Mahommed Khan.

"The ayah!" he growled. "I have yet to ask questions of the ayah. Have I
permission to take her to the other room?"

She was leaning through the window again and did not answer him.

"Who's that moving in the shadow down below?" she asked him suddenly.

He leaned out beside her and gazed into the shadow. Then he called
softly in a tongue she did not know and some one rose up from the shadow
and answered him.

"Are we spied on, Risaldar?"

"Nay. Guarded, heavenborn! That man is my half-brother. May I take the
ayah through that doorway?"

"Why not question her in here?"

The mystery and sense of danger were getting the better of her; she was
thoroughly afraid now--afraid to be left alone in the room for a minute
even.

"There are things she would not answer in thy presence!"

"Very well. Only, please be quick!"

He bowed. Swinging the door open, he pushed the ayah through it to the
room beyond. Ruth was left alone, to watch the red glow on the skyline
and try to see the outline of the watcher in the gloom below. No sound
came through the heavy teak door that the Risaldar had slammed behind
him, and no sound came from him who watched; but from the silence of the
night outside and from dark corners of the room that she was in and from
the roof and walls and floor here came little eerie noises that made her
flesh creep, as though she were being stared at by eyes she could not
see. She felt that she must scream, or die, unless she moved; and she
was too afraid to move, and by far too proud to scream! At last she
tore herself away from the window and ran to a low divan and lay on it,
smothering her face among the cushions. It seemed an hour before the
Risaldar came out again, and then he took her by surprise.

"Heavenborn!" he said. She looked up with a start, to find him standing
close beside her.

"Mahommed Khan! You're panting! What ails you?"

"The heat, heavenborn--and I am old."

His left hand was on his saber-hilt, thrusting it toward her
respectfully; she noticed that it trembled.

"Have I the heavenborn's leave to lock the ayah in that inner room?"

"Why, Risaldar?"

"The fiend had this in her possession!" He showed her a thin-bladed
dagger with an ivory handl