nguished guest of the house of
Rataj."

Then followed a phrase or two of Turkish, and the woman bowed stolidly.

"It shall be as you wish, Effendi."

And he passed the woman with another phrase, and was gone.

Zubeydeh and Marishka stood facing each other, the elder woman in sullen
antipathy, illy concealed by the habitual mask of imperturbability.
Marishka had disliked her from the first, actuated by that rare instinct
which only women can employ, and now there seemed something ominous in
her stolid ugliness. Marishka had not fully understood the instructions
of the Beg, and not until Zubeydeh picked up her suitcase and carried it
down the corridor, did she realize that she was merely carrying out the
orders of her master. But Marishka did not move. Before her eyes danced
the words of her earlier note to Hugh, which asked him to come to her by
the private passage to the court below. If the Effendi did not succeed
in finding him, he would come; and she would not be there to meet him.
Instead of following Zubeydeh, who had returned and stood staring at
her, her feet refused to obey.

"But I should prefer to remain here----" she said firmly.

A vestige of a smile--slight, but none the less disagreeable--came into
the woman's yellow face.

"The Harim," she said dryly, "is intended for the daughters of the
faithful. You cannot stay tonight."

And as Marishka still stood irresolutely, she caught her by the arm with
a grip which was none too gentle, and pushed her down the corridor and
out into the _mabein_.

Marishka sat upon the couch in the room into which she had first been
conducted, her head near the latticed window, through which the pale
green moonlight vied with the glow from the lantern over her head.
Though it could not yet be time for him to return, she listened intently
for the sound of the footsteps of the Beg. Had she succeeded? In spite
of the danger which threatened Hugh Renwick, and the ominous absence of
Captain Goritz, she felt that there was a chance that all might still be
well. Where was Captain Goritz? The tale that he had gone upon a journey
was an invention, of course. He was here in Sarajevo if not in the house
where she was held a prisoner, at least somewhere near, where he could
be sure of the culmination of the plot to remove Hugh Renwick, without
himself being involved in any unpleasant issues. From the appearance of
the Beg of Rataj and of the man she had met at the foot of the stairs