ts, and half unconsciously I
found myself on the walls at a place that surmounted the house which
sheltered my beloved, with her mother and their women attendants, God is
my witness, but I had no thought of profane prying, contrary alike to
the laws of the Prophet and to the laws of hospitality. But my eyes fell
on a beam of light coming from a tiny window niched deep down in a
recess of the building. And even as I saw this, there came to my ears a
faint, regular sound--a muffled 'tap, tap, tap.' Instantly every fibre
of my being was in a quiver.

"I know not what instincts guided me--to burst asunder the bonds both of
conventionality and of religion that might have restrained me, to make
suspicion of some vague unseen danger stifle within my breast every
tender thought of awakening love. But in my surge of excitement love and
faith were alike forgotten. I ran from the walls, and without consulting
anyone returned but a few minutes later with a coil of rope in my hands.
To fasten this to one of the parapets, to tie a few knots at intervals
so as to give me handhold and foothold--all this was the work of another
minute or two. Then, slowly and cautiously, hand under hand, I was
descending into the well-like recess toward the one tiny shaft of light
that pierced its black darkness.

"'Tap, tap, tap'--the mysterious sound grew more and more distinct as I
dropped down and down. Then, all of a sudden, the playing of a zither
and the full-throated song of a woman smote my ears, and I arrested my
descent. Almost could I have climbed back again, unseeing and ashamed.
But in a brief momentary interlude in the music I heard, loud and
unabashed now, the steady 'thump, thump, thump' as of a hammer, and
straightway I knew that the song and its accompaniment were but part of
some devilish plot--a means devised to muffle the sound of the other
operations, whatever these might be. In another moment I was abreast of
the window, small as a loophole for musketry, but all-sufficient for my
requirements, I had the rope twisted around my leg, and, secure against
slipping, I craned forward to peer inside.

"My irreverent eyes fell on no woman's face--the music was floating
upward from an adjoining chamber. But in the room into which I gazed was
a strange sight--four men stripped to the waist and toiling for all the
world like diggers of a well. The flagstones of the floor had been torn
up, and a great hollow cavern had been dug below. From