ong very slowly, purring like a great cat, while we pressed
into the bushes. The headlights seemed to spread a fan far to either
side, showing the full width of the drive and its borders, and about
half the height of the over-arching trees. There was a figure in
uniform sitting beside the chauffeur, whom I saw dimly in the reflex
glow, but the body of the car was dark.

It crept towards us, passed, and my mind was just getting easy again
when it stopped. A switch was snapped within, and the limousine was
brightly lit up. Inside I saw a woman's figure.

The servant had got out and opened the door and a voice came from
within--a clear soft voice speaking in some tongue I didn't understand.
Sandy had started forward at the sound of it, and I followed him. It
would never do for me to be caught skulking in the bushes.

I was so dazzled by the suddenness of the glare that at first I blinked
and saw nothing. Then my eyes cleared and I found myself looking at
the inside of a car upholstered in some soft dove-coloured fabric, and
beautifully finished off in ivory and silver. The woman who sat in it
had a mantilla of black lace over her head and shoulders, and with one
slender jewelled hand she kept its fold over the greater part of her
face. I saw only a pair of pale grey-blue eyes--these and the slim
fingers.

I remember that Sandy was standing very upright with his hands on his
hips, by no means like a servant in the presence of his mistress. He
was a fine figure of a man at all times, but in those wild clothes,
with his head thrown back and his dark brows drawn below his skull-cap,
he looked like some savage king out of an older world. He was speaking
Turkish, and glancing at me now and then as if angry and perplexed. I
took the hint that he was not supposed to know any other tongue, and
that he was asking who the devil I might be.

Then they both looked at me, Sandy with the slow unwinking stare of the
gipsy, the lady with those curious, beautiful pale eyes. They ran over
my clothes, my brand-new riding-breeches, my splashed boots, my
wide-brimmed hat. I took off the last and made my best bow.

'Madam,' I said, 'I have to ask pardon for trespassing in your garden.
The fact is, I and my servant--he's down the road with the horses and I
guess you noticed him--the two of us went for a ride this afternoon,
and got good and well lost. We came in by your back gate, and I was
prospecting for your front door to fi