urned out for me unfortunately. And now, if you don't mind,
we'll go into your court-house, and you can hand me over my mate, and
I'll take him back to the ship. Enough time's been wasted already by
both of us."

The Arab, still bowed and submissive, signed toward the doorway, and
Kettle marched briskly out along the narrow dark passage beyond, with
Rad's sandals shuffling in escort close at his rear. The house seemed a
large one, and rambling. Three times Rad's respectful fingers on his
visitor's sleeve signed to him a change of route. The corridors, too, as
is the custom in Arabia, where coolness is the first consideration, were
dimly lit; and with the caution which had grown to be his second nature,
Kettle instinctively kept all his senses on the alert for inconvenient
surprises. He had no desire that Rad el Moussa should forget his
submissiveness and stab him suddenly from behind, neither did he
especially wish to be noosed or knifed from round any of the dusky
sudden corners.

In fact he was as much on the _qui vive_ as he ever had been in all his
long, wild, adventurous life, and yet Rad el Moussa, who meant treachery
all along, took him captive by the most vulgar of timeworn stratagems.
Of a sudden the boarding of the floor sank beneath Kettle's feet. He
turned, and with a desperate effort tried to throw himself backward
whence he had come. But the boarding behind reared up and hit him a
violent blow on the hands and head, and he fell into a pit below.

For an instant he saw through the gloom the face of Rad el Moussa turned
suddenly virulent, spitting at him in hate, and then the swing-floor
slammed up into place again, and all view of anything but inky blackness
was completely shut away.

Now the fall, besides being disconcerting, was tolerably deep; and but
for the fact that the final blow from the flooring had shot him against
the opposite side of the pit, and so broken his descent at the expense
of his elbows and heels, he might very well have landed awkwardly, and
broken a limb or his back in the process. But Captain Owen Kettle was
not the man to waste time over useless lamentation or rubbing of
bruises. He was on fire with fury at the way he had been tricked, and
thirsting to get loose and be revenged. He had his pistol still in its
proper pocket, and undamaged, and if the wily Rad had shown himself
anywhere within range just then, it is a certain thing that he would
have been shot dead to square the