di had rolled so agilely; a stain was
still spreading about an upset glass, and from the overturned cooler
the ice water was dripping, dripping with a steady, sinister
implication.

She thought of flight.... There was another black, the general had
warned her, beyond the door, and there would be bars and bolts on
any egress from the harem, but with the revolver in her possession
some desperate escape might be achieved.

But Ryder.... No, the gun was for another purpose.... She would not
squander it yet upon herself....

From the boudoir she moved slowly, carrying one of the gilt
candelabra from the table to light the room. She would need light
for her plan....

For ages, long, unending ages, she sat there, waiting.... A hundred
times it seemed to her that she could stand no more, that she must
make her way out at all costs, must discover what fate they were
dealing to Ryder, but still she forced herself to sit there, her
pulses racing, her heart sick with suspense, but desperately
waiting....

She felt a sudden wave of weakness go through her at an advancing
step from the next room. But her chin was up, her eyes fixed and
desperate as the figure of the general appeared in her opening door.

"Ah, light! This is more cheerful, little one."

She had risen, half moved towards him. "Is he safe?"

"The stranger? Safe as treasure--buried treasure, little one."

The bey laughed, and that laughter and the glittering satisfaction
of his eyes, filled her with foreboding although his next words came
with smiling reassurance.

"Not a hair of his head is hurt, I give you my word."

"But where is he--what have you done?"

"Shut him up, to be sure. Kept him as hostage for your sweet
humility--a novel way to win a bride, oh, essence of shyness!"

Malevolently he smiled down at her and in the back of her frightened
mind she realized that this man did well to be angry, that the
affront to him had been immeasurable, and that many a Turk would
have simply driven his dagger through the intruder's heart--and her
own, too.

But though she tried to tell herself that there was forbearance in
him, she felt, instinctively, that there was deeper kindness in
direct, thrusting fury than in this man's sinister mockery.

She had sunk back upon the divan on the bey's approach; now as he
stood before her with that mask of a smile upon his face, drawing a
silk handkerchief across a forehead she saw glistening in the
candlelight, she l