refully away.

And now the hole was large enough. He twisted about and thrust out a
leg, and then, with a feeling of ecstasy which made the official
literary raptures of saints and conquerors but pale, dim moods, he
wormed his way out of that jagged hole and turned, erect and free,
to the shrouded figure of his rescuer.

She had drawn back a little against the wall, a gauzy veil across
her face. Beside her, upon the stone floor, a solitary candle sent
its flickering rays into the shadows, edging with light her slender
outlines.

Ryder took one quick step to her, his heart in his throat, and put
out eager arms. But in the very moment that he was gathering her to
him, even when he felt her pliant body, at first resistant, then
softly yielding, swept against his own, he felt, too, a little palm
suddenly upon his mouth.

"Hsh!" said the soft, whispering voice, cutting into his low murmur
of "Aimee!" and then, in slow emphatic caution, "Be--careful!"

He had need of that caution. For under the saffron veil was not the
face of Aimee. He was clasping a young creature that he had never
seen before, a girl with flaming henna hair and kohl darkened brows,
a vivid blazoning face that smiled enigmatically with a certain
mockery of delight at the amazement he reflected so unguardedly.

CHAPTER XVII

AZIZA

From the slackening grip of his astounded arms she stepped backward,
still smiling faintly and holding up in admonishment the palm she
had pressed against his mouth.

"But what--what the dev--" muttered Ryder.

She nodded mysteriously, and beckoned.

"Come," she whispered, catching up her candle, and after holding it
high for a moment, staring at him, she extinguished it suddenly, and
turned to lead the cautious way across the stone spaces while Ryder
closely followed.

Not Aimee, then. But some messenger, he could only suppose. Some
confidante, at need. A handmaid? The whisper of her silks, the
remembered gleam of jewels in the henna hair flouted that thought,
and not troubling his ingenuity with alternatives he was content to
follow her swift steps.

They were now in those open rubbishy spaces where he remembered the
crumbling masonry and broken arches of old, disregarded mosques; now
they were again enclosed in narrow stone walls, winding past cellars
and store rooms.

The girl's advance grew more cautious. Often she stopped and
listened, peering ahead into the darkness, and now, as she took
another