pair emerged without the burden.

She had not been able to get hold of the key to the door. But she
had resolved to explore and so she had furnished the waterman with
his wine, drugged, Ryder gathered, and so stolen past him on the
other route to those underground foundations to which her suspicions
had been directed by the mortar and dust upon Yussuf.

Evidently she knew the possibilities of the place and the mind of
its master. And when she found the old niche freshly bricked and the
mortar at hand she had not needed more to assure her that here was
the burial place of her rival's lover.

Now, for the boon of his life, he was to relieve her of that rival.
Or try to.

"For once--he might not kill her," she whispered, "but if again--"
Her eyes glowed like a cat's in the dark. "Take her away. Make her
name a spitting and a disgrace.... Her memory a shame and a
sting.... Is she beautiful?" she broke off to demand. "They say--but
slaves lie--"

"Can you believe a lover?" he said whimsically for all his
impatience. "She is a pearl--a rose--a crescent moon--"

"They say she is very pale and thin--"

"She is an Houri from Paradise," he said distinctly. "And now, in
the name of Allah, let me get to her. Tell me the way--"

"Will she go gladly with you?" the low, insistent voice went on, and
at his quick nod, "Holy Prophet, what a bride!"

She clapped her two ringed hands to smother the impish joy of her
laugh. "A warning to those who can be warned--he will not be so
eager for another stripe from that same stick!--It was his cousin,
Seniha Hanum--Satan devour her!--who made this marriage. Always she
hated me.... But now I will tell you how to get to her. Look out,
with me."

Kneeling at the gate, over the dark flow of the water, she drew him
down beside her, and thrusting out her veiled head, she pointed
upward and to the right to a jutting balcony of mashrubiyeh, where a
pale light showed through the fretwork.

"There--you see? That is my room. And if you climb up, I can let you
in.... There... Up," she repeated in English, resolved to make
certain.

"I see. I can get there," he assured her, measuring with his eye the
dim distance.

"At once," she said. "I will be there. I cannot take you with me
through the upper hall--it is dangerous even for me to be caught.
But no eunuch wants my displeasure."

He could believe it, watching the subtle, malicious daring of her
face. Even in the gloom he caught the steady