-lidded arrogance of her
kohl-darkened eyes and the bold insolence of a high cheek bone. She
had a hint of gypsy....

"And you can get me in? You're a wonder!" he whispered. "I can't
thank you enough--"

"Rid me of her," said the girl swiftly. "But not--not him. You must
swear--what is it that Christians swear by?" she broke off to
demand. "By the grave of your father? Yes? You will swear not to
hurt him, to hurt Hamdi, by the grave of your father? Yes?"

Ryder nodded quickly. His father, to be sure, was in no grave at
all. He was, allowing hastily for the difference in time, in his
treasurer's cage at the bank in East Middleton, but he did not wait
to explain this to the girl.

"I swear it," he repeated. "I won't hurt your Hamdi, since that's
your condition. But we're wasting time--"

"Up, then. And if you fall down--do like this."

Smiling mischievously, she made the gesture of swimming. "Allah go
with thee--and with me also," he heard her murmur, as he stepped out
to the ledge of the entrance, twisted himself agilely about and
climbing up the opened gate swung himself up to the stone carving
overhead.

Below him, he heard the gate swing shut. He did not hear her lock
it. Fervently he hoped she had not, since it was a possible exit for
any one in a hurry, but at any rate, he need not worry about a way
out of the place until he had got into it again.

And the getting in was not any too simple. It was work for a
mountain goat, he reflected, after a short interval devoted to
tentative reaches and balancing and digging in of hands and feet.
The distances were far greater than the first-glimpsed,
foreshortened perspective had allowed him to guess, and there was
only the starlight to illumine the gray face of the palace.

He had no idea of the time. Somewhere about the middle of the night
or early morning, he judged vaguely by the stars, although it seemed
impossible that so few hours had passed.

The river was all silence and darkness. No nuggars with their
sleeping crews were moored below. He seemed the only living,
breathing thing clambering across the face of time and space.

Gingerly he kicked off the nondescript black shoes he had worn with
his disguise that afternoon and essayed a perilous toehold while he
reached for the interstices of a mashrubiyeh window just overhead.

Once gripping the rounds he pulled himself up, reflecting that it
was well it was night and that no lady was sitting within her
s